The several Testimonies to the contrary of S. Ambrose S. Hierom John Patriarch of Constantiople S. Augustine Optatus c. particularly examined and all found short of proving that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church The several Answers of his Lordship to the Testimonies of S. Cyprian S. Hierom S. Greg. Nazianzen S. Cyril and Ruffinus about the Infallibility of the Church of Rome justified From all which it appears that the making the Roman Church to be the Catholick is a great Novelty and perfect Jesuitism p. 289. CHAP. II. Protestants no Schismaticks Schism a culpable Separation therefore the Question of Schism must be determined by enquiring into the causes of it The plea from the Church of Rome's being once a right Church considered No necessity of assigning the punctual time when errours crept into her An account why the originals of errours seem obscure By Stapletons Confession the Roman and Catholick Church were not the same The falsiâ—y of that assertion manifested that there could be no pure Church since the Apostles times if the Roman Church were corrupt No one particular Church free from corruptions yet no separation from the Catholick Church How far the Catholick Church may be said to erre Men may have distinct communion from any oâ—e particular Church yet not separate from the Catholick Church The Testimony of Petrus de Alliaco vindicated Bellarmin not mis cited Almain full to his Lordships purpose The Romanists guilty of the present Schism and not Protestants In what sense there can be no just cause of Schism and how far that concerns our case Protestants did not depart from the Church of Rome but were thrust out of it The Vindication of the Church of Rome from Schism at last depends upon the two false Principles of her Infallibility and being the Catholick Church The Testimonies of S. Bernard and S Austin not to the purpose The Catalogue of Fundamentals the Churches not erring c. referr'd back to their proper places p. 324. CHAP. III. Of keeping Faith with Hereticks The occasion of this Dispute The reason why this Doctrine is not commonly defended Yet all own such Principles from whence it necessarâ—ly follows The matter of fact as to the Council of Constance and John Hus opened Of the nature of the safe conduct granted him by the Emperour that it was not a general one salvâ justitiâ but particular jure speciali which is largely proved The particulars concerning Hierom of Prague Of the safe-conduct granted by the Council of Trent Of the distinction of Secular and Ecclesiastical Power and that from thence it follows that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks Simancha and several others fully assert this Doctrine Of the Invitation to the Council of Trent and the good Instructions there and of Publick Disputation p. 343. CHAP. IV. The Reformâ—tion of the Church of England justified The Church of Rome guilty of Schism by unjustly casting Protestants out of Communion The Communion of the Catholâ—ck and particular Churches distinguished No separation of Protestants from the Catholick Church The Devotions of the Church of England and Rome compared Particular Churches Power to reform themselves in case of general Corruption proved The Instance from the Church of Judah vindicated The Church of Rome paralleld with the ten Tribes General Corruptions make Reformation the more necessary Whether those things we condemn as errours were Catholick Tenets at the time of the Reformation The contrary shewed and the dâ—fference of the Church of Rome before and since the Reformation When things may be said to be received as Catholick Doctrines How far particular Churches Power to reform themselves extends His Lordships Instances for the Power of Provincial Councils in matters of Reformation vindicated The particular case of the Church of England discussed The proceedings in our Reformation defended The Church of England a true Church The National Synod 1562. a lawful Synod The Bâ—shops no intruders in Queen Elizabeth's time The justice and modâ—ration of the Church of England in her Reformation The Popes Power here a forcible and fraudulent Usurpation p. 356. CHAP. V. Of the Roman Churches Authority The Question concerning the Church of Rome's Authority entred upon How far our Church in reforming her self condemns the Church of Rome The Pope's equality with other Patriarchs asserted The Arabick Canons of the Nicene Council proved to be supposititious The Polity of the Ancient Church discovered from the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice The Rights of Primats and Metropolitans settled by it The suitableness of the Ecclesiastical to the Civil Government That the Bishop of Rome had then a limitted Jurisdiction within the suburbicary Churches as Primate of the Roman Diocese Of the Cyprian Priviledge that it was not peculiar but common to all Primats of Dioceses Of the Pope's Primacy according to the Canons how far pertinent to our dispute How far the Pope's Confirmation requisite to new elected Patriarchs Of the Synodical and Communicatory Letters The testimonies of Petrus de Marcâ concerning the Pope's Power of confirming and deposing Bishops The Instances brought for it considered The case of Athanasius being restored by Julius truly stated The proceedings of Constantine in the case of the Donatists cleared and the evidence thence against the Pope's Supremacy Of the Appeals of Bishops to Rome how far allowed by the Canons of the Church The great case of Appeals between the Roman and African Bishops discussed That the Appeals of Bishops were prohibited as well as those of the inferiour Clergy C's fraud in citing the Epistle of the African Bishops for acknowledging Appeals to Rome The contrary manifested from the same Epistle to Boniface and the other to Coelestine The exemption of the Ancient Britannick Church from any subjection to the See of Rome asserted The case of Wilfrids Appeal answered The Primacy of England not derived from Gregory's Grant to Augustine the Monk The Ancient Primacy of the Britannick Church not lost upon the Saxon Conversion Of the state of the African Churches after their denying Appeals to Rome The rise of the Pope's Greatness under Christian Emperours Of the Decree of the Sardican Synod in case of Appeals whether ever received by the Church No evidence thence of the Pope's Supremacy Zosimus his forgery in sending the Sardican Canons instead of the Nicene The weakness of the Pleas for it manifested p. 382. CHAP. VI. Of the Title of Universal Bishop In what sense the Title of Vniversal Bishop was taken in Antiquity A threefold acceptation of it as importing 1. A general care over the Christian Churches which is attributed to other Catholick Bishops by Antiquity besides the Bishop of Rome as is largely proved 2. A peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Roman Empire This accounted then Oecumenical thence the Bishops of the seat of the Empire called Oecumenical Bishops and sometimes of other Patriarchal Churches 3. Noting Vniversal Jurisdiction over the whole Church as Head of it so never given
sufficiently detected by the African Bishops And it is the worst of all excuses to lay the blame of it as you do on the Pope's Secretary for Do you think Pope Zosimus was so careless of his business as not to look over the Commonitorium which Faustinus carried with him Do you think Faustinus would not have corrected the fault when the African Bishops boggled so at it What made him so unwilling that they should send into the East to examine the Nicene Canons but intreated them to leave the business wholly with the Pope if he were not conscious of some forgery in the business But you say as a further plea in Zosimus his excuse That the Council of Sardica was an Appendix to the Nicene Council rather than otherwise An excellent Appendix made at two and twenty years distance from the other and called by other Emperours consisting of many other persons and assembled upon a quite different occasion If this had been an Appendix to the Nicene Council How comes that to have but twenty Canons How came Atticus and Cyrillus not to send these with the other How come all the Copies of Councils and Canons to distinguish them How came they not to be contained in the Code of Canons produced in the Council of Chalcedon in the cause of Bassianus and Stephanus If this were the same Council because some of the same things were determined How comes that in Trullo not to be the same with the 6. Oecumenical How comes the Council of Antioch not to be an Appendix to the Council of Nice if this was when it was celebrated before this and the Canons of it inserted in the Code of Canons owned by the Council of Chalcedon So that by all the shifts and arts you can use you cannot excuse Zosimus from Imposture in sending these Sardican under the name of the Nicene Canons And on what account the Pope satisfied the Canons then is apparent enough viz. for the advancing the Interess of his See and this the African Fathers did as easily discern afterwards as we do now But by this we see What good Foundations the Pope's claim of Supremacy had then and what arts not to say frauds they were beholding to for setting it up even as great as they have since made use of to maintain it CHAP. VI. Of the Title of Universal Bishop In what sense the Title of Vniversal Bishop was taken in Antiquity A threefold acceptation of it as importing 1. A general care over the Christian Churches which is attributed to other Catholick Bishops by Antiquity besides the Bishop of Rome as is largely proved 2. A peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Roman Empire This accounted then Oecumenical thence the Bishops of the seat of the Empire called Oecumenical Bishops and sometimes of other Patriarchal Churches 3. Nothing Vniversal Jurisdiction over the whole Church as Head of it so never given in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome The ground of the Contest about this Title between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople Of the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon about the Popes Supremacy Of the Grammatical and Metaphorical sense of this Title Many arguments to prove it impossible that S. Gregory should understand it in the Grammatical sense The great absurdities consequent upon it S. Gregory's Reasons proved to hold against that sense of it which is admitted in the Church of Rome Of Irenaeus his opposition to Victor's excommunicating the Asian Bishops argues no authority he had over them What the more powerful principality in Irenaeus is Ruffinus his Interpretation of the 6. Nicene Canon vindicated The Suburbicary Churches cannot be understood of all the Churches in the Roman Empire The Pope no Infallible successor of S. Peter nor so acknowledged to be by Epiphanius S. Peter had no Supremacy of Power over the Apostles HIs Lordship having undertaken to give an account How the Popes rose by degrees to their Greatness under the Christian Emperours in prosecution of that necessarily falls upon the Title of Vniversal Bishop affected by John the Patriarch of Constantinople and condemned by Pelagius 1. and Gregory 2. This you call a trite and beaten way because I suppose the truth is so plain and evident in it but withall you tell us This Objection hath been satisfied a hundred times over if you had said the same Answer had been repeated so often over you had said true but if you say that it hath been satisfied once you say more than you are able to defend as will evidently appear by your very unsatisfactory Answer which at last you give to it So that if none of your party have been any wiser than your self in this matter I am so far from being satisfied with what they say that I can only pitty those persons whose interest swayes their understandings so much or at least their expressions as to make them say any thing that seems to be for their purpose though in it self never so senseless or unreasonable And I can scarce hold my self from saying with the Oratour when a like Objection to this was offered him because multitudes had said so Quasi verò quidquam sit tam valdè quà m nihil sapere vulgare That truth and reason are the greatest Novelties in the world For seriously Were it possible for men of common understanding to rest satisfied with such pitiful shifts as you are fain to make if they would but use any freedom in enquiring and any liberty of judging when they had done But when once men have given not to say sold away the exercise of their free reason by addicting themselves to a particular interest there can scarce any thing be imagined so absurd but it passeth currently from one to another because they are bound to receive all blindfold and in the same manner to deliver it to others By which means it is an easie matter for the greatest nonsense and contradictions to be said a hundred times over And Whether it be not so in the present case is that we are now to enquire into And for the same ends which you propose to your self viz. that all obscurity may be taken away and the truth clearly appear I shall in the first place set down What his Lordship saith and then distinctly examine What you reply in Answer to it Thus then his Lordship proceeds About this time brake out the ambition of John Patriarch of Constantinople affecting to be Vniversal Bishop He was countenanced in this by Mauricius the Emperour but sowrely opposed by Pelagius and S. Gregory Insomuch that S. Gregory plainly sayes That this Pride of his shews that the times of Antichrist were near So as yet and this was near upon the point of six hundred years after Christ there was no Vniversal Bishop no one Monarch over the whole Militant Church But Mauricius being deposed and murthered by Phocas Phocas conferred upon Boniface the third that very Honour which two of his predecessors had
declaimed against as monstrous and blasphemous if not Antichristian Where by the way either these two Popes Pelagius and S. Gregory erred in this weighty business about an Vniversal Bishop over the whole Church Or if they did not erre Boniface and the rest which after him took it upon them were in their very predecessors judgement Antichristian Before you come to a particular Answer you think it necessary to make a way for it by premising two things 1. That the Title of Vniversal Bishop was anciently attributed to the Bishops of Rome but they never made use of it 2. That the ancient Bishops of Constantinople never intended by this usurped Title to deny the Popes Vniversal Authority even over themselves These two things I shall therefore consider because they tend much to the clearing the main Controversie I begin therefore with the Title of Vniversal Bishop attributed to the Bishop of Rome and before I answer your particular allegations we must more fully consider in what sense that title of Vniversal Bishops was taken in Antiquity and in what manner it was attributed to him For when titles have different senses and those senses evidently made use of by the ancient Writers it is a most unreasonable thing meerly from the title to inferr one determinate sense which is the most contrary to the current of Antiquity The title then of Vniversal Bishop may be conceived to import one of these three things 1. A general care and solicitude over all the Churches of the Christian world 2. A peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Empire 3. Vniversal Jurisdiction over all Churches so that all exercise of it in the Church is derivative from him as Vniversal Pastor and Head of the Church This last is that which you attribute to the Pope and though you find the name of Vniversal Bishop a hundred times over in the records of the Church yet if it be taken in either of the two former senses it makes nothing at all to your purpose Our business is therefore now to shew that this title was used in the Church in the two former senses and that nothing from hence can be inferred for that Oecumenical Pastorship which you say doth of Divine Right belong to the Bishop of Rome I begin with the first as this Title may import a general care and solicitude over all the Christian Churches and I deny not but in this sense this title might be attributed in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome but then I assert that nothing peculiar to him can be inferred from hence because expressions importing the same care are attributed to other Bishops especially such who were placed in the greater Sees or were active in promoting the Churches interest For which we must consider that power and authority in the Bishops of the Church is given with an immediate respect to the good of the whole Church so that if it were possible that every particular Bishop could take care of the whole Church they have authority enough by their Function to do it But it not only being impossible that every Bishop should do it but it being inconsistent with peace and order that all should undertake it therefore it was necessary that there should be some restraints and bounds set for the more convenient management of that authority which they had From hence came the Original of particular Dioceses that within such a compass they might better exercise that power which they enjoyed As if many lights be placed in a great Room though the intention of every one of these is to give light to the whole Room yet that this might the better be done these lights are conveniently placed in the several parts of it And this is that which S. Cyprian means in that famous expression of his That there is but one Bishoprick in the whole world a part of which is held by every Bishop For the Church in common is designed as the Diocese of all Bishops which is set out into several appartiments for the more advantagious governing of it As a flock of many thousand sheep being committed to the care of many Shepherds these all have an eye to the good of the whole Flock but do not therefore sit altogether in one place to over-see it but every one hath his share to look after for the benefit of the Whole But yet so that upon occasion one of them may extend his care beyond his own division and may be very useful for the whole by counsel and direction Thus we shall find it was in the Primitive Church though every Bishop had his particular Charge yet still they regarded the common good of the whole Church and upon occasion did extend their counsel and advice far beyond their particular Churches and exercised their Functions in other places besides those which the Churches convenience had allotted to them Hence it was that dissentions arising between the Asian and Roman Churches Polycarp comes to Rome and there as Eusebius from Irenaeus tells us He exercised with Anicetus his consent his Episcopal Function For as Valesius observes it cannot be understood as Franciscus Florens would have it of his receiving the Eucharist from Anicetus but something of honour is implied in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas there was nothing but what was common in the other Hence the several Epistles of Ignatius Polycarp Irenaeus and others for the advising confirming and settling Churches Hence Irenaeus concerned himself so much in the business between Victor and the Asian Churches either to prevent or repeal his sentence of Excommunication against them Hence S. Cyprian writes into Spain about the deposing Basilides and Martialis two Apostatizing Bishops and checks Stephen Bishop of Rome for his inconsiderate restoring them Hence Faustus Bishop of Lyons writes to S. Cyprian in the case of Martianus of Arles and he writes to Stephen as being nearer and more concerned in the business of Novatianism for the honour of his predecessors in order to his Deposition yet so as he looks on it as a common cause belonging to them all cui rei nostrum est consulere subvenire frater charissime in which they were all bound to advise and help Hence S. Cyprian writes to the Bishop of Rome as his Brother and Colleague without the least intimation of deriving any Jurisdiction from him but often expressing that charge which was committed to every Bishop which he must look to as mindful of the account he must give to God Hence Nazianzen saith of S. Cyprian That he not only governed the Churches of Carthage and Africa but all the Western parts and even almost all the Eastern Southern and Northern too as far as his fame went Hence Arsenius writes to Athanasius We embrace Peace and Vnity with the Catholick Church over which thou through the Grace of God dost preside Hence Gregory Nazianzen saith of Athanasius That he made Laws for the whole earth Hence
S. Basil writes to him That he had care of all the Churches as of his own and in the same Epistle calls him The Head and chief over all Hence S. Chrysostome in the praise of Eustathius the Patriarch of Antioch saith That he was instructed by the Divine Spirit that he was not only to have care of that Church over which he was set but of the whole Church throughout the world Hence came the great endeavours of Theophilus and Cyril Patriarchs of Alexandria of Eusebius Vercellensis Hilarius Pictaviensis and several others for rooting out of Heresies not confining themselves to those Provinces allotted to them but extending their care over other Churches Hence came frequent ordinations of persons out of their own Dioceses as of Paulinus at Antioch by Lucifer Caralitanus of many Bishops in Syria and Mesopotamia by Eusebius Samosatenus and of a Presbyter at Bethleem by Epiphanius who when he was quarrel'd at by John of Hierusalem for it he defends his action by this saying That In Sacerdotio Dei nulla est diversitas i. e. where-ever a Bishop was he might exercise his power as such although the Churches prudence had set limits to their ordinary Jurisdiction From these things then we see that a general care and solicitude of the Vniversal Church doth belong to every Bishop and that some of them have been expresly said to have had the care of the whole Church which in other terms is to say They were Vniversal Bishops So that from this sense of the Title you gain nothing to your purpose though the care of the Vniversal Church be attributed to the Bishop of Rome though he acts and calls Councils and orders other things out of his own Province yet all this proves not the Supremacy you intend for this is no more than other Bishops did whom you will not acknowledge to be Heads of the Church or Vniversal Bishops in that sense 2. An Vniversal Bishop denotes a peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Roman Empire For which two things will be sufficient to manifest it 1. That the Roman Empire was then accounted Vniversal 2. That some Bishops in the Great Churches were on that account called Oecumenical or Vniversal Bishops 1. That the Roman Empire was then accounted Vniversal for which multitudes of testimonies might be cited in which orbis Romanus and orbis humanus were looked on as Synonymous thence Trebellius Pollio in Macrianus qui ex diversis partibus orbis Romani restituant and as Salmasius witnesseth in those writers of the Imperial History most of the ancient M S S. for orbis Romanus have orbis humanus for as he saith Eâ gloriâ fuerunt Romani ut totum orbem suum vocarent hinc orbis Romanus passim apud auctores reperitur pro universo orbe thence they called the Roman people omnium gentium victorem and from hence Ammianus Marcellinus calls Rome caput mundi the head of the world and the Roman Senate Asylum mundi totius the Sanctuary for the whole world thence Spartianus saith of Severus orbem terrarum Romamque despexit when as Casaubon observes he speaks only of the Roman Provinces And from hence whatever was out of the Roman Empire was called Barbaria thence the rura vicina Barbariae in Lampridius for the Marches which lay next to the enemies Country thence Marcellinus visus est in Barbarico miles and in the Imperial Constitutions as Justellus observes Barbari vocantur quicunque Imperio Romano non parebant all were called barbarous out of the Roman Empire and in the same sense barbaricum is used in the 58. Canon of the African Code and in the 206. Canon of the Code of the Vniversal Church that the Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. out of the Roman Empire should be ordained by the Patriarch of Constantinople Now since the Roman Empire was called orbis Romanus and in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appears in that Augusius Luk. 2.1 is said to tax 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole world which could be only the Roman Empire and the famine in the same is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 11.28 it is no wonder if these Bishops who enjoyed the greatest dignity in the Roman Empire were called Oecumenical and those Councils so too which consisted of the Bishops within those bounds I come therefore to the second thing That some Bishops in the Great Churches in the Roman Empire were called Oecumenical as that relates to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. the Roman Empire For which we may consider the primary ground of the advancement of the Patriarch of Constantinople was the greatness of the City as is undeniably manifest by the proceedings of the Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon about him wherein it was decreed since that was New-Rome that it should enjoy equal priviledges with the old And in all probability the ground of the Patriarch of Constantinople's usurping the title of Oecumenical Patriarch was but to correspond with the greatness of his City which at the time of the contest between Pope Gregory and him was in a better condition than Rome it self being the seat of the Empire and therefore he thought it suitable thereto to be called Oecumenical Patriarch But besides this peculiarity of Constantinople it was no unusual thing for the Bishop of the Patriarchal Churches to have expressions given them tantamount to the title of Vniversal Bishop in any sense but that of the Vniversal Jurisdiction which I shall prove as to the three Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch and Constantinople First Of Alexandria So Greg. Nazianzen saith of Athanasius being made Bishop there he had the Government of that people committed to him which is as much as to say of the whole world and John of Hierusalem writing to Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria saith That he had the care of all the Churches And St. Basil writes to Athanasius about the establishing of Meletius as Patriarch of Antioch that so he might govern as it were the whole body of the Church But most clear and full to that purpose is the testimony of Theodoret concerning Nestorius being made Patriarch of Constantinople He was intrusted with the Government of the Catholick Church of the Orthodox at Constantinople and thereby of the whole world What work would you make with so illustrious a testimony in Antiquity for the Bishop of Rome as this is for the Patriarch of Constantinople Use therefore and interpret but these testimonies as kindly as you do any for the Roman See and will you not find as large a power over the Church attributed to the other Patriarchs as you do to the Bishop of Rome What is it then you would infer from the title of Vniversal Bishop being attributed to him Will the very title do more then what is signified by it Or must it of necessity import something more when given to the Bishop of Rome
then it doth when given to other Bishops if it doth you must prove it from some other Arguments and not barely from the title being attributed to them Thus you see though the title were granted to be attributed to him there is nothing new nothing peculiar in it But we must further examine Who they are that attribute this title to him and what the account is of their doing it For this you cite the Council of Chalcedon in a letter inserted in the Acts of it the Council of Constantinople sub Mena John Bishop of Nicopolis Constantinus Pogonatus the Emperour Basil the yonger and Balsamon himself To the first I Answer 1. That this title was not given by the Council of Chalcedon 2. If it had no more was given to the Bishop of Rome then to the Bishops of other Patriarchal Churches 1. That this title was not given by the General Council of Chalcedon this I know Gregory 1. in his Epistles about this subject repeats usque ad nauseam that the title of Vniversal Bishop was offered to the Bishop of Rome by the Council of Chalcedon and that he refused it but there is as little evidence for the one as the other That the title of Oecumenical Patriarch was attributed to the Bishop of Rome by some Papers read and received in that Council I deny not but we must consider the persons who did it and the occasion of it The persons were such who came to inform the Council against Dioscorus the Patriarch of Alexandria and they were no other then Athanasius a Presbyter Theodorus and Ischyrion two Deacons and Sophronius a Laick of Alexandria now these persons not in a letter as you relate it but in their bills exhibited to the Council against Dioscorus give that title of Oecumenical Patriarch or Archbishop to Leo the Bishop of Rome And is this now the offer made of the title of Vniversal Bishop by the Council of Chalcedon But you say This was inserted into the Acts of the Council I grant it was but on what account not with any respect to the title but as containing the Accusations against Dioscorus But where do any of the Bishops of that Council attribute that title to Leo which of them mentions it in their subscriptions to the Deposition of Dioscorus though many of them speak expresly of Leo and Anatolius together with the same titles of honour to them both Why did not the Council superscribe their Synodical Epistle to Pope Leo with that title so indeed Binius rather supposes they should have done then proves they ever did it and that only from Gregories Epistle not Leo's as he mistakes it to Eulogius where he mentions this offer but upon what grounds we have seen already But suppose 2. We should grant that the Council of Chalcedon should have offered the title of Oecumenical Patriarch or Bishop to the Bishop of Rome there are none who understand any thing of the nature of that title or the proceedings of that Council who can imagine they should intend any acknowledgement of the Popes Supremacy by it For the title it self as to the importance of it was common to other Bishops especially of the Patriarchal Sees as I have proved by some instances already and might do yet by more but I shall content my self with the ingenuous confession of Sim. Vigorius That when the Western Fathers call the Roman Bishops Bishops of the Vniversal Church they do it from the custome of their Churches not that they look on them as Vniversal Bishops of the whole Church but in the same sense that the Patriarchs of Constantinople Antioch Alexandria Jerusalem are call'd so or as they are Vniversal over the Churches under their Patriarchate or that in Oecumenical Councils they preside over the whole Church And after acknowledgeth that the title of Vniversal or Oecumenical Bishop makes nothing for the Popes Monarchy in the Church And if it doth not so when given by the Western Fathers much less certainly when given by the Eastern especially those who met in the Council of Chalcedon For it is evident by their 16 Session the 28 Canon and their Synodical Epistle to Pope Leo they designed the advancement of the See of Constantinople to equal priviledges with that of Rome And therefore if they gave the Pope the title of Oecumenical Patriarch or Bishop it was that he might be willing that the Patriarch of Constantinople might be call'd so too And if as Gregory saith the Bishops of Rome would not accept the title of Vniversal Bishop the truest account I know of it is lest the Patriarch of Constantinople should share with him in it but we see when the great Benefactor to your Church the Benigne Phocas as Gregory himself styles him gave it to the Bishop of Rome alone then hands and heart and all were ready to receive it And I much fear Leo 1. and St. Gregory himself would have been shrewdly tempted to receive it if it had been offered them upon those terms that no one else should have it besides them but they scorned it till they could have it alone And for all their declamations against the pride of Anatolius and John Patriarchs of Constantinople they must look very favourably on the actions of those two Popes that discern not their own Pride in condemning of them for it For usually men shew it as much in suspecting or condemning others for it as in any other way whatsoever Thus it was in these persons they thought the Patriarchs of Constantinople proud and arrogant because they sought to be equal with them But Was it not their own greater Pride that they were able to bear no equals and it is to be feared it was their desire to advance their own Supremacy which made them quarrel so much with Anatolius and John and Cyriacus For would they but have been contented to truckle under the Roman Bishops they had been accounted very meek and humble men And St. Gregory himself would not sure have thought much to have call'd them so who most abominably flatters that monster Phocas after the murder of Mauricius and his Children for he begins his Epistle to him with Gloria in excelsis Deo Glory to God on high who according to what is written changes times and transfers Kingdomes and after in such notorious flattering expressions congratulates his coming to the Throne that any one who reads them would think Phocas the greater Saint he rejoyces that the benignity of his piety was advanced to the Imperial Throne nay laetentur coeli exultet terra let the heavens rejoyce and the earth be glad and all the people which hath been hitherto in much affliction revive at the benignity of your actions O rare Phocas Could he do any less then pronounce the Bishop of Rome Vniversal Bishop after this when poor Cyriacus at Constantinople suffered for his opposing him for the execrable murder of his Master Therefore these proceedings of Leo
and Gregory yield shrewd matter of suspicion what the main ground of their quarrel against the Patriarchs of Constantinople was For before the Emperours stood up for the honour of Constantinople as being the seat of their Empire and Rome began to sink the Empire decaying there but now there was a fit time to do something for the honour of the Roman See Cyriacus was in disgrace with the Tyrant Phocas and no such time as now to fall in with him and caresse him and we see Gregory did it prety well for a Saint but he lived not to enjoy the benefit of it but Boniface did however After the Patriarchate of Constantinople was erected the Popes had a double game to play to advance themselves and depress that which it was very hard for them to do because all the Eastern Bishops as well as the Emperour favoured it But after equal priviledges were decreed to the Patriarch of Constantinople with the Bishop of Rome by the Council of Constantinople they could no longer dissemble their choler but had no such occasion ministred to them to express it as after the Canon of the Council of Chalcedon wherein were present 630 Bishops which confirmed the former For then Leo fumes and frets and writes to Martianus and Pulcheria to Anatolius and the Bishops of the East but still pretends that he stood up for the priviledges of the other Patriarchs and the Nicene Canons and what not but one might easily discern what it was that pinched him viz. the equalling the Patriarch of Constantinople with himself Which it is apparent he suspected before by the instructions he gave his Legats Paschasinus and Lucentius to be sure to oppose whatever was proposed in the Council concerning the Primacy of that See And accordingly they did and complained that the Canon was surreptitiously made Which they were hugely overseen in doing while the Council sat for upon this the whole matter is reviewed the Judges scan the business the Bishops protest there were no practises used that they all voluntarily consented to it and all this in the presence of the Roman Legats How comes it then to pass that this should not be a regular and Conciliar action Were not the Bishops at age to understand their own priviledges Did not the Bishop of Antioch know his own interest as well as Pope Leo Must he be supposed more able to understand the Nicene Canons then these 630 Bishops Why then was not this Canon as regular as any other Why forsooth The Pope did not consent to it So true is that sharp censure of Ludovicus Vives that those are accounted lawful Canons and Councils which make for their interest but others are no more esteemed then a company of tattling Gossips But what made the Pope so angry at this Canon of the Council of Chalcedon He pretends the honour of the Nicene Canons the preserving the priviledges of other Patriarchs But Binius hath told us the true reason of it because they say that the Primacy of Rome came by its being the seat of the Empire and therefore not by Divine right and since Constantinople was become the seat of the Empire too therefore the Patriarch there should enjoy equal priviledges with the Bishop of Rome If Rome had continued still the sole seat of the Empire this reason would not have been quarrelled at but now Rome sinking and Constantinople rising this must not be endured but all the arts and devices possible must be used to keep it under And this is the true account of the pique which the Bishops of Rome had to the Patriarchs of Constantinople From whence we may easily guess how probable it is that this Council of Chalcedon did acknowledge the Pope Oecumenical Bishop in any other sense then they contended the Patriarch of Constantinople was so too And the same answer will serve for all your following Instances For as you pretend that the Council of Constantinople sub Menna did call Pope Agapetus Oecumenical Patriarch so it is most certain that it call'd Mennas the Patriarch of Constantinople so too And which is more Adrian 1. in his Epistle to Tharasius of Constantinople in the second Nicene Council calls him Vniversal Bishop If therefore the Greek Emperours and Balsamon call the Pope so they import nothing peculiar to him in it because it is most evident they call'd their own Patriarch so likewise So that you find little advantage to your cause from this first thing which you premise viz. that the Pope was anciently call'd Vniversal Bishop But you say further 2. That the Bishops of Constantinople never intended to deny by this usurped title the Popes Vniversal Authority even over themselves This is ambiguous unless it be further explained what you mean by Vniversal Authority for it may either note some kind of prae-eminence and dignity which the Bishop of Rome had as the chief Patriarch and who on that account had great Authority in the Church and this your instances prove that the Patriarchs of Constantinople did acknowledge to belong to the Pope but if by Vniversal Authority be meant Vniversal Jurisdiction over the Church as appointed the head of it by Christ then not one of your instances comes near the shadow of a proof for it Thus having considered what you premise we come to your Answer it self For which you tell us We are to take notice that the term Vniversal Bishop is capable of two senses the one Grammatical the other Metaphorical In the Grammatical sense it signifies Bishop of the Vniversal Church and of all Churches in particular even to the exclusion of all others from being properly Bishops and consequently displaceable at his pleasure as being only his not Christs officers and receiving authority from him and not from Christ. In the Metaphorical sense it signifies only so high and eminent a dignity above all other Bishops throughout the whole Church that though he who is stiled Vniversal Bishop hath a true and real Superintendency Jurisdiction and Authority over all other Bishops yet that they be as truly and properly Bishops in their respective Provinces and Dioceses as he himself This being clear'd say you 't is evident that St. Gregory when he inveighs against the title of Vniversal Bishop takes it in the literal and Grammatical sense which you very faintly endeavour to prove out of him as I shall make it presently appear This being then the substance of that Answer which you say hath been given a hundred times over must now once for all pass a strict and severe examination Which it shall receive in these two Enquiries 1. Whether it be possible to conceive that St. Gregory should take Vniversal Bishop in the literal and Grammatical sense 2. Whether all the Arguments which he useth against that title do not hold against that Vniversal Jurisdiction which you attribute to the Pope as Head of the Church 1. Whether it be possible to conceive that St. Gregory
should take Vniversal Bishop in the literal and Grammatical sense which you give of it And he which can think so must have some other way of understanding his meaning then by his words and arguments which I confess I do not pretend to But if we examine them we shall find how impossible it is that St. Gregory should ever think that John pretended to be the sole Bishop of this world 1. Because Gregory saith That same title which John had usurped was offered to the Roman Bishops by the Council of Chalcedon but none of them would ever use it because it seemed to diminish the honour of other Bishops Now I pray think with your self whether ever 630 Bishops would consent together to give away all their power and Authority in the Church For you say The literal sense of Vniversal Bishop doth suppose him to be Bishop of all particular Churches to the exclusion of all others from being properly Bishops and are displaceable at his pleasure Can it now enter into your mind that Gregory should ever think that these Bishops should all make themselves the Popes Vassals of their own free choice We see even under the great Vsurpations of the Bishop of Rome since though they pretend for all that I can see to be Oecumenical Bishops in a higher sense then ever John pretended to that yet the Bishops of the Roman Communion are not willing to submit their office wholly to the Papal Jurisdiction witness the stout and eager contests of the Spanish Bishops in the Council of Trent about the Divine Institution of the Episcopal office against the pretences of the Italian Party And shall we then think when the Pope was far from that power which he hath since Usurped that such multitude of grave and resolute Bishops should throw their Miters down at the Popes feet and offer him in your literal sense to be sole Bishop of the World That they would relinquish their power which they made no question they had from Christ and take it up again at the Popes hands But whether you can imagine this of so many Bishops or no Can you conceive that Gregory should think so of them and he must do it if he took the title of Vniversal Bishop in your literal sense and yet this Gregory saith Hoc Vniversitatis nomen oblatum est That very name of Vniversal Bishop was offered to the Pope by the Council of Chalcedon Sed nullus unquam Decessorum meorum hoc tam prophano Vocabulo uti consensit Nothing then can be more plain then that John took that which the Pope refused And he that can believe that this title should ever be offered in this literal sense I despair without the help of Physick to make him believe any thing 2. This very title was not usurped wholly by John himself but was given him in a Council at Constantinople This Gregory confesseth in his Epistle to Eulogius and Anastasius the Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria that about eight years before in the time of Pelagius his predecessor John called a Council at Constantinople in which he endeavours to be called Vniversal Bishop so Gregory but he confesseth elsewhere that he effected it And it appears by the Epistle of Pelagius himself writ on that occasion that it was more then a meer endeavour and that they did consent to it else Why doth Pelagius say Quicquid in vestro conventiculo statuistis Whatever they had determin'd in their Conventicle as on this account Pelagius calls it because it wanted his approbation And it is evident from Gregories zealous writing to the other Patriarchs about it that they did not â—ook on themselves as so much concerned about it Now in this Council which met at Constantinople which was called together in the case of Gregory the Patriarch of Antioch all the Patriarchs either by themselves or substitutes were present as Evagrius tells us and not only they but several Metropolitans too now if they had taken this in the literal sense Can you think they would have yielded to it Were not they much more concerned about it then either Pelagius or Gregory were for they were near him and were sure to live under this usurped power of his and to smart by it if it were so great as you suppose it to be But it is apparent by their yielding to it they looked on it to be sure not in the Literal sense and it may be as no more than the Honorary Title of Oecumenical Patriarch 3. How comes it to pass that none of the successors of John and Cyriacus did ever challenge this Title in the Literal sense of it For we do not see that they quitted it for all Phocas gave it to Pope Boniface since by your own confession in the Greek Canon-Law Sisinnius German Constantine Alexius and others are called Oecumenical Patriarchs And it appears by the Epistles of Pelagius and Gregory that was the Title which John had then given him Si summus Patriarcha Vniversalis dicitur Patriarcharum nomen caeteris denegatur saith Pelagius Si enim hoc dici licentèr permittitur honor Patriarcharum omnium negatur saith Gregory From which words I think it most probable that the main ambition of the Patriarchs of Constantinople was not meerly that they would be called Oecumenical Patriarchs but that Title should properly belong to them as excluding others from it which was it that touched the Bishops of Rome to the quick because then Constantinople flourished as much as Rome decayed by the oppressions of the Lombards and Gregory complained of this to Constantia the Empress that for seven and twenty years together they had lived in Rome inter Longobardorum gladios among the swords of the Lombards and this made them so jealous that the honour of the Roman See was then sinking and therefore they stickle so much against this Title and draw all the invididious consequences from it possible the better to set the other Patriarchs against it and because that would not extend far beyond the Patriarchs themselves they pretend likewise that this was to make himself Vniversal Bishop But not certainly in your Literal sense for then Gregory would have objected some actions consequent upon this Title in depriving Bishops of their Jurisdiction and displacing some and putting in others at his pleasure which you say is the natural effect of this Literal sense of Vniversal Bishop But we read of nothing of this nature done either by John or Cyriacus they acted no more than they did only enjoyed a higher Title And this is proved further 4. By the carriage of the Emperour Mauricius in this business Gregory writes a pitiful moaning Letter to him about it and uses all the Rhetorick he had to perswade the Emperour that he would either flectere or coercere incline or force him to lay aside that arrogant Title But for all this it appears by Gregory's Letter to the Empress That the
Emperour had checked him for medling in it and was so far from opposing the Patriarchs Title that in effect he bid him trouble himself no more about it Which poor S. Gregory took very ill And afterwards when Cyriacus succeeded John in Constantinople the Emperour being somewhat fearful lest Gregory at the coming in of a new Patriarch might on the account of this new Title deny his Communicatory Letters he dispatches a Letter to him to quicken him about it And he takes it very unkindly that the Emperour should suspect his indiscretion so much that for the sake of this Title which he saith had sorely wounded him he should deny Communion in the Faith with him and yet in the same Epistle saith That whosoever took the Title of Vniversal Bishop upon him was a forerunner of Antichrist But if this name had been apprehended in that which you call The Literal and Grammatical sense Would not the Emperour being commended by Gregory too for his Piety have rather encouraged him in it where as he plainly tells him It was a contest about a frivolous name and nothing else and that there ought to be no scandal among them about it Upon which Gregory is put to his distinctions of two sorts of frivolous things some that are very harmless and some that are very hurtful i. e. frivolous things are either such as are frivolous or such as are not for Who ever imagined that such things as are very hurtful are frivolous But however S. Gregory speaks excellent sense for his meaning is that the Title it self may be frivolous but the consequences of it may be dreadful and so we have found it since his time So that this appears to be the true state of the business between them the Patriarch of Constantinople he challengeth the Title of Oecumenical Patritriarch or Bishop as belonging of right to him being Patriarch of the chief Seat of the Empire but in the mean time challengeth no Vniversal Jurisdiction by virtue of this Title On which account the Emperour and Eastern Bishops admit of it On the other side the Bishops of Rome partly looking at their own interest in it for so it appears by one of Gregory's Epistles to the Emperour that he suspected it to be his own interest which he stood so much up for and partly foreseeing the dangerous consequences of this if Vniversal Jurisdiction were challenged with it they resolutely oppose it not meerly for the Title sake but for that which might follow upon that Title taking it not in your Literal but in your Metaphorical sense as I shall shew presently But neither party was so weak and silly as to apprehend it in your Literal sense for then neither would the Emperour have sleighted it nor the Popes opposed it on those terms which they do and on such grounds which reach your Metaphorical sense 5. The same Title in the same sense which Gregory opposed it did Boniface accept of from the Emperour Phocas This you confess your self when you say That all that Phocas did was but to declare that the Title in contest did of right belong to the Bishop of Rome only therefore the same Title which the Patriarch of Constantinople took to himself before was both given by Phocas and taken by Pope Boniface This then being confessed by you let me now seriously ask you Whether the Title of Vniversal Bishop which Pope Gregory opposed was to be taken in the Grammatical or Metaphorical sense Take now Whether of them you please if in the Metaphorical all his arguments hold against the Popes present Vniversal Jurisdiction by your own confession if in the Literal and Grammatical then Pope Boniface had all those things belonging to him which Gregory condemns that Title for Then by your own confession Pope Boniface must be the forerunner of Antichrist he must equal himself to Lucifer in pride he must have that name of blasphemy upon him and all those dreadful consequences must attend him and all his followers who own that Title of Vniversal Bishop in that which you call the Literal or Grammatical sense of it 6. Lastly it appears from S. Gregory himself that the Reasons which he urgeth against the Title of Vniversal Bishop are such as hold against that which you call the Metaphorical sense of it which in short is An Vniversal Pastor exercising Authority and Jurisdiction over the whole Church And It is scarce possible to imagine that he should speak more clearly against such an Vniversal Headship than he doth and urges such arguments against it which properly belong to that Metaphorical sense of it As when he saith to John the Patriarch What wilt thou answer to Christ the Head of the Vniversal Church in the day of judgement who dost endeavour to subject all his members to thee under the name of Vniversal Bishop What is there in these words which doth not fully belong to your Metaphorical sense of Head of the Church Doth he not subject all Christs members to him Doth he not challenge to himself proper Jurisdiction over them What then will he be able to answer to Christ the Head of the Vniversal Church as St. Gregory understands it exclusivè of any other Doth not he arise to that height of singularity that he is subject to none but rules over all yet these are the very words he uses and Can any more expresly describe your Head of the Church than these do Yet herein he saith He imitates the Pride of Lucifer who according to St. Gregory endeavoured to be the Head of the Church Triumphant as the Pope of the Church Militant And follows that parallel close That an Vniversal Bishop imitates Lucifer in exalting his Throne above the Starrs of God For saith he What are all the Brethren the Bishops of the Vniversal Church but the Starrs of Heaven and after parallels them with the Clouds and so this terrestrial Lucifer ascends above the heights of the clouds And again saith he Surely the Apostle Peter was the first member not the Head of the Holy and Vniversal Church Paul Andrew and John What are they else but the Heads of particular Churches And yet they are all members of the Church under one Head Can any thing be more clear against any Head of the Vniversal Church but Christ himself when St. Peter is acknowledged to be only a prime member of the Church How then come his successors to be the Heads of it And as he goes on The Saints before the Law and under the Law and under Grace who all make up the body of our Lord they were all but members of the Church and none of them would be called Vniversal And I pray let his Holiness consider his following words Let your Holiness acknowledge what pride it is to be called by that name which none that was truly holy was ever call'd by And Do you think now that these expressions do not as properly reach
your Head of the Church as if they had been spoken by a Protestant against that Doctrine which you all own What is there in all this that implies that others should be no Bishops but only titular yes they may be as much Bishops as you acknowledge them to be i. e. as to their power of Order but not as to their Jurisdiction For this you say and defend comes from the Head of the Church or else your Monarchical Government in the Church signifies nothing Do not you make the Pope Vniversal Pastor of the Church in as high a sense as any of these expressions carry it And when St. Gregory urges so often That if there be such an Vniversal Bishop if he fails the Church would fail too Do you deny the consequence as to the Pope Doth not Bellarmine tell us when he writes of the Pope he writes de summâ rei Christianae Of the main of all Christianity and surely then the Church must fail if the Popes Supremacy doth And I pray now consider with your self Whether this Answer which you say hath been given a hundred times over can satisfie any reasonable man Nay Doth it not appear to be so absurd and incongruous that it is matter of just admiration that ever it should have been given once and yet you are wonderfully displeased that his Lordship should bring this Objection upon the stage again But Do you think your Answers like your Prayers will do you good by being said so often over Indeed therein they are alike that they are both in an unknown tongue Your Literal sense of Vniversal Bishop being in this case no more intelligible than your Latin-Prayers to a Country Congregation These things being thus clear I have prevented my self in the second Enquiry in that I have proved already that the Reasons which St. Gregory produceth hold against that sense of Vniversal Bishop which you own and contend for as of right belonging to the Bishop of Rome Although it were no difficult matter to prove that according to the most received Opinion in your Church viz. that all Jurisdiction in Bishops is derived from the Pope which opinion you cannot but know is most acceptable at Rome and was so at the Council of Trent that that which you call the Literal sense doth follow your Metaphorical i. e. If the Pope hath Vniversal Jurisdiction as Head of the Church then other Bishops are not properly Bishops nor Christ's Officers but his For what doth their power of order signifie as to the Church without the power of Jurisdiction And therefore if they be taken only in partem solicitudinis and not in plenitudinem potestatis according to the known distinction of the Court of Rome it necessarily follows that they are but the Pope's Officers and are taken just into so much authority as he commits to them and no more And this Bellarmine proves from the very form of the Pope's consecration of Bishops whereby he commits the power of governing the Church to him and the administration of it in spirituals and temporals And you may see by the speech of Father Laynez in the Council of Trent How stoutly he proves that the power of Jurisdiction was given wholly to the Bishop of Rome and that none in the Church besides hath any spark of it but from him that the Bishop of Rome is true and absolute Monarch with full and total power and Jurisdiction and the Church is subject unto him as it was to Christ. And as when his Divine Majesty did govern it it could not be said that any of the faithful had any the least power or Jurisdiction but meer pure and total subjection so it must be said in all perpetuity of time and so understood that the Church is a Sheepfold and a Kingdom And that he is the Only Pastor is plainly proved by the words of Christ when he said He hath other sheep which he will gather together and so one Sheepfold should be made and one Shepherd What think you now of the Literal sense of Vniversal Bishop for the Only Bishop Are not the Only Bishop and the Only Pastor all one Will not all those words of St. Gregory reach this which any of you make use of to prove that he takes it in the worst and Literal sense nay it goes higher For Gregory only argues that from the Title of Vniversal Bishop he must be sole Bishop and others could not be any true Bishops but here it is asserted in plain terms that the Bishop of Rome is the only Pastor and that as much as if Christ himself were here upon earth and therefore if your Literal sense hath any sense at all in it it is much more true of the Bishop of Rome than ever it could be of the Patriarch of Constantinople And therefore I pray think more seriously of what he saith That to agree in that prophane word is to lose the Faith That such a blasphemous name should be far from the hearts of Christians in which by the arrogance of one Bishop the honour of all is taken away Neither will it serve your turn to say which is all that you have to say that this is not the definitive sentence of your Church but that many in your Church hold otherwise That there is power of Jurisdiction properly in Bishops For although these latter are not near the number of the other nor so much in favour with your Church but are looked on as a discontented party as appears by the proceedings in the Council of Trent yet that is not it we are to look after What all in your Church are agreed on but what the Pope challengeth as belonging to himself Was not Father Laynez his Doctrine highly approved at Rome as well as by the Cardinal Legats at Trent and all the Italian party Were not the other party discountenanced and disgraced as much as might be Doth not the Pope arrogate this to himself to be Oecumenical Pastor and the sole Fountain of all Jurisdiction in the Church If so all that ever St. Gregory said against that Title falls most heavily upon the Pope For St. Gregory doth not stand upon what others attributed to him but what he arrogated to himself that therein he was the Prince of Pride the forerunner of Antichrist using a vain new rash foolish proud prophane erroneous wicked hypocritical singular presumptuous blaspemous Name For all these goodly Epithets doth S. Gregory bestow upon it and I believe if he could have thought of more and worse he would as freely have bestowed them If therefore John the Patriarch was said by him to transgress God's Laws violate the Canons dishonour the Church despise his Brethren imitate Lucifer How much more doth this belong to him that not only challengeth to be Oecumenical Patriarch but the sole Pastor of the Church and that all Jurisdiction is derived from him And by this time I hope you see that the Answer you say hath
in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome The ground of the Contest about this Title between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople Of the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon about the Popes Supremacy Of the Grammatical and Metaphorical sense of this Title Many arguments to prove it impossible that S. Gregory should understand it in the Grammatical sense The great absurdities consequent upon it S. Gregory's Reasons proved to hold against that sense of it which is admitted in the Church of Rome Of Irenaeus his opposition to Victor Victor's excommunicating the Asian Bishops argues no authority he had over them What the more powerful principality in Irenaeus is Ruffinus his Interpretation of the 6. Nicene Canon vindicated The Suburbicary Churches cannot be understood of all the Churches in the Roman Empire The Pope no Infallible Successour of S. Peter nor so acknowledged to be by Epiphanius S. Peter had no Supremacy of Power over the Apostles p. 422. CHAP. VII The Popes Authority not proved from Scripture or Reason The insufficiency of the proofs from Scripture acknowledged by Romanists themselves The impertinency of Luke 22.32 to that purpose No proofs offered for it but the suspected testimonies of Popes in their own cause That no Infallibility can thence come to the Pope as S. Peters Successour confessed and proved by Vigorius and Mr. White The weakness of the evasion of the Popes erring as a private Doctor but not as Pope acknowledged by them Joh. 21.15 proves nothing towards the Popes Supremacy How far the Popes Authority is owned by the Romanists over Kings C's beggings of the Question and tedious repetitions past over The Argument from the necessity of a living Judge considered The Government of the Church not Monarchical but Aristocratical The inconveniencies of Monarchical Government in the Church manifested from reason No evidence that Christ intended to institute such Government in his Church but much against it The Communicatory letters in the primitive Church argued an Aristocracy Gersons testimony from his Book de Auferibilitate Papae explained and vindicated S. Hieroms testimony full against a Monarchy in the Church The inconsistency of the Popes Monarchy with that of temporal Princes The Supremacy of Princes in Ecclesiastical matters asserted by the Scripture and Antiquity as well as the Church of England p. 451. CHAP. VIII Of the Council of Trent The Illegality of it manifested first from the insufficiency of the Rule it proceeded by different from that of the first General Councils and from the Popes Presidency in it The matter of Right concerning it discussed In what cases Superiours may be excepted against as Barties The Pope justly excepted against as a Party and therefore ought not to be Judge The Necessity of a Reformation in the Court of Rome acknowledged by Roman Catholicks The matter of fact enquired into as to the Popes Presidency in General Councils Hosius did not preside in the Nicene Council as the Popes Legat. The Pope had nothing to do in the second General Council Two Councils held at Constantinople within two years these strangely confounded The mistake made evident S. Cyril not President in the third General Council as the Popes Legat. No sufficient evidence of the Popes Presidency in following Councils The justness of the Exception against the place manifested and against the freedom of the Council from the Oath taken by the Bishops to the Pope The form of that Oath in the time of the Council of Trent Protestants not condemned by General Councils The Greeks and others unjustly excluded as Schismaticks The Exception from the small number of Bishops cleared and vindicated A General Council in Antiquiâ—y not so called from the Popes General Summons In what sense a General Council represents the whole Church The vast difference between the proceedings in the Council of Nice and that at Trent The Exception from the number of Italian Bishops justified How far the Greek Church and the Patriarch Hieremias may be said to condemn Protestants with an account of the proceedings between them p. 475. PART III. Of Particular Controversies CHAP. I. Of the Infallibility of General Councils HOw far this tends to the ending Controversies Two distinct Questions concerning the Infallibility and Authority of General Councils The first entred upon with the state of the Question That there can be no certainty of faith that General Councils are Infallible nor that the particular decrees of any of them are so which are largely proved Pighius his Arguments against the Divine Institution of General Councils The places of Scripture considered which are brought for the Churches Infallibility and that these cannot prove that General Councils are so Matth. 18.20 Act. 15.28 particularly answered The sense of the Fathers in their high expressions of the Decrees of Councils No consent of the Church as to their Infallibility The place of St. Austin about the amendment of former General Councils by latter at large vindicated No other place in St. Austin prove them Infallible but many to the contrary General Councils cannot be Infallible in the conclusion if not in the use of the means No such Infallibility without as immediate a Revelation as the Prophets and Apostles had taking Infallibility not for an absolute unerring Power but such as comes by a promise of Divine Assistance preserving from errour No obligation to internal assent but from immediate Divine Authority Of the consistency of Faith and Reason in things propounded to be believed The suitableness of the contrary Doctrine to the Romanists principles p. 505. CHAP. II. Of the Use and Authority of General Councils The denying the Infallibility of General Councils takes not away their Vse and Authority Of the submission due to them by all particular persons How far external obedience is required in case they erre No violent opposition to he made against them Rare Inconveniencies hinder not the effect of a just power It cannot rationally be supposed that such General Councils as are here meant should often or dangerously erre The true notion of a General Council explained The Freedom requisite in the proceedings of it The Rule it must judge by Great Difference between external obedience and internal assent to the Decrees of Councils This latter unites men in errour not the former As great uncertainties supposing General Councils Infallible as not Not so great certainty requisite for submission as Faith Whether the Romanists Doctrine of the Infallibility of Councils or ours tend more to the Churches peace St. Austin explained The Keyes according to him given to the Church No unremediable inconvenience supposing a General Council erre But errours in Faith are so supposing them Infallible when they are not The Church hath power to reverse the Decrees of General Councils The power of Councils not by Divine Institution The unreasonableness of making the Infallibility of Councils depend on the Popes Confirmation No consent among the Romanists about the subject of Infallibility whether in Pope or Councils No evidence from
Church i. e. who consent not in all things with the See Apostolick But lest these words being thus inserted by the Pope himself should be interpreted to the disadvantage of other Churches and particularly that of Constantinople The Patriarch makes a Preface to that Subscription by way of Protestation wherein after declaring the reception of the Popes letters and congratulating the hopes of Vnion he manifests his own desire of peace and his willingness to refuse the communion of all Hereticks For saith he I look on those most holy Churches of your elder and our new Rome as both making but one Church And after declaring his assent to the decrees of the four General Councils he adds That those who opposed them he judged fallen off à Sanct â Dei generali Apostolicâ Ecclesiâ from the holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Now when the Patriarch was thus careful to explain himself so as to assert that the Church of Rome and that of Constantinople made but one Church when he adds what he means by the Catholick Church viz. the truely General and Apostolical Church inferr as much from Hormisda's words as you will I am sure you can do little to your purpose from the Patriarchs taking them in the sense he explains himself in by this Protestation So that the meaning of them is only this that as he judged the Church of Rome a member of the Catholick Church whose Vnity required that those who were out of communion in one Church should be so with the rest so he consented to acknowledge them justly excommunicated whom the Church of Rome would have to be so So that hence nothing ariseth to your purpose more then will equally advance the authority of any other particular Church whose excommunications did oblige the whole Church as we have seen already in the case of Sinope and Ptolemais You proceed to another Testimony of St. Austin addressing himself to the Donatists telling them That the succession of the Roman Bishops is the rock which the proud gates of Hell overcome not thereby insinuating that the very succession of those Bishops is in some true sense the Catholick Church But from whence doth it appear that the succession of the Roman Bishops is the Rock here spoken of For St. Austin was there arguing against the Donatists and shewing them the danger of being separated from the unity of the Catholick Church that if they were cut off from the vine they would wither and be in danger to be cast into the fire and therefore exhorts them to come and be planted into the vine it being a grief to them to see them cut off Now in order to this he brings in the former words to acquaint them with the way whereby they might better understand the Catholick Church which could not in reason be confined to their own age but must be derived from the Apostles So that his counsel is of the same nature with that of Tertullian and Irenaeus who put men upon a diligent search into the successions of the Apostolical Churches But now when by this search they have found out the Catholick Church he tells them That is the Rock which the proud gates of hell cannot overcome For so elsewhere St. Austin calls the Catholick Church a Rock as he calls it likewise a House and a City in several places of these disputations against the Donatists As here before he calls it the Vine from whence all who are cut off wither and dye But what is all this to the particular Church of Rome which none of the Disputes with the Donatists at all concerned As is fully manifest from the whole management of that Controversie in which though he was so much put upon shewing what and where the Catholick Church was yet he never once expressed any such thing as that the Church was called Catholick from any relation to the Church of Rome but still mentions it as a particular Church which with other Churches made up one Catholick Church So in his Commentaries on the 44. Psalm Behold Rome saith he behold Carthage behold several other Cities these are Kings daughters and have delighted the King in his honour but they all make up but one Queen How incongruous had this expression been had St. Austin believed the Roman Church to be so much above all others that the ground why any others were called Catholick was from their union with her and therefore he must according to your principles have saluted the Church of Rome as the Queen of all the rest and made other particular Churches but as her daughters and hand-maids But St. Austin knew of no such difference but looked on all particular Churches whether at Rome Carthage or elsewhere as making up but one Catholick Church And to the same purpose he frequently speaks when he sayes That the Church is call'd One in regard of her Vnity and Many in regard from the several Societies of Christians abroad in the world When he calls the several Churches members of that one Church which is spread all over the world without setting any note of discrimination upon one above all the rest When he reckons the Roman Corinthian Galatian Ephesian Churches together and that all these and the Churches propagated from them do conspire in one Vniversal Church But the places are so many to this purpose in him that it would look too much like ostentation to offer to prove a matter so evident to all that read any thing in him And is it possible then for you to think That St. Austin made the succession of Bishops at Rome in any sense the Catholick Church You might as well say that he made the Church spread all over the world a particular Church as that he made any particular Church whether at Rome or elsewhere for he makes no difference to be in any sense the Vniversal Church But that which you seem to lay the greatest force on is the testimony of Optatus Milevitanus Who say you after he had said that St. Peter was head of all the Apostles and that he would have been a Schismatick who should have erected another chair against that singular one of St. Peter as also that in that chair of St. Peter being but one Vnity was to be kept by all he adds that with Syricius then Pope he himself was united in communion with whom the whole world saith he meaning the whole Catholick Church agrees by communicatory letters in one Society of communion See here say you how clearly he makes the union with the Bishop of Rome the measure of the Catholick Church which the Bishop calls a Jesuitism and further proves himself to be in the Catholick Church because he was in communion with the See of St. Peter For our better understanding the meaning of these words of Optatus we must consider the state of the Controversie between Optatus and Parmenianus by which it will appear how
by Martian and Valentinian And this is so clear that Bellarmine in his Recognitions confesseth his mistake about the Constantinopolitan Council being called by the Letters of Pope Damasus and acknowledges that to be true which I at large proved before That the Synodical Epistle was not sent by the General Council but by another the year after If then the calling of Councils belongs not of right to the Pope it is not his summoning which can make a General Council without mission and deputation from those Churches whom they are to represent And any other sense of a General Council is contrary to the sense of Antiquity and is forced and unreasonable in it self For it must be either absolutely general or by representation none ever imagined yet an absolutely General Council and therefore it must be so called as it doth represent if so then there is a necessity of such a deputation But here a Question might arise Whether those Deputies of Churches have power by their own votes to oblige the Churches they are sent from by conveying in a General Council or else only as they carry with them the sense of those Churches whom they represent and this latter seems more agreeable to the nature of a truly General Council whose acts must oblige the whole Church For that can only be said to be the act of the whole Church which is done by the Bishops delivering the sense of all particular Churches and it is not easie to understand How the Vniversal Church can be obliged any other way unless it be proved that General Councils are instituted by some positive Law of Christ so that what is done by the Bishops in them must oblige the Catholick Church and then we must find out not only the Institution it self but the way and manner how General Councils should be called of which the Scripture is wholly silent And therefore there is no reason that there should be any other General Council imagined but by such a representation and in order to this the consent of all those Churches must be known by the particular Bishops before they can concurr with others so as to make a General Council The most suitable way then to a General Council is that the Summons of them being published by the consent of Christian Princes every Prince may call together a National Synod in which the matters to be debated in the Council are to be discussed and the sense of that Synod fully declared which those Bishops who are appointed by it to go to the General Council are to carry with them and there to declare the sense of their particular Church and what all these Bishops so assembled do all agree in as the sense of the whole Church may be called the decree of a General Council Or in case some great impediment happen that such Bishops cannot assemble from all Churches but a very considerable number appearing and declaring themselves which upon the first notice of it is universally received by all particular Churches that may ex post-facto be called a General Council as it was with the first four Oecumenical Councils And yet that in them there was such a deputation as this is appears by that expression in the Synodical Epistle of the Bishops of Constantinople before mentioned for in that they give this account Why they could not do what the Western Bishops desired because they brought not with them the consent of the Bishops who remained at home to that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And concerning this only Council viz. at Constantinople have we brought the consent of those Bishops which remain in the Provinces So that they looked on the consent of the other Bishops to be necessary as well as their own But now if we examine your Council of Trent by this Rule How far is it from any appearance of a General Council What Bishops were there sent from the most of Christian Churches Those that did appear What equality and proportion was there among them For Voices in General Councils ought not to go by the number of Bishops but by the number of Churches so that if six were sent from the Church of England or France delivering the sense of that Church they come from they have equal Votes with the greatest number of Italian Bishops But here lay the great imposture of that Council first that the Councils being general depended upon the Popes general Summons though never so few Bishops appeared next that the Decrees of the Council were to be carried by most Voices and the Bishops to give their bare placet these things being thus laid when there was any fear that businesses would not go right it was but the Legats using some art in delaying it and sending intelligence to Rome and forty Bishops are made together and posted to Trent to help out the number of voices and thus it was in the case of the Institution and Residence of Bishops And this is that you call a General Council 2. To your other That what was wanting in number at first was made up at last when all former Decrees were confirmed by a full number of Bishops it is soon replied That this is as all the rest of the proceedings of that Council was but a meer Artifice For it appears by the History of that Council that in the last Session under Pius 4. a Proposition was made that all the Decrees under Paul and Julius should be approved which was opposed because they said it would be a derogation to the Authority of the Council of those times if it should seem that the things then done had need of a new confirmation of the Fathers and would shew that this and that was not all one because none can confirm his own things But upon the French Bishops earnest insisting upon it it was determined simply to read them and no more And Do you call this a confirming and ratifying them de novo So that for all appears by this last Session the Authority of those Decrees must as far as concerns the Council depend upon the number of the Bishops then present which was but very small certainly for a General Council there being not so many in most of the Sessions as were in the Donatists Council in Africa so far were they from the number of the ancient General Councils But here comes your grand Objection in the way That nothing is pretended by us against the Council of Trent which might not have been in effect as justly objected by the Arrians against the Council of Nice But Is not there easily discernable a vast disparity between these two which way soever we conceive them The one called by the Emperour who in person sate in the Council to prevent all disorders and clancular actions the other by the Pope who presided in it by his Legats and ordered all things by his directions In that of Nice the Arrian Bishops were as freely admitted to debate as
the Church may declare matters of Faith The testimony of St. Augustine vindicated Page 44. CHAP. III. The Absurdities of the Romanists Doctrine of Fundamentals The Churches Authority must be Divine if whatever she defines be Fundamental His Lordship and not the Testimony of S. Augustine shamefully abused three several wayes Bellarmin not mis-cited the Pelagian Heresie condemned by the General Council at Ephesus The Popes Authority not implyed in that of Councils The gross Absurdities of the distinction of the Church teaching and representative from the Church taught and diffusive in the Question of Fundamentals The Churches Authority and Testimony in matters of Faith distinguished The Testimony of Vincentius Lirinensis explained and shewed to be directly contrary to the Roman Doctrine of Fundamentals Stapleton and Bellarmin not reconciled by the vain endeavours used to that end Page 79. CHAP. IV. The Protestant Doctrine of Fundamentals vindicated The unreasonableness of demanding a Catalogue of Fundamentals The Creed contains the Fundamentals of Christian Communion The belief of Scripture supposed by it The Dispute concerning the Sense of Christs Descent into Hell and Mr. Rogers his Book confessed by T. C. impertinent With others of the same nature T. C. his fraud in citing his Lordships words Of Papists and Protestants Vnity The Moderation of the Church of England compared with that of Rome Her grounds of Faith justified Infant-Baptism how far proved out of Scripture alone Page 98. CHAP. V. The Romanists way of Resolving Faith The ill consequences of the resolution of Faith by the Churches Infallibility The grand Absurdities of it manifested by its great unreasonableness in many particulars The certain Foundations of Faith unsettled by it as is largely proved The Circle unavoidable by their new attempts The impossibility of proving the Church Infallible by the way that Moses Christ and his Apostles were proved to be so Of the Motives of Credibility and how far they belong to the Church The difference between Science and Faith considered and the new art of mens believing with their wills The Churches Testimony must be according to their principles the formal object of Faith Of their esteem of Fathers Scripture and Councils The rare distinctions concerning the Churches Infallibility discussed How the Church can be Infallible by the assistance of the Holy Ghost yet not divinely Infallible but in a manner and after a sort T.C. applauded for his excellent faculty in contradicting himself Page 109. CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of Tradition Of the unwritten Word and the necessary Ingredients of it The Instances for it particularly examined and disproved The Fathers Rule for examining Traditions No unwritten Word the Foundation of Divine Faith In what sense Faith may be said to be Divine Of Tradition being known by its own light and the Canon of the Scripture The â—estimony of the Spirit how far pertinent to this Controversie Of the use of Reason in the resolution of Faith C's Dialogue answered with another between himself and a Sceptick A twofold resolution of Faith into the Doctrine and into the Books Several Objections answered from the Supposition made of a Child brought up without sight of Scripture Christ no Ignoramus nor Impostor though the Church be not Infallible C's Blasphemy in saying otherwise The Testimonies of Irenaeus and S. Augustin examined and retorted Of the nature of Infallible Certainty as to the Canon of Scripture and whereon it is grounded The Testimonies produced by his Lordship vindicated p. 161. CHAP. VII The Protestant Way of resolving Faith Several Principles premised in order to it The distinct Questions set down and their several Resolutions given The Truth of matters of fact the Divinity of the Doctrine and of the Books of Scripture distinctly resolved into their proper grounds Moral Certainty a sufficient Foundation for Faith and yet Christian Religion proved to be infallibly true How Apostolical Tradition made by his Lordship a Foundation of Faith Of the Certainty we have of the Copies of Scripture and the Authority of them S. Augustine's Testimony concerning Church-Authority largely discussed and vindicated Of the private Spirit and the necessity of Grace His Lordship's Way of resolving Faith vindicated How far Scripture may be said to be known by its own Light The several Testimonies of Bellarmine Brierly and Hooker cleared p. 202. CHAP. VIII The Churches Infallibility not proved from Scripture Some general Considerations from the design of proving the Churches Infallibility from Scripture No Infallibility in the High-Priest and his Clergy under the Law if there had been no necessity there should be under the Gospel Of S. Basil's Testimony concerning Traditions Scripture less liable to corruptions than Traditions The great uncertainty of judging Traditions when Apostolical when not The Churches perpetuity being promised in Scripture proves not its Infallibility His Lordship doth not falsifie C's words but T. C. doth his meaning Producing the Jesuits words no traducing their Order C's miserable Apology for them The particular Texts produced for the Churches Infallibility examined No such Infallibility necessary in the Apostles Successours as in Themselves The Similitude of Scripture and Tradition to an Ambassadour and his Credentials rightly stated p. 235. CHAP. IX The Sense of the Fathers in this Controversie The Judgement of Antiquity enquired into especially of the three first Centuries and the reasons for it The several Testimonies of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and all the Fathers who writ in vindication of Christian Religion manifested to concurr fully with our way of resolving Faith C's Answers to Vincentius Lyrinensis à Gandavo and the Fathers produced by his Lordship pitifully weak The particulars of his 9th Chapter examined S. Augustine's Testimony vindicated C's nauseous Repetitions sent as Vagrants to their several homes His Lordships Considerations found too heavy for C's Answers In what sense the Scripture may be called a Praecognitum What way the Jews resolved their Faith This Controversie and the first part concluded p. 261 PART II. Of Schism CHAP. I. Of the Universal Church THe Question of Schism explained The nature of it enquired into Several general Principles laid down for clearing the present Controversie Three grounds of the charge of Schism on Protestant Churches by our Authour The first of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church entred upon How far the Roman Church may be said to be a true Church The distinction of a Church morally and metaphysically true justified The grounds of the Unity of the Catholick Church as to Doctrine and Government Cardinal Perron's distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church examined The true sense of the Catholick Church in Antiquity manifested from S. Cyprian and several cases happening in his time as the Schism of Novatianus at Rome the case of Felicissimus and Fortunatus Several other Instances out of Antiquity to the same purpose by all which it is manifest that the Unity of the Catholick Church had no dependence on the Church of Rome
understood till we have gone through the Account of the Grounds of Faith If S. Augustine make some no Catholick Christians for holding obstinately some things of no great moment in his Book of Heresies it was because by Catholick Christians he understood all such and only such as were the members of the sound and Orthodox Church in opposition to all kind of unnecessary separation from it upon matters of small moment and not because he believed the Churches Infallibility in defining all matters of Faith and that all such things were so defined which men are call'd Hereticks for denying of unless you will suppose it was ever infallibly defined that there were no Antipodes for some were accounted Hereticks for believing them and that by such whom you account greater than S. Austin But for S. Austin how far it was from his meaning to have all those accounted Fundamental Errours which he recounts in his Book of Heresies appears not only from the multitude of particulars mentioned in it which no one in his senses can acknowledge Fundamental or declared by the Church as necessary to be believed by all but from his declared scope and design in the preface to that Book wherein it appears he was desired not only to write the greater errours concerning Faith the Trinity Baptism Repentance Christ the Resurrection the Old and New Testament Sed omnia omnino quibus à veritate dissentiunt i. e. all kind of errours whatsoever and do you think that there could then be no errour but it must be against some thing then defined by the Church as necessary to Salvation If not then all truths were then defined by the Church and consequently there could be no new Definitions ever since if there might then those errours mentioned by S. Austin were not about matters necessary to be believed and so S. Austin's Book of Heresies makes nothing for you but very much against you considering that in all that black list of Hereticks there are none brought in for denying those grand Fundamentals of your Church the Pope's Supremacy your Churches Infallibility nor any of that new brood of necessary Articles which were so prudently hatcht by the Council of Trent But if S. Austin do you no good you hope S. Gregory Nazianzen may because he saith That nothing can be more perillous than those Hereticks who with a drop of poison do infect our Lord 's sincere Faith Therefore all things defined by the Church are Fundamental What an excellent Art this Logick is that can fetch out of things that which was never in them What a rare consequence is this If Heresie be dangerous then whatever is defined by the Church is Fundamental but it may be the strength lyes in the drop of poison as though S. Gregory thought a drop of poison as dangerous as a whole dose of it But were I your Physitian instead of the least drop of poison I should prescribe you good store of Hellebore and should hope to see the effect of it in making better consequences than these are But to see yet further the strange effects that Logick hath upon some men for say you in the prosecution of your proof that all things defined by the Church are Fundamental Hence it is that Christ our Saviour saith Matth. 8.17 If he will not hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen and a Publican The Argument in form runs thus Whosoever deserves excommunication is guilty of a Fundamental Errour but he that will not hear the Church deserves Excommunication ergo Or else there may be more in it than so For no doubt the Heathens and Publicans as such were guilty of Fundamental Errours therefore they who will not hear the Church are guilty of as Fundamental Errours as Heathens and Publicans But before you urge us any more with this dreadful Argument I pray tell us What that Church is which our Saviour speaks of what the cases are wherein the Church is to be heard what the full importance is of being as a Heathen and Publican and you must prove this Church to be understood in your sense of the Catholick Church and that this Church hath hereby power to define matters of Faith and that none can possibly in any other sense be accounted as Heathens and Publicans but as guilty of as Fundamental Errours as they were Your next Objection concerning giving God and the Church the lye and preferring and opposing a man's private judgement and will before and against the Judgement and Will of God and the Church if men deny or doubt of any thing made known by the Church to be a truth revealed by God signifies nothing at all unless it be antecedently proved that the Church can never erre in declaring any thing to be a truth revealed by God which none who know what you mean by the Church will easily assent to till you have attempted a further proof of it than yet we find And although the questioning Divine Veracity be destructive to that which you call Supernatural Faith yet I hope it is possible to believe God to be true and yet that all men are lyars or that there is no such inseparable Connexion between God's Veracity and the present Declarations of any Church but that one may heartily assent to the former and yet question the truth of the latter If you think otherwise shew your pity to the weakness of our understandings by something that may look like a proof of it which we are still much to seek for But your greatest strength like Sampson's seems to lye there where one would least suspect it viz. in Athanasius his Creed For thus you go on Wherefore it is said in S. Athanasius his Creed which is approved in the thirty nine Articles of the pretended English Church that Whosoever will be saved it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith which unless every one hold whole and inviolate without doubt he shall perish for ever Neither can the Bishop reply That all Points expressed therein are Fundamental in his sense for to omit the Article of our Saviours descent into Hell he mentions expresly the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son which his Lordship hath denyed to be a Fundamental Point as we saw in the former Chapter But the better to comprehend the force of this Argument we must first consider what it is you intend to prove by it and then in what way and manner you prove it from this Creed The matter which you are to prove is that all things defined by the Church are Fundamental i. e. in your sense necessary to Salvation and that the ground why such things whose matter is not necessary do become necessary is because the Church declares them to be revealed by God now in order to this you insist on the Creed commonly call'd Athanasius his wherein some things acknowledged not to be Fundamental in the matter are yet said to be necessary
ill founded which S. Austin is so far from supposing that one may do that he judges him a mad man who disputes against any thing quod universa Ecclesia sentit and that they have hearts not only of Stone but even of Devils who resist so great a manifestation of Truth as is made by an Oecumenical Council for of that he speaks Your design is to prove that S. Austin doth not admit of any plea from Scripture Sense or Reason against any Definitions of the Church for which you first produce that known place in which S. Austin accounts it madness to oppose the universal practices of the Church which will hold for your purpose as far as rites and matters of Faith have any Analogy with each other your latter Testimony seems more to the purpose to all persons who do not examine it and to none else For although you seemed very careful to prevent any examination of the place by a false citation of Epist. 153. for 152. yet that hath not hindered my discovering your fraud in asserting that S. Austin there speaks of an Oecumenical Council For there is not so much as any thing like it in that Epistle I acknowledge those words to be found there which you produce Nulla excusatio jam remansit nimium dura nimium diabolica sunt hominum corda quae adhuc tantae manifestationi veritatis obsistunt But there needs no more to confute the most of your Testimonies out of the Fathers but to mention the occasion of their being produced or the scope and design of the Authors as is most evident in this place For this Epistle is written in the name of Silvanus Valentinus Aurelius Innocentius Maximinus Optatus Augustinus Donatus and other Bishops for satisfaction of the Donatists concerning the proceedings at the Council of Carthage For the Donatist Bishops being therein baffled had dispersed among their Proselytes many false rumours of that Council and of their being circumvented by their Catholick Adversaries To disprove which in this Epistle they first shew the fraud and falsitie of the Donatists and then the Integrity of their own proceedings by the choice of seven persons on either side who should speak in behalf of the rest and seven others as Counsellors to them and four Notaries on either side and four other persons who should keep the Records to prevent all fraud Besides all this every one was to subscribe in his own words that no man might complain that any thing was corrupted afterwards which things being dispersed while the persons themselves lived there was no probability Posterity should be deceived in the report of them And then follow those words That no excuse hath now been left but that their hearts are too hard and diabolical who could gainsay so clear a manifestation of Truth Is it not now a rare consequence from hence to inferr That it is not lawful upon any ground of Scripture Sense or Reason to dispute the Definitions of General Councils Whereas no such thing was ever mentioned as a General Council as appears by the very next words where he sayes expresly it was only a Council of African Bishops and elsewhere S. Austin tells the Donatists that they never durst appeal to a General Council And supposing the Council never so Oecumenical he mentions nothing of the Definitions of it but the manner of its proceedings So that the greatest Truth hereby manifested is your design to abuse his Lordship and the Reader together Since you disown the distinction of things being Fundamental in the matter and in the manner I shall not trouble you with shewing you the weakness of it but it were easie to manifest it as good as that you embrace of the material and formal Object which hath been sufficiently refuted in the precedent chapter and I have no leisure for repetitions His Lordship endeavouring further to shew What little Foundation your Doctrine of Fundamentals hath in the forecited place of S. Augustine urgeth this as an Argument against it That if all Points defined by the Church are therefore Fundamental because that is not to be shaken which is setled by full Authority of the Church then it must follow That the Point there spoken of the remission of Original Sin in the Baptism of Infants was defined when S. Augustine wrote this by a full sentence of a General Council You deny the Consequence for say you By Authority of the Church you mean and not unproperly the Church generally practising this Doctrine and defining it in a National Council confirmed by the Pope For this was plena authoritas Ecclesiae though not plenissima and to dispute against what was so practised and defined is in S. Augustine's sense to shake the Foundation of the Church if not wholly to destroy it It seems a little hard to understand what you mean by the Churches being not unproperly said to practise this Doctrine What did the Church practise the Doctrine of the remission of Original Sin in Infants That a Church should practise a matter of Faith seems a little wonderful but that it should do this and that not unproperly increaseth the admiration And we might think it a peculiar priviledge belonging to your Church but that she is not so much used to practise things more capable of it And can you think it enough to run us down by telling us That the Pope with a National Council hath defined it unless you first prove that the Pope and a National Council have as much authority as a General Council which you pretend to be infallible and if a National Council with the Pope be so too I wonder to what end General Councils are ever call'd since the Infallibility may be had at a much cheaper rate And by the same reason you make National Councils Infallible you may do Provincial if the Pope concurrs with them and by the same reason the Colledge of Cardinals may be Infallible without any of them because of the Pope's concurrence with them And so all this business of Councils is but a formal piece of Pageantry since all the Infallibility they have by this pretence is conferred by the Pope in his concurrence whose Infallibility doth not depend on the presence of a Council and therefore he must be as Infallible without a Council as with it So that at last this Discourse comes to this issue He that shakes the Pope's Infallibility shakes the Foundation of the Church and prove but this to have been S. Augustine's meaning you will highly advance the interest of your cause But whatever S. Austin's meaning be you think your self engaged to vindicate Bellarmine who his Lordship had said was deceived in saying That the Pelagian Heresie was never condemned in an Oecumenical Council but only in Nationals For saith he While the Pelagians stood out impudently against National Councils some of them defended Nestorius which gave occasion to the first Ephesine Council to excommunicate and depose
are for he speaks of those things which all Christians who have a care of their Salvation are to avoid of such things as are contrary to all Antiquity and such kind of Dogmata I freely grant the Definitions of your Church to be Your second citation is as happy as the first cap. 28. Crescat saith he speaking of the Church sed in suo duntaxat genere in eodem scilicet Dogmate eodem sensu eâdemque sententiâ An excellent place no doubt to prove it in the Churches power to define new Articles of Faith because the Church must alwaies remain in the same Belief sense and opinion When his words but little foregoing are Profectus sit ille fidei non permutatio which without the help of English Lexicons you would willingly render by leaving out that troublesome Particle non that the best progress in Faith is by adding new Articles though it be as contrary to reason as it is to the sense of Vincentius Lerinensis If Vincentius saith that the Pelagians erred in Dogmate fidei which words neither appear cap. 24. nor 34. he gives this reason for it because they contradict the Vniversal sense of Antiquity and the Catholick Church cap. 34. So that still Vincentius where-ever he speaks of this Dogma fidei speaks in direct opposition to your sense of it for new definitions of the Church in matters of Faith There being scarce any book extant which doth more designedly overthrow this opinion of yours then that of Vincentius doth To shew therefore how much you have wronged his Lordship and what little advantage comes to your cause by your insisting on Vincentius his testimony I shall give a brief account both of his Design and Book The design of it is to shew what wayes one should use to prevent being deceived by such who pretend to discover new matters of Faith and those he assigns to be these two setling ones faith on the Authority of Scripture and the tradition of the Catholick Church But since men would enquire The Canon of Scripture being perfect and abundantly sufficient for all things what need can there be of Ecclesiastical tradition He answers For finding out the true sense of Scripture which is diversly interpreted by Novatianus Photinus Sabellius Donatus Arrius Eunomius Macedonius Apollinaris c. In the following Chapter he tells us what he means by this Ecclesiastical tradition Quod ubique quod semper ab omnibus creditum est that which hath Antiquity Vniversality and Consent joyning in the belief of it And can any new Definitions of the Church pretend to all or any of these He after enquires what is to be done in case a particular Church separates it self from the communion of the Catholick He answers We ought to prefer the health of the whole body before any pestiferous or corrupted member But in case any Novel Contagion should spread over not a part only but endanger the whole Church then saith he a man must adhere to Antiquity which cannot be deceived with a pretence of Novelty But if in Antiquity we find out the errour of two or three particular Persons or City or Province what is then to be done then saith he the Decrees of General Councils are to be preferred But in case there be none then he adds The general consent of the most approved writers of the Church is to be enquired after and what they all with one consent openly frequently constantly held writ and taught that let every man look on himself as bound to believe without hesitation Now then prove but any one of the new Articles of Faith in the Tridentine Confession by these rules of Vincentius and it will appear that you have produced his Testimony to some purpose else nothing will be more strong and forcible against all your pretences than this discourse of Vincentius is which he inlarges by the examples of the Donatists Arrians and others in the following Chapters in which still his scope is to assert Antiquity and condemn all Novelties in matters of Faith under any pretext whatsoever For this ch 12 14. he cites a multitude of Texts of Scripture forbidding our following any other Doctrine but what was delivered by Christ and his Apostles and Anathematizing all such as such as should Preach any other Gospel and concludes that with this remarkable speech It never was never is never will be lawful to propose any thing as matter of Faith to Christian Catholicks besides what they have received And it was is and will be becoming Christians to Anathematize all such who declare any thing but what they have received Do you think this man was not of your minde in the Doctrine of Fundamentals could he do otherwise then believe it in the Churches power to define things necessary to Salvation who would have all those Anathematized who pretend to declare any thing as matter of Faith but what they received as such from their Ancestours And after he hath at large exemplified this in the Photinian Nestorian Apollinarian Heresies and shewed how little the Authority of private Doctors how excellent soever is to be relyed on in matters of faith he concludes again with this Whatsoever the Catholick Church held universally that and that alone is to be held by particular persons And after admires at the madness blindness perverseness of those who are not contented with the once delivered and ancient rule of Faith but are still seeking new things and alwaies are itching to add alter take away some thing of Religion or matter of Faith As though that were not a Heavenly Doctrine which may suffice to be once revealed but an earthly institution which cannot be perfect but by continual correction and amendment Is not this man now a fit person to explain the sense of your Churches new Definitions and Declarations in matters of Faith And have not you hit very right on this sense of Dogma when here he understands by it that Doctrine of Faith which is not capable of any addition or alteration And thus we understand sufficiently what he means by the present controverted place that if men reject any part of the Catholick Doctrine they may as well refuse another and another till at last they reject all By the Catholick Doctrine or Catholicum dogma there he means the same with the Coeleste dogma before and by both of them understands that Doctrine of Faith which was once revealed by God and which is capable of no addition at all having Antiquity Vniversality and Consent going along with it and when you can prove that this Catholicum dogma doth extend beyond those things which his Lordship calls Catholick Maxims or properly Fundamental Truths you will have done something to the purpose which as yet you have failed in And thus we say Vincentius his rule is good though we do not say that he was infallible in the application of it but that he might mention some such things to
That the external accidents might remain where the substance was changed Now therefore when the Assurance of Christian Religion came from the judgement of the Senses of those who were Eye-witnesses of the Miracles and the Resurrection of Christ if the Senses of men may be so grosly deceived in the proper Objects of them in the case of Transubstantiation what assurance could they themselves have who were Eye-witnesses of them and how much less assurance can we have who have all our Evidence from the certainty of their report So that it appears upon the whole that take away the certainty of the judgement of Sense you destroy all Certainty in Religion for Tradition only conveys to us now what was originally grounded upon the judgement of Sense and delivers to us in an undoubted manner that which the Apostles saw and heard And do not you then give a very good account of Religion by the Infallibility of your Church when if I believe your Church to be infallible I must by vertue of that Infallibility believe something to be true which if it be true there can be no certainty at all of the Truth of Christian Religion 2. Another principle is That we can have no certainty of any of the grounds of Faith but from the Infallibility of your present Church Whereby you do these two things 1. Destroy the obligation to Faith which ariseth from the rational evidence of Christian Religion 2. Put the whole stress of the truth of Christianity upon the proofs of your Churches Infallibility by which things any one may easily see what tendency your doctrine of resolving Faith hath and how much it designs the overthrow of Christianity 1. You destroy the obligation to Faith from the rational evidence of Christian Religion by telling men as you do expresly in the very Title of your next Chapter That there can be no unquestionable assurance of Apostolical Tradition but for the infallible authority of the present Church If so then men cannot have any unquestionable assurance that there was such a Person as Christ in the world that he wrought such great miracles for confirmation of his Doctrine that he dyed and rose again it seems we can have no assurance of these things if the present Church be not Infallible And if we can have no assurance of them what obligation can lye upon us to believe them for assurance of the matters of fact which are the foundations of Faith is necessary in order to the obligation to believe I mean such an assurance as matters of fact are capable of for no higher can be required then the nature of things will bear And what a strange assertion then is this that matters of fact cannot be conveyed to us in an unquestionable manner unless the present Church stamp her Infallibility upon them Cannot we have an unquestionable assurance that there were such persons as Caesar and Pompey and that they did such and such things without some infallible testimony if we may in such things why not in other matters of fact which infinitely more concern the world to know then whatever Caesar or Pompey did But this will be more at large examined afterwards I only now take notice of the consequence of this principle and how fairly it destroyes all rational evidence of the truth of our Religion which whosoever takes away will be by force of reason a Sceptick in the first place and an Infidel in the second Neither is the danger meerly in destroying the rational evidence of Religion but 2. In putting the whole weight of Religion upon the proofs of the present Churches infallibility which whosoever considers how silly and weak they are cannot sufficiently wonder at the design of those men who put the most excellent Religion in the world and which is built upon the highest and truest reason to such a strange kind of Ordeal tryal that if she pass not through this St. Winifreds needle her innocency must be suspected and her truth condemned So that whosoever questions the truth of this kind of Purgation will have a greater suspition of a juggle and imposture if she be acquitted then if she had never submitted to such a tryal And when we come to examine the proofs brought for this Infallibility it will then further appear what uncertainty in Religion men are betrayed to under this confident pretext of Infallibility Thus we see what Scepticism in Religion the principles owned upon the account of Infallibility do bring men to 3. When you have brought men to this that the only sure ground of Faith is the Infallibility of your Church you are not able to give them any satisfactory account at all concerning it but plunge them into greater uncertainties then ever they were in before For you can neither satisfie them what that Church is which you suppose Infallible what in that Church is the proper subject of this Infallibility what kind of Infallibility this is nor how we should know when the Church doth decide Infallibly and when not and yet every one of these questions is no less then absolutely necessary to be resolved in order to the satisfaction of mens minds as to the foundation of their Faith 1. You cannot satisfie men What that Church is which you suppose to be Infallible Certainly if you had a design to give men a certain foundation for their Faith you would not be so shy of discovering what it is you understand by that Church which you would have Infallible if you had meant honestly the first thing you should have done was to have prevented all mistakes concerning the meaning of the Church when you know what various significations it hath not only in Scripture but among your selves Whether you mean the Church essential representative or vertual for every one of these upon occasion you make use of and it was never more necessary to have explained them then in this place and yet you with wonderful care and industry avoid any intimation of what you mean by that Church which you would prove Infallible When you plead so earnestly for the Churches Infallibility I pray tell us what you mean by the Church do you intend the truly Catholick and Vniversal Church which comprehends in it all such as own and profess the Doctrine of Christ in which sense it was well said by Abulensis Ecclesia universalis nunquam errat quia nunquam tota errat The universal Church never erres because the whole Church is never deceived Or do you mean by your Catholick Church some particular part of it to which you apply the name of Catholick not for Vniversality of extent but soundness of Doctrine then it will be necessary yet further to shew what part of the Church that is by what right and title that hath engrossed the name of Catholick so as to exclude other Societies of Christians from it and whether you must not first prove the absolute integrity and soundness of her Doctrine before
you can attribute this title to it For otherwise you will find that marvellously true which the same Tostatus saith Ecclesia Latinorum non est Ecclesia Vniversalis sed quaedam pars ejus ideò etiamsi tota ipsa errâsset non errabat Ecclesia Vniversalis quia manet Ecclesia Vniversalis in partibus illis quae non errant sive illae sint numero plures quà m errantes sive non So that if you prove the Infallibility of the Catholick Church this proves nothing at all as to the Roman Church which at most can be supposed to be but a part of it and though that should err the Catholick Church might not err because that remains in those parts which err not though they be more or less in number then those that err This is the sense of his words who seemed to have a much truer conception of the Vniversal Church than those now of your Sect and Party If then we may believe the Church to be infallible and yet in the mean time condemn your Church for the grossest Errours Will it not be found necessary for you to tell us yet more distinctly What you mean by the Church you would prove Infallible But supposing that only those parts you esteem Catholick make up the Catholick Church even among them the Question will still return What you mean by this Catholick Church Do you mean all the Individual Persons in this number taken either distributively or collectively or Do you mean all those who are entrusted with the Government of these and then Whether all Inferiour Pastors or only Bishops And if Bishops Whether all these collectively or else by way of Representation in a Council and still remember to make it good that what you pitch upon as the acception of the Church be not an effect of humane Policy as Albertus Pighius said All Councils were no more but that what you fasten the acception of the Church-Catholick upon you be sure to make it out that is the Catholick Church to whom the Promises are made in Scripture And be sure to tell us How a Church comes to be infallible by Representation Whether as they who make the Church representative deliver the sense of the Church they represent or by an immediate Promise made to them upon their Convention If the former Whether it will not be necessary in order to the Infallibility of the Council to know that it speaks the sense of all those particular Churches whom they represent If the latter you must remember such places as belong to them as representing the Church for otherwise any company of Christians assembled together will challenge an equal interest in them and then you will find it a hard matter to prove one infallible and not the other But if after all this your Windmill should dwindle into a Nutcracker and this harangue concerning the Infallibility of the Catholick Church should at last end in one particular Person which by a strange Catachresis must be call'd the Church or else as Heir at Law to her doth take possession of all her priviledges Then the Testament must be produced wherein he is named so and those clauses especially wherein the rights and priviledges of her are devolved over to him and his Heirs for ever There being then so much ambiguity and uncertainty in the very name of the Church-Catholick which you would prove infallible that if nothing else discovered your Imposture yet this would sufficiently that you would undertake to resolve Mens Faith by the Infallibility of the Church and yet never offer to shew what that Church is 2. Supposing you had shewn what the Church is yet you never tell us what the subject of Infallibility is in that Church For when in this case you speak of Infallibility you must remember you are not to shew what that Church is which is not deceived in judging concerning things necessary to Salvation but what that Church is which is infallible in her Direction of others to Salvation For you speak of such an Infallibility as must be a Guide to others and whose infallible judgement must be known to all such who must resolve their Faith into her Testimony You would have done then no more than was absolutely necessary to have precisely shewn us where this infallibility is lodged in your Church whether in Pope or Council or both together I suppose it can be no news either to you or to the Reader what Controversies there are among the greatest of your side whether the Pope or Council be the greater and to whom this Infallibility belongs neither are either side fully agreed in their own way for some that are for the Infallibility of a general Council will make that infallible without the Pope others account that opinion if not haeretical the next step to it Those who are for the Pope's Infallibility are not agreed neither when he shall be said to be infallible They who speak Oracles tell us when he doth define ex Cathedrâ but what that is neither they nor we can well tell some say it is when he hath a Congregation of chosen Cardinals about him others make the whole Colledge of Cardinals necessary and therefore some in the late Definition concerning the Jansenists were refractory because it was defined only by a Congregation of chosen Cardinals which they said was not defining ex Cathedrâ some again make neither of these necessary but suppose the Infallibility lodged in the Pope himself And are we not at a fine pass for the certainty of our Faith if it must rely upon the infallible Testimony of your Church and yet you your selves not at all agreed to whom this Infallible Testimony doth belong Think not that we will be put off with that silly evasion That these differences among you hinder not the certainty of Faith because it is not de fide either way For 1. How shall we come to know among you what is de fide and what not till you are agreed to whom this Infallibility belongs And if it belongs to a general Council then it is de fide for it was determined at the Council of Basil in behalf of the Council and therefore if one of the opinions be true it must be de fide for I suppose you make that to be so which is determined by the infallible Testimony of your Church 2. How shall a man believe that any thing at all is de fide among you if that on which your Faith is to rest be not de fide For supposing a difference to happen which hath often done between the Pope and Council and they decree contrary things to each other if it be not de fide to believe either the one or the other distinctly to be infallible upon what Testimony at such a time must that which supposeth the infallible Testimony of your Church rely 3. If it be said not to be de fide because not determined by the same reason your Churches
Catholick Church may be easily discerned which it is plain from the proceedings in it were as in all such emergent cases what should be determined and agreed on by the consent of the Catholick Church i. e. of those Churches which all consented in the same Catholick Faith and therefore made up one Catholick Church Now if the Church of Rome had been the center of Ecclesiastical communion and had infused Catholick unity into the Church at this time what way or possibility had there been for restoring the Churches unity Neither was the appeal made to forraign Churches meerly because Rome it self was divided and so the Controversie could not be ended there but it appears from the whole story of the proceedings that this was looked on as the proper means for preserving the unity of the Catholick Church at that time when the Faith and communion of the Apostolical Churches were so fully known and distinguished from all others These things will more fully appear from St. Cyprians Epistle to Antonianus upon the occasion of this Schism Who it seems at first adhered to Cornelius and with him to the Catholick Church not as though his joyning with Cornelius was the cause of his being with the Catholick Church but because in joyning with him he joyned with the Catholick Church which declared for him but it seems afterwards by some Letters of Novatianus he began to stagger and desires Cyprian to give him an account what Heresie Novatianus broached and what the reason was why Cornelius communicated with the lapsed persons As to which particulars he endeavours to satisfie him and withall to give an account why they joyned with Cornelius in opposition to Novatianus and what the practise of the Church was as to lapsed persons and on what reasons it was built wherein he tells him That though some of their own Bishops had formerly denyed communion to lapsed persons yet they did not recede from the Vnity of the Catholick Church or communion of their Fellowships because by them they were admitted For saith he the bond of concord remaining and the communion of the Catholick Church continuing every Bishop orders and disposeth his own actions as one that must give an account of his design to God Doth St. Cyprian here speak like one that believed the Church of Rome to be the center of Ecclesiastical communion or that the unity of the Church lay in acknowledging the Pope to be Christs Vicar or in dependence on the Church of Rome when every Bishop is left to himself and God in all such things which he may do and yet hold communion with the Catholick Church And therefore afterwards he tells us That there is one Church divided into many members throughout the world and one Episcopal office spread abroad by the consenting multitude of many Bishops If this Church be one in this sense and the whole Government of the Church but as one Bishoprick as all the Bishops unanimously consent in the management of it then here is not the least foundation for the Catholick Churches taking its denomination causally from the Roman Church and much less for the Bishops having dependence on her or relation to her Since the care and government of the Church by these words of Cyprian appears to be equally committed to all the Bishops of the Catholick Church And from thence it was that in this Epistle we read that St. Cyprian writ to the Church of Rome after the death of Fabianus to advise them what to do in the case of lapsed persons which letters of his were sent through the world which Rigaltius well observes did arise from that unity of Ecclesiastical discipline whereby Cyprian not doubting but the care of all Churches was upon him dispatched these letters to the Clergy at Rome from whence they were sent through the Catholick Church as an evidence that there was but one Episcopal office in the whole Church part of which was committed in full power to every Bishop Thus we see a quite different account given of the unity of the Catholick Church than what you from Cardinal Perron would perswade us of It being an easie matter for men of wit and parts especially such as that great Cardinal was master of to coyn distinctions to make the most absurd things seem plausible but yet when they come to be examined they are found to have no other bottom but the invention of that person who coined them And that it is so as to this distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church will be further evident from another case which happened in St. Cyprians time which was this Felicissimus and Fortunatus being cast out of communion by a Synod of African Bishops when they saw they could do little good in Africa run over to Rome and bring letters to Cornelius the Bishop there misrepresenting the whole business of their being ejected out of the Church on purpose to perswade Cornelius to admit them into communion Who at first being unwilling to hearken to them was at last by their threats and menaces brought to receive their letters Upon which St. Cyprian writes an Epistle to Cornelius wherein he tells him That if the threats of such profligate persons should relax the Churches discipline all the power and strength of it would be soon taken away that the ground of all Schism and Heresie arises from disobedience to the Bishop Certainly he doth not mean the Bishop of Rome but every Bishop in the Catholick Church for it was not Cornelius but Cyprian and the African Bishops who were disobeyed upon which he falls upon the matter of their appeal to a forraign Church and after some fair commendations of the Church of Rome the meaning of which will be afterwards examined he very sharply condemns these appeals to forraign Churches as unreasonable unjust and dishonourable to those Bishops whose sentence they appealed from For What cause saith he could these persons have of coming and declaring against their Bishops For either they are pleased in what they have done and continue in their wickedness or if they are displeased at it and recede from it they know whither to return For since it is decreed by us all and it is a thing just and reasonable in it self that every ones cause be heard where the fault was committed and every Pastour hath a part of the flock committed to him which he is to rule and govern as being to give an account of it to God it is requisite that those whom we rule over ought not to run about and break the concord of Bishops by their headdiness and subtilty but there to defend their cause where they may have accusers and witnesses of their faults Vnless it be that to a few desperate and profligate persons the authority of the Bishops of Africa seems less to them who have already sate in judgement upon them and solemnly condemned them lately for their crimes Can any thing be more express
considering them any further than hath been done already in the very entrance into this Conference And here you tell us You now come to perform your Promise viz. to examine more fully his Lordships pretended solutions as you call them of Bellarmine 's authorities in behalf of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome But for all your boasting at first what great things you would do you seem a little fearful of engaging too far and therefore are resolved only to maintain them in general as they make for the Infallible Authority of the Church or of the Pope defining Articles of Faith in a General Council But as far as you dare go I shall attend your motions and doubt not to make it evident that none of these authorities have any reference to that sense which you only offer to maintain them in and that though they had yet no such thing as Infallibility can be proved out of them The first authority is out of S. Cyprian's Letter to Cornelius Bishop of Rome whose words I am contented should be recited as fully as may be In which he chargeth Felicissimus and Fortunatus with their complices that having set up a Bishop against him at Carthage they sail to the chair of Peter and the principal Church from whence the sacerdotal Vnity had its rise and carry Letters from prophane and Schismatical persons not considering that the Romans whose Faith was commended by the Apostle were such to whom perfidiousness could not have access Now the meaning of this place you would have to be this and no other viz. that the See of S. Peter which is the principal of all Churches was so infallibly directed by the Holy Ghost that no errour in Faith could have access to it or be admitted by it if not as a particular Church yet at least as the Head of the Vniversal Church of Christ and as the Fountain of Priestly Vnity which S. Cyprian here expresly affirms that Church and See to be This you summe up at last as the most which can be made of this Testimony and which is indeed far more in all particulars than it can amount to Which will appear by particular examinations of what you return in answer to his Lordship Three things his Lordship answers to this place 1. That perfidia can hardly stand here for errour in Faith and if so then this can make nothing for Infallibility 2. That supposing it granted to signifie errour in Faith and Doctrine yet it belongs not to the Romans absolutely but with a respect to those first Romans whose Faith was commended by the Apostle 3. That it seems to be rather a Rhetorical insinuation than a dogmatical assertion And that S. Cyprian could not be supposed to assert herein the Popes Infallibility appears by the contracts between him and the Bishops of Rome This is the short of his Lordships answers to this place to which we must consider what you reply 1. His Lordship sayes That perfidia can hardly stand for errour in Faith or misbelief but it properly signifies malicious falshood in matter of trust and action not error in Faith but in fact against the discipline and Government of the Church And to make this interpretation appear the more probable his Lordship gives an account of the story which was the occasion of writing that Epistle which is this as his Lordship reports it from Binius and Baronius In the year 255. there was a Council in Carthage in the cause of two Schismaticks Felicissimus and Novatian about restoring of them to the communion of the Church which had lapsed in time of danger from Christianity to Idolatry Felicissimus would admit all even without penance and Novatian would admit none no not after penance The Fathers 42 in number went as Truth led them between both extreams To this Council came Privatus a known Heretick but was not admitted because he was formerly excommunicated and often condemned Hereupon he gathers his Complices together and chooses one Fortunatus who was formerly condemned as well as himself Bishop of Carthage and set him up against St. Cyprian This done Felicissimus and his Fellows haste to Rome with letters testimonial from their own party and pretend that 25 Bishops concurred with them and their desire was to be received into the communion of the Roman Church and to have their new Bishop acknowledged Cornelius then Pope though their haste had now prevented St. Cyprians letters having formerly heard from him both of them and their Schism in Africk would neither hear them nor receive their letters They grew insolent and furious the ordinary way that Schismaticks take Vpon this Cornelius writes to St. Cyprian and St. Cyprian in this Epistle gives Cornelius thanks for refusing these African fugitives declares their Schism and wickedness at large and encourages him and all Bishops to maintain the Ecclesiastical Discipline and censures against any the boldest threatnings of wicked Schismaticks This being the story his Lordship sayes He would fain know why perfidia all circumstances considered may not stand here in its proper sense for cunning and perfidious dealing which these men having practised at Carthage thought now to obtrude upon the Bishop of Rome also but that he was wary enough not to be over-reached by busie Schismaticks This demand of his Lordship seeming very just and reasonable we are bound to consider what reasons you give why perfidia must be understood for errour in Faith and not in the sense here mentioned Why calls he say you St. Peters chair Ecclesiam principalem the chief Church but because it is the head to which all other Churches must be subordinate in matter of doctrine the words following signifie as much Unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est from which chair of St. Peter as it were from its fountain unity in Priesthood and consequently unity in Faith is derived Why brings he the Apostle as Panegyrist of the Roman Faith Is it forsooth because no malicious falshood in matter of trust or errour in fact against the Discipline and Government of the Church can have access unto them as the Bishop will needs misinterpret the place or rather because no errour in Faith can approach the See Apostolick Certain it is perfidia in this sense is diametrically opposed to the Faith of the Romans immediately before commended by the Apostle which was true Christian Faith and consequently it must of necessity be taken for the quite contrary viz. misbelief or errour in Faith Three Arguments in these words you produce why perfidia must be understood of errour in Faith 1. Because the Church of Rome is called the chief Church but is it not possible it should be called so in any other sense but as the head of all other Churches in matter of doctrine Is it not sufficiently clear from Antiquity that there were other accounts of calling the Church of Rome the chief or principal Church as the eminency of it joyned
laudando praecipere by commending them to be such instruct them that such indeed they ought to be to whom perfidiousness should not get access And for this he instanceth in such another Rhetorical expression of Synesius to Theophilus of Alexandria wherein he tells him that he ought to esteem what his Throne should determine as an Oracle or Divine Law And certainly this comes nearer Infallibility than that of St. Cyprian doth But what inconveniency there should be that St. Cyprian by this interpretation should give no more prerogative to the Church of Rome than to that of Alexandria or Antioch I cannot easily imagine till you prove some greater Infallibility attributed then to the Church of Rome than was to other Apostolical Churches which as yet we are to seek for But at length you tell us after much ado he grants perfidia may be taken for errour in Faith or for perfidious misbelievers and Schismaticks who had betrayed their Faith but then say you he cavils with the word Romanos This must be limited only to those Christians who then lived in Rome to whom quà tales as long as they continued such errour in Faith could not have access What you say his Lordship doth at length and after much ado he did freely and willingly but that you might have occasion for those words you altered the course of his answers and put the second in the last place But still you have the unhappiness to misunderstand him For although he grants that perfidia may relate to errour in Faith yet as it is here used it is not understood of it abstractly but concretely for perfidious misbelievers i. e. such perfidious persons excommunicated out of other Churches were not likely to get access at Rome or to find admittance into their communion And in this sense it is plain that St. Cyprian did not intend by these words to exempt the Romans from possibility of errour but to brand his adversaries with a title due to their merit calling them perfidious i. e. such as had betrayed or perverted the Faith When you therefore ask is not this great praise I suppose none but your self would make a question of it viz. that the Church of Rome had then so great purity as not to admit such perfidious misbelievers into her communion And it were well if the present Church of Rome were capable of the same praise But when you add It is as if St. Cyprian should say St. Peters See could not erre so long as it continued constant in the truth you wilfully misunderstand his Lordships meaning who speaks of the persons and not meerly of their errours but however is it not a commendation to say that the Church of Rome consisted of such persons then who adhered to the Apostolical Faith and therefore errour could not have access to them And I look on it as so great a commendation that I heartily wish it could be verified of your Church now Neither is this any such Identical proposition as that you produce but only a declaration of their present constancy and inferring thence how unlikely it was that errours should be admitted by them His Lordship to make it plain that St. Cyprian had no meaning to assert the unerring Infallibility of either Pope or Church of Rome insists on the contest which after happened between St. Cyprian and Pope Stephen upon which he saith expresly That Pope Stephen did not only maintain an errour but the very cause of Hereticks and that against Christians and the very Church of God And after this he chargeth him with obstinacy and presumption And I hope this is plain enough saith his Lordship to shew that St. Cyprian had no great opinion of the Roman Infallibility To this you answer With a famous distinction of the Popes erring as a private Doctor and as the Vniversal Pastor and that St. Cyprian might very well be supposed to think the Pope erred only in the first sense Not to spend time in rifling this distinction of the Popes erring personally but not judicially or as a private Doctor but not as Vniversal Pastor which it were an easie matter to do by manifesting the incongruity of it and the absurdities consequent upon it in case that doctrine which the Pope erres in comes to be judicially decided by him It is sufficient for us at present to shew that this distinction cannot relieve you in our present case For your Doctors tell us the Pope then erres personally and as a private Doctor when he erres only in his own judgement without obliging others to believe what he judges to be true but then he erres judicially and as Vniversal Pastor when he declares his judgement so as to oblige others to receive it as true Now can any thing be more evident then that St. Cyprian judged Pope Stephen to erre in this latter and not in the former sense For doth he not absolutely and severely declare himself against St. Cyprians opinion condemning it as an errour and an innovation But say you He did not properly define any doctrine in that contestation but said nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum But was not that the question what was traditum and what not for Cyprian and his party denyed it to be a tradition which Stephen asserted was so and doth he not therefore undertake to define something in this cause But say you If this argument hold good against the Infallibility of Popes viz. that St. Cyprian held Pope Stephen erred therefore the Pope may erre in matters of Faith it will be a good consequence also to say St. Cyprian held Pope Stephen erred even whilst he maintained an universal immemorial tradition therefore the Pope may erre whilst he follows such a tradition I answer 1. Who besides you would not have seen that the question was not Whether the Pope was Infallible or no but whether St. Cyprian judged him to be Infallible or no for if it appear that St. Cyprian did not judge him Infallible then those former words cannot be interpreted to such a sense as doth imply Infallibility 2. No doubt if the Pope may err in other things he may err when he thinks he follows an universal immemorial tradition not that he doth err when he doth really follow such a one but he may err in judging that to be an universal immemorial tradition which is not and this was the case between St. Cyprian and Pope Stephen the Pope pretended to follow an universal tradition St. Cyprian judgeth him to err in it and that it was not so And is it not plain still notwithstanding these frivolous pretences that St. Cyprian had no opinion at all of the Popes Infallibility in any sense and therefore out of honour to him you are bound to interpret his former words to some other sense then that of any Infallibility in the Church of Rome Thus all his Lordships answers standing good you have gained no great matter by this first testimony of St.
most part yet living These are your assertions and because you seek not to prove them it shall be sufficient to oppose ours to them Our assertion therefore is that the Church and Court of Rome are guilty of this Schism by obtruding erroneous Doctrines and superstitious practises as the conditions of her Communion by adding such Articles of Faith which are contrary to the plain rule of Faith and repugnant to the sense of the truly Catholick and not the Roman Church by her intolerable incroachments and usurpations upon the liberties and priviledges of particular Churches under a vain pretence of Vniversal Pastourship by forcing men if they would not damn their souls by sinning against their consciences in approving the errours and corruptions of the Roman Church to joyn together for the Solemn Worship of God according to the rule of Scripture and practise of the Primitive Church and suspending Communion with that Church till those abuses and corruptions be redressed In which they neither deny obedience to any Lawful Authority over them nor take to themselves any other Power than the Law of God hath given them receiving their Authority in a constant Succession from the Apostles they institute no Rites and Ceremonies either contrary to or different from the practise of the Primitive Church they neither exclude or dispossess others of their Lawful Power but in case others neglect their office they may be notwithstanding obliged to perform theirs in order to the Churches Reformation Leaving the Supreme Authority of the Kingdome or Nation to order and dispose of such things in the Church which of right appertain unto it And this we assert to be the case of Schism in reference to the Church of England which we shall make good in opposition to your assertions where we meet with any thing that seems to contradict the whole or any part of it These and the like practises of yours to use your own words not any obstinate maintaining any erroneous Doctrines as you vainly pretend we averre to have been the true and real causes of that separation which is made between your Church and Ours And you truly say That Protestants were thrust out of your Church which is an Argument they did not voluntarily forsake the Communion of it and therefore are no Schismaticks but your carriage and practises were such as forced them to joyn together in a distinct Communion from you And it was not we who left your Church but your Church that left her Primitive Faith and Purity in so high a manner as to declare all such excommunicate who will not approve of and joyn in her greatest corruptions though it be sufficiently manifest that they are great recessions from the Faith Piety and Purity of that Roman Church which was planted by the Apostles and had so large a commendation from the Apostolical men of those first ages Since then such errours and corruptions are enforced upon us as conditions of Communion with you by the same reason that the Orthodox did very well in departing from the Arrians because the Arrians were already departed from the Church by their false Doctrine will our separation from you be justified who first departed from the Faith and Purity of the Primitive Church and not only so but thrust out of your Communion all such as would not depart from it as farr as you Having thus considered and retorted your Assertions we come to your Answers Nor say you does the Bishop vindicate the Protestant party by saying The cause of Schism was ours and that we Catholicks thrust Protestants from us because they call'd for truth and redress of abuses For first there can be no just cause of Schism this hath been granted already even by Protestants And so it is by us and the reason is very evident for it for if there be a just cause there can be no Schism and therefore what you intend by this I cannot imagine unless it be to free Protestants from the guilt of Schism because they put the Main of their tryal upon the justice of the cause which moved them to forsake the Communion of your Church or else you would have it taken for granted that ours was a Schism and thence inferr there could be no just cause of it As if a man being accused for taking away the life of one who violently set upon him in the High-way with an intent both to rob and destroy him should plead for himself that this could be no murther in him because there was a sufficient and justifiable cause for what he did that he designed nothing but to go quietly on his road that this person and several others violently set upon him that he intreated them to desist that he sought to avoid them as much as he could but when he saw they were absolutely bent on his ruine he was forced in his own necessary defence to take away the life of that person Would not this with any intelligent Jury be looked on as a just and reasonable Vindication But if so wise a person as your self had been among them you would no doubt have better informed them for you would very gravely have told them All his plea went on a false supposition that he had a just cause for what he did but there could be no just cause for murther Do you not see now how subtil and pertinent your Answer is here by this parallel to it For as in that case all men grant that there can be no just cause for murther because all murther is committed without a just cause and if there be one it ceaseth to be murther So it is here in Schism which being a causeless separation from the Churches Vnity I wonder who ever imagined there could be just cause for it But to rectifie such gross mistakes as these are for the future you would do well to understand that Schism formally taken alwayes imports something criminal in it and there can be no just cause for a sin but besides that there is that which if you understand it you would call the materiality of it which is the separation of one part of the Church from another Now this according to the different grounds and reasons of it becomes lawful or unlawful that is as the reasons do make it necessary or unnecessary For separation is not lawful but when it is necessary now this being capable of such a different nature that it may be good or evil according to its circumstances there can be no absolute judgement passed upon it till all those reasons and circumstances be duely examined and if there be no sufficient grounds for it then it is formally Schism i. e. a culpable separation if there be sufficient cause then there may be a separation but it can be no Schism And because the Vnion of the Catholick Church lyes in Fundamental and necessary truths therefore there can be no separation absolutely from the Catholick Church but what involves in it the
Yet these things have been done by you and the doers of them not condemned but rather fomented and incouraged as zealous promoters of the Holy See and most devout Sons of the Church of Rome Cease therefore to charge the guilt of persons disowned by the Church of England upon her when you are unwilling to hear of the faults of those persons among your selves whom you dare not disown I mean your Popes and Jesuits Leaving therefore these unbecoming Railleries of yours and that which occasioneth them viz. corruption of manners we come to consider that which is more pertinent to our purpose viz. errours in Doctrine which his Lordship truly assigned as the ground of the Reformation and not only that there were doctrinal errours in your Church but that some of the errours of the Roman Church were dangerous to salvation For it is not every light errour in disputable Doctrine and points of curious speculation that can be a just cause of separation in that admirable body of Christ which is his Church or of one member of it from another But that there are errours in Doctrine and some of them such as most manifestly endanger salvation in the Church of Rome is evident to them that will not shut their eyes The proof his Lordship saith runs through the particular points and so is too long for this discourse Now to this you manfully answer That in vain do they attempt to reform the Church of what she can never be guilty Which if it depends on your Churches Infallibility which is largely disproved already must needs fall to the ground with it And it is an excellent Answer when a Church is charged actually with erring to say She doth not erre because she cannot Which is all that you give us here But if you prove it no better than you have done the Heretical and Schismatical obstinacy is like to be found in that Church which in her errours challenges Infallibility The Question now comes to this Whether errours being supposed in the Doctrine and corruptions in the Communion of a Church when the General Church would not reform it was not lawful for particular Churches to reform themselves To this his Lordship answers affirmatively in these words Is it then such a strange thing that a particular Church may reform it self if the general will not I had thought and do so still that in point of Reformation of either Manners or Doctrine it is lawful for the Church since Christ to do as the Church before Christ did and might do The Church before Christ consisted of Jews and Proselytes This Church came to have a separation upon a most ungodly Policy of Jeroboams so that it never pieced together again To a Common Council to reform all they would not come Was it not lawful for Judah to reform her self when Israel would not joyn Sure it was or else the Prophet deceives me that sayes expresly Though Israel transgress yet let not Judah sin And S. Hierom expounds it of this very particular sin of Heresie and Errour in Religion After which he proves That Israel during this Separation was a true Church which we shall insist on when we have considered what Answer you return to his Lordships Argument which lyes in these two things First That Judah did not reform her self Secondly That Judah is not the Protestant party as his Lordship supposeth it to be First You say Judah did not reform her self For Juda being the orthodox Church united with her Head the High Priest and not tainted with any Doctrinal errours What need was there of her Reformation And so the meaning of that place Though Israel transgress yet let not Juda sin is rather against than for him because the sense is rather Let not Juda fall into Schism though Israel does than let Judah reform her self But if it appears that Judah had corruptions crept into her as well as Israel had though not so great and universal then it follows that by these words Judah had power to reform her self And the antecedent is clear to any one who takes the pains to read the Scripture and compare the places in it more than it seems you do For Doth not this very Prophet check Judah as well as Israel for transgressing Gods Covenant Doth he not say That God had a Controversie with Judah and would punish Jacob according to his waies And for all this Was there no need of Reformation in the Church of Judah Indeed in one place it is said That Judah ruleth with God and is faithful with his Saints but then that is to be understood of Judah when she had reformed her self in the daies of Hezekiah for surely you will not say That Judah did not stand in need of Reformation when Hezekiah began his Reign for it is said of him That he removed the high places and brake the Images and cut down the groves And were not these things which wanted Reformation think you If we consider the times of those three Kings before Hezekiah in which Hosea prophesied we shall see what need there was of Reformation among them and those were Vzziah Jotham and Ahaz of the time of Vzziah called Azariah in the Book of Kings it is said That the high places were not removed but the people sacrificed and burnt Incense still on the high places the same is affirmed of the time of Jotham in the same Chapter so that though these Princes were good themselves yet there were many corruptions still among the people But of Ahaz it is said expresly That he walked in the way of the Kings of Israel and he sacrificed and burnt Incense in the high places and on the hills and under everygreen tree Chuse now which of these three you please for it is most improbable those words considering the long time of Hosea's Prophecy should be spoken in the time of Hezekiah the last of the four Kings he prophesied under And will you tell us again That the Church of Judah needed no Reformation But you offer at a reason for it Because she was united with her Head the High-Priest at Hierusalem So then belike as long as Judah and the High-Priest were united she could be guilty of no Doctrinal Errours No not although she should pronounce Christ a blasphemer and condemn him to be crucified as a malefactor for then certainly Judah and the High-Priest were united But I know you will say You spake this of the time before the Messias was come And was it then true that as long as Judah was united with her Head the High-Priest there was no need of Reformation What think you then of the time of Ahaz when Vzziah the Priest built an Altar at the command of Ahaz according to the pattern of the Altar of Damascus contrary to Gods express Law yet according to you as long as Judah was united with her Head the High-Priest there was nothing
by others by very many instances of the writers about that Age that Authoritas was no more then Rescriptum as particularly appears by many passages in Leo's Epistles in which sense no more is expressed by this than that by the Pope's Answer to the Council drawn out of the Authority of Scripture the Pelagians might more probably be suppressed But what is this to an Vniversal Pastorship given by Christ to him any otherwise then to those who sat in any other Apostolical Sees But your great quarrel is against his Lordship for making all the Patriarchs even and equal as to Principality of power and when he saith Equal as the Apostles were you say that is aequivocal for though the Apostles had equal jurisdiction over the whole Church yet St. Peter alone had jurisdiction over the Apostles but this is neither proved from John 21. nor is it at all clear in Antiquity as will appear when we come to that Subject But this assertion of the equality of Protestants is so destructive to your pretensions in behalf of the Church of Rome that you set your self more particularly to disprove it which you offer to do by two things 1. By a Canon of the Nicene Council 2. By the practise of the ancient Church You begin with the first of them and tell us That 't is contrary to the Council of Nice In the third Canon whereof which concerns the jurisdiction of Patriarchs the Authority or Principality if you will of the Bishop of Rome is made the Pattern and Model of that Authority and Jurisdiction which Patriarchs were to exercise over the Provincial Bishops The words of the Canon are these Sicque praeest Patriarcha iis omnibus qui sub ejus potestate sunt sicut ille qui tenet sedem Romae caput est princeps omnium Patriarcharum The Patriarch say they is in the same manner over all those that are under his Authority as he who holds the See of Rome is head and Prince of the Patriarchs And in the same Canon the Pope is afterwards styled Petro similis Authoritate par resembling St. Peter and his equal in Authority These are big words indeed and to your purpose if ever any such thing had been decreed by the Council of Nice but I shall evidently prove that this Canon is supposititious and a notorious piece of Forgery Which forgery is much increased by you when you tell us these words are contained in the third Canon of the Council of Nice Which in the Greek Editions of the Canons by du Tillet and the Codex Canonum by Justellus and all other extant in the Latin versions of Dionysius Exiguus and Isidore Mercator is wholly against the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. such kind of women which Clergy men took into their houses neither as wives or Concubines but under a pretext of piety In the Arabick Edition of the Nicene Canons set out by Alphonsus Pisanus the third Canon is against the ordination either of Neophyti or criminal persons and so likewise in that of Turrianus So that in no Edition whether Arabick or other is this the third Canon of the Council of Nice and therefore you were guilty either of great ignorance and negligence in saying so or of notorious fraud and imposture if you knew it to be otherwise and yet said it that the unwary reader might believe this Canon to be within the 20. which are the only genuine Canons of the Council of Nice Indeed such a Canon there is in these Arabick Editions but it is so far from being the third that in the Editions both of Pisanus and Turrianus it is the thirty ninth and in it I grant those words are but yet you will have little reason to rejoyce in them when I have proved as I doubt not to do that this whole farrago of Arabick Canons is a meer forgery and that I shall prove both from the true number of the Nicene Canons and the incongruity of many things in the Arabick Canons with the State and Polity of the Church at that time In those Editions set out by Pisanus and Turrianus from the Copy which they say was brought by Baptista Romanus from the Patriarch of Alexandria there are no fewer then eighty Canons whereas the Nicene Council never passed above 20. Which if it appear true that will sufficiently discover the Forgery and Supposititiousness of these Arabick Canons Now that there were no more then twenty genuine Canons of the Council of Nice I thus prove First from Theodoret who after he had given an account of the proceedings in the Council against the Arrians he saith That the Fathers met in Council again and passed twenty Canons relating to the Churches Polity and Gelasius Gricenus whom Alphonsus Pisanus set forth with his Latin version recounts no more then twenty Canons the same number is asserted by Nicephorus Callistus and we need not trouble our selves with reciting the testimonies of more Greek Authors since Binius himself confesseth that all the Greeks say there were no more then twenty Canons then determined But although certainly the Greeks were the most competent Judges in this case yet the Latins themselves did not allow of more For although Ruffinus makes twenty two yet that is not by the addition of any more Canons but by splitting two into four And if we believe Pope Stephen in Gratian the Roman Church did allow of no more then twenty And in that Epitome of the Canons which Pope Hadrian sent to Charles the Great for the Government of the Western Churches A.D. 773. the same number of the Nicene Canons appears still And in a M S. of Hincmarus Rhemensis against Hincmarus Laudunensis this is not only asserted but at large contended for that there were no more Canons determined at Nice then those twenty which we now have from the testimonies of the Tripartite history Ruffinus the Carthaginian Council the Epistles of Cyril of Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople and the twelfth action of the Council of Chalcedon So that if both Greeks and Latins say true there could be no more then twenty genuine Canons of the Council of Nice which may be yet further proved by two things viz. the proceedings of the African Fathers in the case of Zosimus about the Nicene Canons and the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Vniversae both which yield an abundant testimony to our purpose If ever there was a just occasion given for an early and exact search into the authentick Canons of the Council of Nice it was certainly in that grand Debate between the African Fathers and the Roman Bishops in the case of Appeals For Zosimus challenging not only a right of Appeals to himself but a power of dispatching Legats unto the African Churches to hear causes there and all this by vertue of a Canon in the Nicene Council and this being delivered to them in Council by Faustinus Philippus and Asellus whom
c. he exhorts him after a handsome manner as reflecting on the Popes dignity and clearly shews that the Pope had of right some Authority over the Asian Bishops and by consequence over the whole Church For otherwise it had been very absurd in St. Irenaeus to perswade Pope Victor not to cut off from the Church so many Christian Provinces had he believed as Protestant contends he did that the Pope had no power at all to cut them off Just as if a man should entreat the Bishop of Rochester not to excommunicate the Archbishop of York and all the Bishops of his Province over whom he hath not any the least pretence of Jurisdiction I Answer that if you say that Eusebius hath not a word importing reprehension it is a sign you have not read what Eusebius saith For doth not he expresly say That the Epistle of some of the Bishops are yet remaining in which they do severely rebuke him Among whom saith he Irenaeus was one c. It seems Irenaeus was one of those Bishops who did so sharply reprehend him but it may be you would render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 kissing his Holiness feet or exhorting him after a handsome manner and indeed if they did it sharply they did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suitably enough to what Victor deserved for his rash and inconsiderate proceedings in this business But withall to let you see how well these proceedings of his were resented in the Christian world Eusebius tells us before That Victor by his letters did declare those of the Eastern Churches to be excommunicate and he presently adds But this did no wayes please all the Bishops wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they countermanded him that he might mind the things of peace and unity and brotherly love And will you still render that word too by exhorting him after a handsome manner when even Christopherson renders it by magnoperè adhortabantur Valesius by ex adverso hortati sunt and although these seem not to come up to the full emphasis of the word yet surely they imply somewhat of vehemency and earnestness in their perswading him as well as their being hugely dissatisfied with what Victor did I grant that these persons did reflect as you say on the Pope but not as you would have it on his dignity but on his rashness and indiscretion that should go about to cast the Asian Churches out of Communion for such a trifle as that was in Controversie between them But you are the happiest man at making inferences that I have met with for because Irenaeus in the name of the Gallican Bishops writes to Victor not to proceed so rashly in this action thence you infer that the Pope had of right some Authority over the Asian Bishops and by consequence over the whole Church Might you not every jot as well inferr that when a man in passion is ready to kill those that stand about him whoever perswades him not to do it doth suppose he might lawfully have done it if he would But if those Bishops had so venerable an esteem as you would perswade us they had then of the Bishop of Rome How come they to dispute his actions in so high a manner as they did If they had looked on him as Vniversal Pastor of the Church it had more become them to sit still and be quiet then severely to reprehend him who was alone able to judge what was fit to be done and what not in those cases If the Pope had call'd them to Council to have known their advise it might have been their duty to have given it him in the most humble and submissive manner that might be But for them to intrude themselves into such an office as to advise the Head of the Church what to do in a matter peculiarly concerning him as though he did not know what was fit to be done himself methinks you should not imagine that these men did act 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as became them in doing it Could they possibly in any thing more declare how little they thought it necessary for all Churches to conform to that of Rome when they plead for dissenters in such a matter which the Pope had absolutely declared himself about And how durst any of them slight the thunderbolts which the Pope threatned them with Yet not only Polycrates and the Asian Bishops who joyned with him profess themselves not at all affrighted at them but the other Churches looked not on themselves as obliged to forsake their communion on that account If this be such an evidence of the Popes power in one sense I am sure it is a greater evidence of his weakness in another It seems the Head of the Church began betimes to be troubled with the fumes of passion and it is a little unhappy that the first Instance of his Authority should meet with so little regard in the Christian world If the Pope did begin to assume so early you see it was not very well liked of by the Bishops of other Churches But it seems he had a mind to try his power and the weight of his Arm but for all his haste he was fain to withdraw it very patiently again Valesius thinks that he never went so far as to excommunicate the Asian Bishops at all but the noise of his threatning to do it being heard by them it seems the very preparing of his thunderbolts amazed the world Irenaeus having call'd a Synod of the Bishops of Gaul together doth in their name write that Letter in Eusebius to Victor to disswade him from it and that it wrought so effectually with him that he gave it over And this he endeavours to prove 1. Because Eusebius saith he only endeavour'd to do it But Cardinal Perron supposeth Eusebius had a worse meaning then so in it i. e. that though the Pope did declare them excommunicate yet it took no effect because other Bishops continued still in communion with them and therefore he calls Eusebius an Arrian and an enemy to the Church of Rome when yet all the records of this story are derived from him 2. Because the Epistles of Irenaeus tend to perswade him not to cut them off whereas if they had been excommunicate it would have been rather to have restored them to Communion and that Photius saith that Irenaeus writ many letters to Victor to prevent their excommunication But because Eusebius saith expresly That he did by letters pronounce them out of the Communion of the Church the common opinion seems more probable and so Socrates understands it but still I am to seek for such an Argument of the acknowledgement of the Popes Authority then as you would draw from it Yes say you because they do not tell him He had no Authority to do what he did which they would have done if they could without proclaiming themselves Schismaticks ipso facto and shaking the very Foundation of the Churches Discipline and Vnity
Authority and Jurisdiction given by Christ to one Bishop above another St. Hierom was not so sensless as not to see that the Bishops of Rome Constantinople and Alexandria had greater Authority and larger Jurisdiction in the Church then the petty Bishops of Eugubium Rhegium and Tanis but all this he knew well enough came by the custom of the Church that one Bishop should have larger power in the Church then another But saith he if you come to urge us with what ought to be practised in the Church then saith he Orbis major est urbe it is no one City as that of Rome which he particularly instanceth in which can prescribe to the whole world For saith he all Bishops are of equal merit and the same Priesthood wheresoever they are whether at Rome or elsewhere So that it is plain to all but such as wilfully blind themselves that St. Hierom speaks not of that which you call the Character of Bishops but of the Authority of them for that very word he useth immediately before Si authoritas quaeritur orbis major est urbe And where do you ever find merit applyed to the Bishops Character They who say It is understood of the merit of good life make St. Hierom speak non-sense For are all Bishops of the same merit of good life But we need not go out of Rome for the proper importance of merit here For in the third Roman Synod under Symmachus that very word is used concerning Authority and Principality in the Church ejus sedi primum Petri Apostoli meritum sive principatus deinde Conciliorum venerandorum authoritas c. where Binius confesseth an account is given of the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome the first ground of which St. Peters merit or principality apply now but this sense to S. Hierom and he may be very easily understood All Bishops are ejusdem meriti sive principatus of the same merit Dignity or Authority in the Church But you say he speaks not of the Pope as he is Pope good reason for it for St. Hierom knew no such Supremacy in the Pope as he now challengeth And can you think if St. Hierom had believed such an authority in the Pope as you do he would ever have used such words as these are to compare him with the poor Bishop of Agobio in Merit and Priesthood I cannot perswade my self you can think so only something must be said for the cause you have undertaken to defend And since Bellarmine and such great men had gone before you you could not believe there were any absurdity in saying as they did Still you say He doth not speak of that Authority which belongs to the Bishop of Rome as S. Peter 's Successor But if you would but read a little further you might see that S. Hierom speaks of all Bishops whether at Rome or Eugubium c. as equally the Apostles Successors For it is neither saith he riches or poverty which makes Bishops higher or lower Caeterùm omnes Apostolorum successores sunt but they are all the Apostles Successors therefore he speaks of them with relation to that Authority which they derived from the Apostles And never had there been greater necessity for him to speak of the Popes succeeding S. Peter in the Supremacy over the Church than here if he had known any such thing but he must be excused he was ignorant of it No that he could not be say you again for he speaks of it elsewhere and therefore he must be so understood there as that he neither contradict nor condemn himself But if the Epistle to Damasus be all your evidence for it a sufficient account hath been given of that already therefore you add more and bid us go find them out to see Whether they make for the purpose or no. I am sure your first doth not out of his Commentary on the 13. Psalm because it only speaks of S. Peters being Head of the Church and not of the the Popes and that may import only dignity and preheminence without authority and jurisdiction besides that Commentary on the Psalms is rejected as spurious by Erasmus Sixtus Senensis and many others among your selves Your second ad Demetriadem Virginem is much less to your purpose for that only speaks of Innocentius coming after Anastasius at Rome qui Apostolicae Cathedrae supradicti viri successor filius est Who succeeded him in the Apostolical Chair But Do you not know that there were many Apostolical Chairs besides that of Rome and had every one of them supreme authority over the Church of God What that should be on the 16. of S. Matthew I cannot imagine unless it be that S. Peter is called Princeps Apostolorum which honour we deny him not or that he saith Aedificabo Ecâ—lesiam meam super te But how these things concern the Popes Authority unless you had further enlightened us I cannot understand That ep 54. ad Marcellam is of the same nature with the last for the words which I suppose you mean are Petrus super quem Dominus fundaâ—it Ecclesiam and if you see what Erasmus saith upon that place you will have little cause to boast much of it Your last place is l. 1. Cont. Lucifer which I suppose to be that commonly cited thence Ecclesiae salus in summi Sacerdotis dignitate pendet but there even Marianus Victorius will tell you it is understood of every ordinary Bishop Thus I have taken the pains to search those places you nakedly refer us to in S. Hierom and find him far enough from the least danger of contradicting or condemning himself as to any thing which is here spoken by him So that we see S. Hierom remains a sufficient testimony against the Popes Monarchical Government of the Church His Lordship further argues against this Monarchy in the Church from the great and undoubted Rule given by Optatus that wheresoever there is a Church there the Church is in the Common-wealth and not the Common-wealth in the Church And so also the Church was in the Roman Empire Now from this ground saith his Lordship I argue thus If the Church be within the Empire or other Kingdom 't is impossible the Government of the Church should be Monarchical For no Emperour or King will endure another King within his Dominion that shall be greater than himself since the very enduring it makes him that endures it upon the matter no Monarch Your answer to this is That these two Kingdoms are of different natures the one spiritual the other temporal the one exercised only in such things as concern the worship of God and the Eternal Salvation of souls the other in affairs that concern this world only Surely you would perswade us we had never heard of much less read Bellarmin's first Book de Pontifice about the Popes Temporal Power which was fain to get license for the other four to pass at Rome and although he minces
within two years these strangely confounded The mistake made evident S. Cyril not President in the third General Council as the Popes Legat. No sufficient evidence of the Popes Presidency in following Councils The justness of the Exception against the place manifested and against the freedom of the Council from the Oath taken by the Bishops to the Pope The form of that Oath in the time of the Council of Trent Protestants not condemned by General Councils The Greeks and others unjustly excluded as Schismaticks The exception from the small number of Bishops cleared and vindicated A General Council in Antiquity not so called from the Popes General Summons In what sense a General Council represents the whole Church The vast difference between the proceedings in the Council of Nice and that at Trent The exception from the number of Italian Bishops justified How far the Greek Church and the Patriarch Hieremias may be said to condemn Protestants with an account of the proceedings between them HAving thus far considered the several grounds on which you lay the charge of Schism upon us and shewed at large the weakness and insufficiency of them we should now have proceeded to the last part of our task but that the great Palladium of the present Roman Church viz. the Council of Trent must be examined to see whether it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or no whether it came from Heaven or was only the contrivance of some cunning Artificers And the famous Bishop of Bitonto in the Sermon made at the opening the Council of Trent hath given us some ground to conjecture its original by his comparing it so ominously to the Trojan-horse Although therefore that the pretences may be high and great that it was made Divina Palladis arte the Spirit of God being said to be present in it and concurring with it yet they who search further will find as much of Artifice in contriving and deceit in the managing the one as the other And although the Cardinal Palavicino uses all his art to bring this Similitude off without reflecting on the honour of the Council yet that Bishop who in that Sermon pleaded so much That the Spirit of God would open the mouths of the Council as he did once those of Balaam and Caiaphas was himself in this expression an illustrious Instance of the truth of what he said For he spake as true in this as if he had been High-Priest himself that year But as if you really believed your self the truth of that Bishops Doctrine That whatever spirit was within them yet being met in Council the Spirit of God would infallibly inspire them you set your self to a serious vindication of the proceedings of that Council and not only so but triumph in it as that which will bring the cause to a speedy Issue And therefore we must particularly enquire into all the pretences you bring to justifie the lawfulness and freedom of that Council but to keep to the Bishops Metaphor Accipe nunc Danaûm Insidias crimine ab uno Disce omnes And when we have thorowly searched this great Engine of your Church we shall have little reason to believe that ever it fell from Heaven His Lordship then having spoken of the usefulness of free General Councils for making some Laws which concern the whole Church His Adversary thinks presently to give him a Choak-pear by telling him That the Council of Trent was a General Council and that had already judged the Protestants to hold errours This you call Laying the Axe to the Root of the Tree that Tree you mean out of which the Popes Infallible Chair was cut for the management of this dispute about the Council of Trent will redound very little to the honour of your Church or Cause But you do well to add That his Lordship was not taken unprovided for he truly answered That the Council of Trent was neither a Legal nor a General Council Both these we undertake to make good in opposition to what you bring by way of answer to his Lordships Exceptions to them That which we begin with is That it was not a Legal Council which his Lordship proves First Because that Council maintained publickly that it is lawful for them to conclude any Controversie and make it to be de Fide and so in your judgement fundamental though it have not a written word for its warrant nay so much as a probable testimony from Scripture The force of his Lordships argument I suppose lyes in this that the Decrees of that Council cannot be such as should bind us to an assent to them because according to their own principles those Decrees may have no foundation in Scripture And that the only legal proceeding in General Councils is to decree according to the Scriptures Now to this you answer That the meaning of the Council or Catholick Authours is not that the Council may make whatever they please matter of Faith but only that which is expressed or involved in the Word of God written or unwritten and this you confess is defined by the Council of Trent in these terms that in matters of Faith we are to rely not only upon Scripture but also on Tradition which Doctrine you say is true and that you have already proved it And I may as well say It is false for I have already answered all your pretended proofs But it is one thing Whether the Doctrine be true or no and another Whether the Council did proceed legally in defining things upon this principle For upon your grounds you are bound to believe it true because the Council hath defined it to be so But if you will undertake to justifie the proceedings of the Council as legal you must make it appear that this was the Rule which General Councils have alwaies acted by in defining any thing to be matter of Faith But if this appear to be false and that you cannot instance in any true General Council which did look on this as a sufficient ground to proceed upon then though the thing may since that Decree be believed as true yet that Council did not proceed legally in defining upon such grounds Name us therefore What Council did ever offer to determine a matter of Faith meerly upon Tradition In the four first General Councils it is well known What authority was given to the Scripture in their definitions and I hope you will not say That any thing they defined had no other ground but Tradition But suppose you could prove this it is not enough for your purpose unless you can make it appear that those Fathers in making such Decrees did acknowledge they had no ground in Scripture for them For if you should prove that really there was no foundation but Tradition yet all that you can inferr thence is That those Fathers were deceived in judging they had other grounds when they had not But still if they made Scripture their Rule and
yet the best your cause would bear And the greater you say the number of Bishopricks is in Italy the more friends I hope the Pope must make by disposing them and Could they do the Pope better service than to help him in this grand business at Trent wherein they sought to outvy each other by promoting the Popes Interest But not only the Protestants complained of this but the Emperour and other Princes and all impartial men in Germany France nay and in some part of Italy too But here his Lordship encounters an Objection of Bellarmine viz. that in the Council of Nice there were as few Bishops of the West present as were of the East at Trent and manifestly shews the great disparity between the the two Councils 1. Because it is not a meer disparity in number which he insists on but with it the Popes carriage to be sure of a major part but neither the Greek Church in general nor any Patriarch of the East had any private interest to look to in the Council at Nice 2. It was not so much a disparity between the Eastern and Western Bishops but that there were so many more Italians and Bishops obnoxious to the Popes Power than of all Germany France Spain and of all other parts of the West besides 3. Even in the comparison of those two Councils as to Eastern and Western Bishops there is this remarkable difference that Pope Sylvester with 275. Bishops confirmed the Council at Nice but the Council at Trent was never confirmed by any Council of Eastern Bishops To the two first of these you Answer with your best property silence Only you would fain perswade some silly people if there be any so weak in the world that enquire into such things That the Pope had no private interest at Trent but what was common to him with other Bishops You should have done well to have commended the excellency of an implicite Faith before you had uttered a thing so contrary to the sense of the whole Christian World To the third you confess It is some disparity but nothing to the purpose because if the Pope himself had ratified them the Council would have had as much Authority as by that accessory Assembly The more to blame was the Pope a great deal for putting so many Bishops to so needless a trouble But you say further This Council was not held just at the same time But Binius tells you it was held assoon as might be after the notice of what was done at Nice shew us the like of the Eastern Bishops at any time and we will not quarrel with you because it was not at the same time Though these Answers may pass for want of better they come not near your last which is a prodigious one the sense of it being That the Doctrine of Faith defined by the Council of Trent was more universally received in the Church then that of the Council of Nice For that of Trent you say was universally received by the whole Catholick Church and hath been more constantly held ever since whereas many Provinces either in whole or in part deserted the Faith defined at Nice and embraced the Arrian Heresie It seems then the twelve good Articles of Trent have been more generally received by the Catholick Church then the eternal existence of the Son of God and consequently that you are more bound to believe the Doctrine of Purgatory or Transubstantiation then that the Son is of the same substance with the Father For your grounds of Faith being resolved into the Churches Infallibility you cannot believe that which hath been so much questioned in the Church so firmly as that which hath been universally believed and constantly held But the universal reception of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent by the whole Catholick Church is so intolerable a falshood that you would scarce have vented it unless it were your design to write for the Whetstone To C's objection That neither French nor Spanish nor Schismatical Greeks did agree with the Protestants in those points which were defined by the Council his Lordship Answers That there can be no certainty who did agree and who not or who might have agreed before the Council ended because they were not admitted to a fair and free dispute And it may be too some Decrees would have been more favourable to them had not the care of the Popes Interest made them sowrer Here you complain of his Lordships falling again to his Surmizes of the Bishops being over-awed by the Popes Authority in the Council which you call an empty and injurious suspicion an unworthy accusation and arguing the want of Christian charity But usually when you storm the most you are the most guilty For if you call this an empty suspicion c. you charge many more with it besides his Lordship and those the greatest of your own Communion what meant else the frequent Protestations of the French and Spanish Ambassadours in which they often declared that as things were managed the Council was not Free What meant those words of the Emperour Ferdinand in his Letters to the Legats and the Pope That the Liberty of the Council was impeached chiefly by three causes one because every thing was first consulted of at Rome another because the Legats had assumed to themselves only the liberty of proposing which ought to be common to all the third because of the practises which some Prelats interested in the Greatness of the Court of Rome did make The French Ambassadour Monsieur de Lansac writ to the King his Master That the Pope was so much Master of this Council that his Pensioners whatsoever the Emperours or we do remonstrate to them will do but what they list Several of the like nature might easily be produced so that it is not his Lordship only is guilty of this want of charity as you call it but all impartial persons who were most acquainted with the Affairs of that Council Whose judgement is certainly much more to be taken then such who have sworn to defend it But you have an excellent Argument to prove the Council Free because the Bishops of the Council continued in the Faith and Doctrine of it as long as they lived And had they not good reason so to do when they were sworn before hand to defend the Pope and having secured him from danger of reformation by the Council and subscribed the Decrees of it they were as much bound to defend their own acts And although it is well enough known what practises were used to bring off the French and Spanish Bishops yet when they were brought off what a shame would it have been for them to have revolted from their own Subscriptions But what is this to that General freedom which was desired by the Roman Catholick Princes for Reformation of the Court of Rome and by Protestants both of the Court and Church Was the Council any thing
your following words not to yield to such a Council wherein all excommunicate Bishops Hereticks and Schismaticks are not excluded which is in short to tell us You are resolved to account none General Councils but such as are wholly of your own pary in which the Pope shall sit as Judge Who are admitted and Who not though this be as contrary to sense and reason as it is to the practice of the Primitive Church in those Councils which were then called In which I have already proved that the Pope did not sit as President And as long as you hold to such unreasonable conditions it evidently appears That your discourses of General Councils are meerly delusory and to use your own words Such a General Council as you would have is a meer nothing as to a general and free Council an empty name to amuse silly people with for you require such conditions in order to it as are destructive both to the freedom and Being of a General Council If therefore it be true which you say That morally speaking such a General Council as Protestants would have is impossible to be had it is much more true that such a General Council as you would have it is most unreasonable we should submit to For as long as you condemn all other Bishops but those of your own Church for out-laws and desertors of the Catholick Church and give no other reason for it but because you say so we thereby see How absolutely averse you are from any Free Council and that without any shew of justice you condemn all others but your selves without suffering them to plead for themselves in an Indifferent Council where both parties may be equally heard But it was wisely said of Pope Clement 7. that General Councils are very dangerous when the Popes Authority is called in Question and this you know well enough for if a Free Council were held the Pope himself might be found with his party to be the greatest out-laws and desertors of the truly Catholick Church But in such pack'd Councils where the Pope sits as President and orders all by his Legats I shall desire you once more to ruminate over your own words What Rebel would ever be found criminal if he might be allowed to be his own Judge But of such a kind of Council as you would have I have spoken sufficiently in the precedent chapter That which we are now upon is not the Hypothesis but the Thesis in which we are to enquire Whether such a General Council as you suppose be Infallible or no His Lordship maintains the negative and you the affirmative Your Opinion then is That the Decrees of a General Council confirmed by the Pope are Infallible and that the holding of this is a piece of Catholick Faith and that it secures all the members of the Church from erring in any matter of Faith For you say It is not de fide that the Pope without a Council is Infallible but that Pope and Council together are Infallible you all along above assert to be so and that the Decrees of General Councils fall nothing short in point of certainty of the Scripture it self and that the contrary opinion does actually expose and abandon all the adherents to it to an unevitable wavering and uncertainty in Faith These are your own words in several places which I have laid together the better to discern the state of the Question The main thing then whereon the use of General Councils depends being that this must be believed to be de fide in order to the certainty of mens Faith and prevention of errours that I may the better shew how insignificant all this pretext of the Infallibility of General Councils is I shall first prove from your own principles that this cannot be de fide and then examine the grounds you insist on for the proof of their Infallibility I begin with the First which will sufficiently demonstrate to how little purpose you talk of this Infallibility of Councils for preventing uncertainty of Faith when you cannot have any certainty of Faith at all as to that principle which must prevent it For supposing that really General Councils are Infallible if you cannot give me any reasons to believe that they are so their Decrees can have no power over my understanding to oblige me to assent to them And since you say this principle must be held de fide if there be no foundation at all for such an assent of Faith to it I must needs be uncertain whatever the Decrees of those Councils be upon your own principles If you require an assent to the Decrees of Councils as Infallible there must be an antecedent assent to this Proposition That whatsoever Councils decree is Infallible As I cannot assent to any thing as Infallible which is contained in Scripture unless I first assent to this That the Scripture it self is Infallible If I therefore prove from your own principles that none can have an assent of Faith to this Proposition That whatever General Councils decree is Infallible then all your discourse comes to nothing and men can have no more certainty by their Decrees than if they were not Infallible And this I shall prove by these things 1. That you can have no certainty of Faith I must use your own terms That the Decrees of General Councils in the general are Infallible 2. That you can have no such certainty as to the Decrees of any General Council in particular 1. That you cannot in the general have any certainty of Faith as to the Infallibility of General Councils For 1. What Infallible Testimony have you for this without which you say No certainty of Faith is to be had It is not enough for you to say That the Testimonies of Scripture you produce are an Infallible Testimony for it for that were to make the Scripture the sole Judge of this great Controversie which you deny to be the sole Judge of any And we must consider this as a present Controversie which divides the Church Whether General Councils be Infallible or no In order to the ending which Controversie we desire you to assign the way to it for you tell us you have the only Infallible Way of putting an end to Controversies Shew us therefore which way this must be ended in the first place Not by Scripture for that were to come wholly over to us and if it may decide this Controversie it may as well all others Who must then The Pope That cannot be for we are not bound to believe him Infallible but only with a General Council as you tell us often Must every one judge it by his reason No this is the private Spirit and would leave all to uncertainties What then must do it the Pope and Council together But that is it we are enquiring for Whether we are to believe Pope and Council or no And then the reason is we must believe them because they say so And
as his reason but the departing from the Institution of Christ and this is done by one as well as the other But he adds That there was a precept for that Do this And so say we was there as plain for the other Drink ye all of this So that the parity of reason is evident for the one as well as the other Upon the same ground doth Pope Julius afterwards condemn the using milk instead of wine because contrary to Christs Institution and so he doth the dipping the bread in the Chalice From whence we inferr that they looked on Christs Example and Institution in the administration to be unalterable But most express is the Testimony of Pope Gelasius who finding some from the remainders of Manichaism did abstain from the Cup gives express order That they who were infected with this odde superstition either should receive the whole Sacrament or abstain wholly from it because the dividing one and the same mystery cannot be done without great sacriledge To this Bellarmin tells us two Answers are commonly given one That these words are meant of Priests another That they relate only to those superstitious persons but both of them are sufficiently taken off by the reason assigned which is not fetched either from their Priesthood or Superstition but only from the Institution of Christ that it would be sacriledge to part those things which Christ by his Institution had joyned together Thus we see the sense of the Church is clear not only for the practice but the command too and the sinfulness of the violation of it Although to you one would think it were wholly needless to prove any more than the Vniversal Practice since the Tradition of the Church is equal with you with an unwritten word but that is when it makes for your purpose and not otherwise For in this case though the Institution be express the universal practice of the Church for at least a thousand years unquestionable yet because it contradicts the present sense and practice of your Church all this signifies nothing at all with you So true is it that it is neither Scripture nor Antiquity which you really regard but Interest and the Present Church And what Cusanus like a downright man spake out in this case is that you must all at last take sanctuary in That the Scriptures must be interpreted according to the current practice of the Church and therefore it is no wonder if they be interpreted at one time one way and another time another way And though this seem a very great absurdity yet it is no more than is necessary to be said by such who maintain things so contrary to Scripture and the practice of former ages of the Church But you are so far from thinking this contrary to the practice of the Church in former ages that you say Not only in S. Thomas his time but in all times of the Church it was both publickly allowed and commonly by some practised even in Churches to receive under one kind only A bold Assertion and which is confidently denied by very many of your own Communion For not only Cassander often confesses that for above a thousand years after Christ no instance can be produced of publick Communion in one kind But Father Barns acknowledges not only that Communion in both kinds is much more agreeable to Scripture Fathers and the Vniversal Church but that per se loquendo jure divino praescribitur taking it in it self it is commanded by a Divine Law But I know these men are too honest for you to own them but as to the universal practice of the Church it is confessed by Ruardus Alphonsus à Castro Lindanus and many others But we need no more than your S. Thomas himself even in that very place where you say He rather makes for you than against you for when he saies that Providè in quibusdam Ecclesiis observatur ut populo sanguis non detur It was a custom providently observed in some Churches not to give the Sacrament in the form of wine to the Laity He thereby shews indeed that in his time about A. D. 1260. this custom did in some places obtain but yet so that the universal practice had been to the contrary for so much is confessed by him in his Commentaries on S. John where his words are secundum antiquam in Ecclesiâ consuetudinem omnes sicut communicabant corpori ita communicabant sanguini quod etiam adhuc in quibusdam Ecclesiis servatur According to the anceint custom of the Church all did communicate in both kinds which as yet is observed in some Churches Now Whether the universal practice of the Church in former times or the practice of some Churches in his time were more agreeable to the Divine Institution we may appeal to Aquinas himself who elsewhere gives this account Why the elements of bread and wine were made use of and delivered severally That they might denote a complete refection and fully represent the death and passion of our Saviour On the same accounts Bonaventure and Alensis make both kinds necessary to the Integrity of the Sacrament And the latter who was Master to the two former saies expresly That whole Christ is not contained sacramentally under either kinds but his flesh under that of bread and his blood under that of wine Than which nothing can be more destructive to the Doctrine of Concomitancy And it is learnedly proved by Pet. Picherellus that the bread was appointed to represent not the body in its compleat substance but the meer flesh when the blood is out of it according to the division of the Sacrifices into flesh and blood from whence it appears that the Sacrifice of Christs death cannot be represented meerly by one kind and that whole Christ is not contained under one in the administration of it And therefore Alensis rightly determines that the res Sacramenti cannot be perfectly represented by one kind and thence sayes He that receives but in one kind doth not receive the Sacrament perfectly No wonder therefore that he tells us That some religious persons in his time when the contrary custom through the superstition of people had somewhat prevailed did earnestly desire that the Sacrament might again be received in both kinds Thus we see when this custom did begin reason and argument was still against it and nothing pleaded for it but only some superstitious fears of some accidental effusions of the blood of Christ. But you are the man who would still perswade us That Communion in one kind was not only publickly allowed but by some practised even in Churches in all times of the Church And therefore in reason we must give attendance to your impregnable demonstrations of it For otherwise say you How is it possible that the Manichees should find liberty and opportunity to communicate amongst Catholicks in Catholick Churches without being perceived since they never drank
evidence can you bring to convince me both that the Church alwayes observed this rule and could never be deceived in it For I see the Roman Church asserts that things may be de fide in one age which were not in another at least Pope and Councils challenge this and this is the common Doctrine maintained there and others are looked on as no members of their Church who assert the contrary but as persons at least meritoriously if not actually excommunicate Where then shall I satisfie my self what the sense of your Church is as to this particular Must I believe a very few persons whom the rest disown as Heretical and Seditious persons or ought I not rather to take the judgement of the greatest and most approved persons in that Church And these disown any such Doctrine but assert that the Church may determine things de fide which were not so before in which case I ask Whether when a thing is de novo determined to be de fide that Church believed as the precedent did or no If it did How comes any thing to be de fide which was not before If it did not What assurance can I have that every age of the Church believes just as the precedent did and no otherwise when I see they profess the contrary And if a thing may be de fide in one age which was not in a foregoing then a Church may deliver that as a matter of Faith at one time which was never accounted so before by which means the present Church may oblige me to believe that as a matter of Faith which never was so in Christ or the Apostles times and so the Infallibility on the account of Tradition is destroyed 2. What security is there that in no age of the Church any practises should come in which were not used in the precedent You may say Because they could not be deceived what their fore Fathers did but that satisfies not unless you prove that all the Church in every age looked upon it self as obliged to do nothing at all but what their fore-Fathers did For although they might know never so much what was done by them if they did not judge themselves bound to observe unalterably what they did this doth not hinder at all but new customs and opinions might be introduced in the Church And therefore I cannot but justly wonder that any men of parts who professedly disown the vulgar wayes of establishing the Roman Church should think to satisfie themselves with Orall Tradition and cry it up as so impregnable a thing Because no age of the Church can be deceived in what the foregoing did and taught Whereas a very little of that reason which these men pretend to might acquaint them that the force of it doth not lye in their capacity to know what was done by others but in their obligation not to vary at all from it For the main weight of the Argument lyes here That nothing hath been changed in the Faith or Practise of the Church which being the thing to be proved the bare knowledge of what was believed or practised is not sufficient to prove it for men may know very well what others believe and do and yet may believe and do quite contrary themselves But the only thing to be proved in this case is That every age of the Church and all persons in it looked upon themselves as obliged not to vary in any thing from the Doctrine or practise of the precedent age And I pray let me know by what demonstrative medium can this be proved for no less then demonstrations are spoken of by the magnifiers of this way although there be so little evidence in it that it cannot work but upon a very weak understanding Must that obligation to observe all which the precedent age believed or practised be proved by reason particular testimony or universal tradition And let the extollers of this way take their choice so they will undertake to bring evidence equal to the weight which depends upon it It is hard to conceive what reason should inforce it but such as proves the impossibility of the contrary And they have understandings of another mould from others who can conceive it impossible that men should not think themselves obliged to believe and do all just as their Predecessours did If particular testimonies could be produced they signifie no more then their own judgements but we are enquiring for the judgement of every age of the Church and the persons who live in it And to prove an universal tradition of this obligation is the most difficult task of all for it depends upon the truth of that which is to be proved by it For if they did not think themselves obliged to believe and do what their Predecessours did they could not think themselves bound to deliver such an obligation to their posterity to do it And therefore you must first prove the obligation it self before you can prove the universal tradition of it For although one age may deliver it yet you cannot be assured that a former age did it to them unless you can prove the same sense of this obligation ran through them all But this is so far from being an universal tradition that the present age from which it begins was never agreed in it as I have shewed already 3. It is to no purpose to prove the impossibility of motion when I see men move no more is it to prove that no age of the Church could vary from the foregoing when we can evidently prove that they have done it And therefore this Argument is intended only to catch easie minds that care not for a search into the History of the several ages of the Church but had rather sit down with a superficial subtilty than spend time in further enquiries For this Argument proceeds just as if men should prove the world eternal by this medium The present age sees no alteration in it and they could not be deceived in what their fore Fathers believed nor they in theirs and so on in infinitum for no men did ever see the world made and therefore it was never made and so eternal But if we go about to prove by reason the production of the world or by Scripture to shew that it was once made then this oral tradition is spoiled And so it is in the present case These men attempt to prove there could never be any alteration in the Faith or practise of the Church since Christs time for the present age delivers what it had from the precedent and so up till the first institution of the Church but in the mean time if we can evidently prove that there have been such alterations in the Church then it is to no purpose to prove that impossible which we see actually done And this appears not only because the Scripture supposes a degeneracy in the Christian Church which could never be if every age of the Church did
Church because that was the root and matrix of the Catholick Church his advice had signified nothing for the Question was not between the Church of Rome and other Churches in which case it might have been pertinent to have said they should adhere to the Church of Rome because that was the root c. But when the difference was at Rome it self between two Bishops there this reason had been wholly impertinent for the only reason proper in this case must be such as must discriminate the one party from the other which this could not do because it was equally challenged by them both And had belonged to one as well as the other in case Novatianus had proved the lawful Bishop and not Cornelius And therefore the sense of Cyprian's words must be such as might give direction which party to joyn with at Rome on which account they cannot import any priviledge of the Church of Rome over other Churches but only contain this advice that they should hold to the Vnity of the Catholick Church and communicate only with that party which did it This reason is so clear and evident to me that this place cannot be understood of any priviledge of the Church of Rome above other Churches that if there were nothing else to induce me to believe it this were so pregnant that I could not resist the force of it But besides this his Lordship proves that elsewhere S. Cyprian speaks in his own person with other Catholick Bishops nos qui Ecclesiae unius caput radicem tenemus we who hold the head and root of one Church by which it appears he could not make the Church of Rome the root and matrix of the Catholick this being understood of the Vnity and Society of the Catholick Church without relation to the Church of Rome and S. Cyprian writes to Cornelius that they had sent Caldonius and Fortunatus to reduce the Church of Rome to the Vnity and Communion of the Catholick Church and because no particular Church can be the root of the Catholick and if any were Jerusalem might more pretend to it than Rome and because S. Cyprian and his Brethren durst not have suspended their communion at all if they had looked on the Church of Rome as the root and matrix of the Catholick as Baronius confesses they did all which things are largely insisted on by his Lordship and do all confirm that hereby was not meant any Authority or Priviledge of the Church of Rome above other Apostolical Churches which in respect of the lesser Churches which came from them are called Matrices Ecclesiae by Tertullian and others But you are still so very unreasonable that though no more be said of the Church of Rome than might be said of any other Apostolical Church yet because it is said of the Church of Rome it must import some huge Authority which if it had been said of any other would have been interpreted by your selves into nothing For so do you deal with us here for because it is said that they who joyned with Cornelius did preserve the Unity of the Catholick Church therefore it must needs be understood that the Roman Church is the root of the Catholick But he must have a very mean understanding that can be swayed by such trifles as these are For Was there not a Catholick and Schismatical party then at Rome and if they who joyned with Novatianus did separate from the Catholick Church then they who were in communion with Cornelius must preserve the Vnity of it And Would not this Argment as well prove the Catholick party at Carthage to be the root and matrix of the Catholick Church as well as at Rome But such kind of things must they deal with who are resolved to maintain a cause and yet are destitute of better means to do it with So that I cannot find any thing in all your Answer but what would equally hold for any other Church at that time which was so divided as Rome was considering the great care that then was used to preserve the Vnity of the Catholick Church And what particularly S. Cyprian's apprehension was concerning the Nature and Vnity of the Catholick Church we have at large discoursed already to which place we referr the Reader if he desires any further satisfaction Your whole N. 5. depends on personal matters concerning the satisfaction of the Lady's conscience but if you would thence inferr That she did well to desert the Protestant Communion you must prove that it can be no sin to follow the dictates of an erroneous conscience For such we say it was in her and you denying it all this discourse signifies nothing but depends on the truth of the matters in controversie between us But you most notoriously impose on his Lordship when because he asserts the possibility of Salvation of some in your Church you would make him say That it is no sin to joyn with your Church You might as well say Because he hopes some who have committed Adultery may be saved therefore it is no sin to commit Adultery So that while you are charging him falsly for allowing dissimulation you do that which is more in saying that which you cannot but know to be a great untruth If our Religion be not the same with yours as you eagerly contend it is not let it suffice to tell you that our Religion is Christianity let yours be what it will And if it please you better to have a name wholly distinct from us yours shall be called the Roman Religion and ours the Christian. If you judge us of another Religion from yours because we do not believe all that you do we may judge you to have a different Religion from the Christian because you impose more by your own confession to be believed as necessary in order to Salvation than ever Christ or the Apostles did And certainly the main of any Religion consists in those things which are necessary to be believed in it in order to eternal happiness In your following discourse you are so far from giving us any hopes of peace with your Church that you plainly give us the reason why it is vain to expect or desire it which is that if your Church should recede from any thing it would appear she had erred and if that appears farewell Infallibility and then if that be once gone you think all is gone And while you maintain it we are so far from hoping any peace with you that the Peace of Christendom may still be joyned in the Dutchmans Sign with the quadrature of the circle and the Philosophers Stone for the sign of the three hopelesse things How far we are bound to submit to General Councils hath been so fully cleared already that I need not go about here to vindicate his Lordships Opinion from falsity or contradiction both which you unreasonably charge it with and that still from no wiser a
he ever speak so concerning the Trinity or the Incarnation of Christ which you parallel with Purgatory What would men have thought of him if he had said of either of those Articles It is not incredible they may be true and it may be enquired into whether they be or no Whatever then St. Austins private opinion was we see he delivers it modestly and doubtfully not obtruding it as an Article of Faith or Apostolical Tradition if any be And the very same he repeats in his Answer to the first Question of Dulcitius so that this was all that ever he asserted as to this Controversie What you offer to the contrary from other places of St. Austin shall be considered in its due place 4. Where any of the Fathers build any Doctrine upon the sense of doubtful places of Scripture we have no further reason to believe that Doctrine then we have to believe that it is the meaning of those places So that in this case the enquiry is taken off from the judgement of the Fathers and fixed upon the sense of the Scriptures which they and we both rely upon For since they pretend themselves to no greater evidence of the truth of the Doctrine then such places do afford it is the greatest reason that the argument to perswade us be not the testimony of the Father but the evidence of the place it self Unless it be evident some other way that there was an universal Tradition in the Church from the Apostles times concerning it and that the only design of the Father was to apply some particular place to it But then such a Tradition must be cleared from something else besides the sense of some ambiguous places of Scripture and that Tradition manifested to be Vniversal both as to time and place These things being premised I now come particularly to examine the evidence you bring That all the Fathers both Greek and Latin did constantly teach Purgatory from the Apostles times and consequently that it must be held for an Apostolical Tradition or nothing can be And as you follow Bellarmin in your way of proving it so must I follow you and he divides his proofs you say into two ranks First Such who affirm prayer for the dead 2. Such who in the successive ages of the Church did expresly affirm Purgatory First with those who affirm prayer for the dead Which you say doth necessarily infer Purgatory whatever the Bishop vainly insinuates to the contrary The Question then between us is Whether that prayer for the dead which was used in the ancient Church doth necessarily inferr that Purgatory was then acknowledged This you affirm for say you If there were no other place or condition of being for departed souls but either Heaven or Hell surely it were a vain thing to pray for the dead especially to pray for the remission of their sins or for their refreshment ease rest relaxation of their pains as Ancients most frequently do From whence you add that Purgatory is so undenyably proved that the Relator finding nothing himself sufficient to Answer was forced to put us off to the late Primate of Armagh 's Answer to the Jesuits Challenge Which you say You have perused and find only there that the Authour proves that which none of you deny viz. That the prayers and commemorations used for the dead had reference to more souls than those in Purgatory But you attempt to prove That the nature and kind of those prayers do imply that they were intended for other ends than meerly that the body might be glorified as well as the soul and to praise God for the final happy end of the deceased Whereas that Answerer of the Jesuite would you say by his allegations insinuate to the Reader a conceit that it was used only for those two reasons and no other Which you say you must needs avouch to be most loudly untrue and so manifestly contrary to the Doctrine and practise of the Fathers as nothing can be more A high charge against two most Reverend and learned Primates together against the one as not being able to Answer and therefore turning it off to the other against the other for publishing most loud untruths instead of giving a true account of the grounds of the Churches practise It seems you thought it not honour enough to overcome one unless you led the other in triumph also but you do neither of them but only in your own fancy and imagination And never had you less cause to give out such big words then here unless it were to amuse the spectatours that they might not see how you fall before them For it was not the least distrust of his sufficiency to Answer which made his Lordship to put it oft to the Primate of Armagh but because he was prevented in it by him Who as he truly saith had very learnedly and at large set down other reasons which the Ancients gave for prayer for the dead without any intention to free them from Purgatory Which are not only different from but inconsistent with the belief of Purgatory for the clearing of which and vindicating my Lord Primate from your calumnies rather then answers it will be necessary to give a brief account of his Discourse on that subject He tells us therefore at first That we are here prudently to distinguish the Original institution of the Church from the private opinions of particular Doctors which waded further herein then the general intendment of the Church did give them warrant Now he evidently proves that the memorials oblations and prayers made for the dead at the beginning had reference to such as rested from their labours and not unto any souls which were thought to be tormented in that Vtopian Purgatory whereof there was no news stirring in those dayes This he gathers first by the practise of the ancient Christians laid down by the Authour of the Commentaries on Job who saith The memorials of the Saints were observed as a memorial of rest to the souls departed and that they therein rejoyced for their refreshing St. Cyprian saith they offered Sacrifices for them whom he acknowledgeth to have received of the Lord Palms and Crowns and in the Authour of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy the party deceased is described by him to have departed this life replenished with Divine joy as now not fearing any change to worse being come unto the end of all his labours and publickly pronounced to be a happy man and admitted into the society of the Saints and yet the Bishop prayes that God would forgive him all his sins he had committed through humane infirmity and bring him into the light and band of the living into the bosoms of Abraham Isaac and Jacob into the place from whence pain and sorrow and sighing flyeth And Saint Chrysostom shews that the funeral Ordinances of the Church were appointed to admonish the living that the parties deceased were in a state of joy and not of grief and
the ground together being both built on the same mistaken Foundation CHAP. III. The Absurdities of the Romanists Doctrine of Fundamentals The Churches Authority must be Divine if whatever she defines be Fundamental His Lordship and not the Testimony of S. Augustine shamefully abused three several wayes Bellarmine not mis-cited the Pelagian Heresie condemned by the General Council at Ephesus The Pope's Authority not implyed in that of Councils The gross Absurdities of the distinction of the Church teaching and representative from the Church taught and dissusive in the Question of Fundamentals The Churches Authority and Testimony in matters of Faith distinguished The Testimonies of Vincentius Lerinensis explained and shewed to be directly contrary to the Roman Doctrine of Fundamentals Stapleton and Bellarmine not reconciled by the vain endeavours used to that end THe main Doctrine of Fundamentals being in the foregoing Chapter setled and cleared what remains of that subject will be capable of a quicker dispatch The scope of this Chapter is to assoil those difficulties which your doctrine of Fundamentals is subject to What little footing that hath in the place of S. Augustine was the last thing discussed in the preceding Chapter and therefore must not be repeated here His Lordship urgeth this reason why S. Augustine or any other reasonable man could not believe that whatever is defined by the Church is Fundamental in the Faith because full Church-Authority alwaies the time that included the Holy Apostles being past by and not comprehended in it is but Church-Authority and Church-Authority when it is at full Sea is not simply divine therefore the sentence of it not Fundamentall in the Faith To this you very wisely and learnedly answer I will not dispute with his Lordship whether it be or no because it is sufficient that such Authority be infallible For if it be infallible it cannot propose to us any thing as revealed by God but what is so revealed So that to dispute against this Authority is in effect to take away all Authority from divine Revelation we having no other absolute certainty that this or that is revealed by God but only the Infallibility of the Church proposing or attesting it unto us as revealed Whence also it follows that to doubt dispute against or deny any thing that is proposed by the Infallible Authority of the Church is to doubt dispute against and deny that which is Fundamental in Faith His Lordship denies the sentence of the Church to be Fundamental in the Faith because not Divine you dare not say It is Divine but contend that it is Infallible and from that Infallibility inferr That Whosoever denies the Churches Infallibility must deny something Fundamental in the Faith because we can have no other absolute certainty that any thing is revealed by God but only from the Churches Infallibility So that your whole proof rests upon a very rotten and uncertain Foundation viz. that all certainty in matters of Faith doth depend upon the Churches Infallibility the falshood and unreasonableness of which principle will at large be discovered in the succeeding Controversie And if this fails then the denial of the Churches Infallibility doth not inferr the denial of any thing Fundamental in the Faith because men may be certain of all Fundamentals without believing this Infallibility But yet say you There is no necessity of asserting Church-Authority to be Divine but only to be infallible in order to the making what she defines to be Fundamental A rare and excellent piece of your old Theological Reason as though any thing could be any further Infallible than it is Divine or any further owned to be Divine than as it is Infallible I pray acquaint us with these rare Arts of distinguishing between an Authority Divine and Infallible when the ground of that Infallibility is the supposition of something properly and simply Divine which is the Infallible Assistance of God's Spirit Is that Assistance Infallible too but not Divine If it be Divine as well as Infallible how comes that Infallibility which flows from it not to be Divine when the cause of it was simply and absolutely so Besides what Infallible Authority is that which makes all its Definitions Fundamental and yet is not in it self Divine From whence comes any thing to be Fundamental You tell us your self as it is known to be revealed by God And can any thing be known to be revealed by God but by an Authority Divine especially on your principles who make all certainty of knowing it to depend on that Churches Authority If so then since the Churches sentence makes things become matters of Faith some things may become matters of Faith which have no Divine Authority for them But this excellent and subtle distinction between Divine and Infallible Authority we shall have occasion to examine afterwards And therefore it is well you tell us Notwithstanding that Infallible and Divine seem to many great Divines to be terms convertible which only acquaints us with thus much that there are some men who understand things better than you do and that to do so is to be a great Divine And if Stapleton be one of these we are not much offended at it and so far we will take the Testimonies which you produce out of him That which next follows depends upon the proof of the Infallibility of General Councils which when you have sufficiently cleared we will believe that there can be no plain Scripture or Evident Reason against any of their Definitions but till then we must believe there may be room for both Your next Section promiseth to shew us a shameful abuse of S. Augustine 's Testimony three several waies But if it appears that not one of those waies will hold then it only follows that so many waies you have abused his Lordship and not he S. Augustine His Lordship having affirmed That plain Scripture with evident sense or a full demonstrative Argument must have room where a wrangling and erring Disputer may not be allowed it And there 's neither of these but may convince the Definition of the Council if it be ill founded Over against these words he cites that sentence of S. Austin Quae quidem si tam manifest a monstratur ut in dubium venire non possit praeponenda est omnibus illis rebus quibus in Catholicâ teneor Ita si aliquid apertissimum in Evangelio c. The plain meaning of which words of S. Augustine is That evident Truth is to be preferred before all Church-Authority Now a threefold Exception you take to his Lordships insisting on this Testimony 1. That S. Austin speaks not either of plain Scripture or evident sense or of a full demonstrative Argument but addressing his speech to the Manicheans he writes thus Apud vos autem ubi nihil horum est quod me invitet ac teneat sola personat veritatis pollicitatio and then follow the words cited by the Bishop quae quidem si
tam manifesta monstratur where it is plain quae which is relative only to Truth and not to Scripture or any thing else A wonderful abuse of S. Austin to make him parallel plain Scripture evident sense or a full Demonstrative Argument with Truth As though if evident Truth were more prevalent with him than all those Arguments which held him in the Catholick Church plain Scripture evident Sense or Demonstrations would not be so too What Truth can be evident if it be not one of these three Do you think there is any other way of manifesting Truth but by Scripture Sense or Demonstration if you have found out other waies oblige the world by communicating them but till then give us leave to think that it is all one to say Manifest Truth as plain Scripture evident Sense or clear Demonstrations But say you He speaks only of that Truth which the Manichees bragged of and promised As though S. Austin would have been perswaded sooner as it came from them than as it was Truth in it self I suppose S. Austin did not think their Testimony sufficient and therefore sayes Quae quidem si tam manifesta monstratur c. i. e. If they could make that which they said evident to be Truth he would quit the Church and adhere to them and if this holds against the Manichees will it not on the same reason hold every where else viz. That manifest Truth is not to be quitted on any Authority whatsoever which is all his Lordship asserts But You offer to prove that S. Austin by Truth could not mean plain Scripture But can you prove that by Truth he did not mean Truth whereever he found it whether in Scripture or elsewhere No say you It cannot be meant that by Truth he should mean plain Scripture in opposition to the Definitions of the Catholick Church or General Councils For which you give this Reason because he supposes it impossible that the Doctrine of the Catholick Church should be contrary to Scripture for then men according to S. Austin should not believe infallibly either the one or the other Not the Scriptures because they are received only upon the Authority of the Church nor the Church whose Authority is infringed by the plain Scripture which is brought against her For which you produce a large citation out of S. Austin to that purpose But the Answer to that is easie For S. Austin when he speaks of Church-Authority quâ infirmatâ jam nec Evangelio credere potero he doth not in the least understand it of any Definitions of the Church but of the Vniversal Tradition of the Catholick Church concerning the Scriptures from the time of Christ and his Apostles And what plain Scriptures those are supposable which should contradict such a Tradition as this is is not easie to understand But the case is quite otherwise as to the Churches Definitions for neither doth the Authority of Scripture at all rest upon them and there may be very well supposed some plain Scriptures contrary to the Churches Definitions unless it be proved that the Church is absolutely Infallible and the very proof of that depending on Scripture there must be an appeal made to plain Scripture whether the Churches Definitions may not be contradicted by Scripture When therefore you say This is an impossible Supposition that Scripture should contradict the Churches Definitions like that of the Apostle If an Angel from Heaven teach otherwise let him be accursed Gal. 1. You must prove it as impossible for the Church to deviate from Scripture in any of her Definitions as for an Angel to preach another Gospel which will be the braver attempt because it seems so little befriended either by sense or reason But say you If the Church may be an erring Definer I would gladly know why an erring Disputer may not oppugn her That which you would so gladly know is not very difficult to be resolved by any one who understands the great difference between yielding an Internal Assent to the Definitions of the Church and open opposing them for it only follows from the possibility of the Churches Errour in defining that therefore we ought not to yield an absolute Internal Assent to all her determinations but must examine them by the best measures of Truth in order to our full Assent to them but though the Church may erre it doth not therefore follow that it is lawful in all cases or for all persons to oppugn her Definitions especially if those Definitions be only in order to the Churches Peace but if they be such as require Internal Assent to them then plain Scripture evidence of Sense or clear Reason may be sufficient cause to hinder the submitting to those Definitions 2. You tell us That his Lordship hath abused S. Austin 's Testimony because he speaks not of the Definitions of the Church in matters not Fundamental according to the matter they contain but the Truth mentioned by him was Fundamental in its matter This is the substance of your second Answer which is very rational and prudent being built on this substantial Evidence If S. Austin doth preferr manifest Truth before things supposed Fundamental in the matter then no doubt S. Austin would not preferr manifest Truth before things supposed not-Fundamental in the matter And do not you think this enough to charge his Lordship with shamefully abusing S. Austin But certainly if S. Austin preferred manifest Truth before that which was greater would he not do it before that which was incomparably less If he did it before all those things which kept him in the Catholick Church such as the consent of Nations Miracles Universal Tradition which he mentions before do you think he would have scrupled to have done it as to any particular Definitions of the Church These are therefore very excellent waies of vindicating the Fathers Testimonies from having any thing of sense or reason in them 3. You say He hath abused S. Austin by putting in a wrangling Disputer But I wonder where his Lordship ever sayes that S. Austin mentions any such in the Testimony cited For his words are these But plain Scripture with evident Sense or a full Demonstrative Argument must have room where a wrangling and erring Disputer may not be allowed it And there 's neither of these over against these words he referrs to S. Austin's Testimony and not the foregoing but may convince the Definition of the Council if it be ill founded When you therefore ask Where the wrangling Disputer is to be found had it not been for the help of this Cavil we might have been to seek for him But when you have been enquiring for him at last you cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oh! I see now And you are the fittest man to find him out that I know You say This is done to distinguish him from such a Disputer as proceeds solidly and demonstratively against the Definitions of the Church when they are
and punctual then this testimony of Cyprian is to overthrow that sense of the Catholick Church which you contend for How farr were Cyprian and the African Bishops from making Rome the center of Ecclesiastical communion when they looked on appeals thither as very unjust and unreasonable What acknowledgement and dependence was there on the Church of Rome in those who looked on themselves as having a portion of Christs flock committed to them of which they were to give an account to God alone And I pray what excellent persons were those who undervalued the Authority of the African Bishops and ran to Rome St. Cyprian tells us they were pauci desperati perditi and translate these with as much advantage to your cause as you can So fatal hath it been to Rome even from its first foundation to be a receptacle for such persons And is not this a great credit to your cause that such persons who were ejected out of communion for their crimes at home did make their resort to Rome and the more pious and stout any Bishops were the more they defended their own priviledges in opposition to the encroachments of the Roman Sec. Which was apt to take advantage from such Renegado's as these were by degrees to get more power into her hands and lift up her head above her fellow-Churches But lest you should think that St. Cyprian only spake these things in an heat out of his opposition to these persons and his desire to crush them you shall see what his judgement was concerning the same things when he purposely discourseth of them For in his Book of the Vnity of the Church he useth that expression which destroyes all your subordinate union in the Church which is Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur They who consider and understand the importance of that speech will find nothing more destructive to your doctrine of the Catholick Church then that is For when he makes the Vniversal Government of the Church to be but one Episcopal office and that committed in the several parts of it with full power to particular Bishops can any be so senseless to imagine that he should ever think the Government of the Church in General to depend on any one particular Church as chief over the rest And that the former words do really import such a full power in particular Bishops over that part of the flock which is committed to them appears from the true importance of the phrase insolidum a phrase taken out of the Civil Law where great difference is made between an obligation in partem and in solidum and so proportionable between a tenure in partem and in solidum those things were held in solidum which were held in full right and power without payments and acknowledgements But where the usus-fructus belonged to another it was not held in solidum So that when St. Cyprian saith that every part belonging to each Bishop was held in solidum he therein imports that full right and power which every Bishop hath over his charge and in this speech he compares the Government of the Church to an estate held by several Freeholders in which every one hath a full right to that share which belongs to him Whereas according to your principles the Government of the Church is like a Mannor or Lordship in which the several inhabitants hold at the best but by Copy from the Lord and you would fain have it at the will of your Lord too But thus farr we see St. Cyprian was from your modern notion of the Catholick Church that he looks on the Vnity of it as depending on the consent of the Catholick Bishops and Churches under their full power and not deriving that Vnity from any particular Church as the head and fountain of it And therefore in the former Schism at Rome about Cornelius and Novatianus St. Cyprian imployed two of his colleagues thither Caldonius and Fortunatus that not only by the Letters they carried but by their presence and Counsel they should do their utmost endeavour to bring the members of that divided body to the unity of the Catholick Church Which is certainly a very different thing from the Catholick Churche's deriving its Vnity from the particular Church of Rome Many other instances of a like nature might be produced out of the Reports of St. Cyprians times but these are sufficient to evidence how far the Vnity of the Catholick Church was then from depending on the Church of Rome But lest we should seem to insist only on St. Cyprians testimony it were easie to multiply examples in this kind which I shall but touch at some of and proceed If the Church of Rome then had been looked on as the center of Ecclesiastical communion is it possible to conceive that the excommunications of the Church of Rome should be slighted as they were by Polycrates for which St. Hierome commends him as a man of courage that Stephen should be opposed as he was by Cyprian and Firmilian in a way so reflecting on the Authority of the Roman Church that appeals to Rome should be so severely prohibited by the African Bishops that causes should be determined by so many Canons to be heard in their proper Dioceses that when the right of appeals was challenged by the Bishops of Rome it was wholly upon the account of the imaginary Nicene Canons that when Julius undertook by his sole power to absolve Athanasius the Oriental Bishops opposed it as irregular on that account at the Council at Antioch that when afterwards Paulus Marcellus and Lucius repaired to Rome to Julius and he seeks to restore them the Eastern Bishops wonder at his offering to restore them who were excommunicated by themselves and that as when Novatus was excommunicated at Rome they opposed it not so neither ought he to oppose their proceedings against these persons What account can be given of these passages if the Vnity of the Catholick Church had depended on the particular Church of Rome Besides while the Church of Rome continued regular we find she looked on her self as much obliged to observe the excommunications made by other Churches as others were to observe hers As in the case of Marcion who being excommunicated by his Father the Bishop of Sinope in Pontus and by no means prevailing with his Father for his admission into the Church again resorts to Rome and with great earnestness begs admission there where he received this answer That they could not do it without the command of his Father for there is one Faith and one consent and we cannot contradict our worthy brother your Father This shews the Vnity of the Catholick Church to proceed upon other grounds than the causal influence of the Church of Rome when the consent of the Church did oblige the Church of Rome not to repeal the excommunication of a particular Bishop Upon which ground it was that Synesius
believe him he did as much want all moral means for finding out the truth as another since he so ingenuously confessed at another audience That he was old and had never studied Divinity But What need he to do it that could so easily be inspired by kneeling at the feet of a Crucifix Your Doctrine then would not be very well taken at Rome that General Councils are a necessary Medium to his Holiness in order to the definition of matters of Faith No more would your following Distinction in vindication of Stapleton That though the Pope acquires no new power or certainty of judgement by the presence of a General Council and there is something thereby which conduceth to the due exercise of that power So that it must be an usurpation or undue exercise of power for the Pope to offer to define without a General Council I know not what liberty you have to write these things among us but if you were at Rome you durst not venture to do it Your saying that Bellarmin only sayes That the firmness of a Council in regard of us depends wholly on the Popes Confirmation argues you had very little to say For What firmness hath a Council at all in this dispute but in regard of us since you look on men as obliged to believe the Decrees of it Infallible And if the Decrees had any Infallibility from the Council that might make them firm in regard of us as well as the Pope But you object to your self That if the Pope be Infallible without the Council and the Council subject to errour without the Pope it must needs follow that all the Infallibility of General Councils proceeds from the Pope only not partly from the Pope and partly from the Council To which you answer That the assertors of that Opinion of whom you must be one if you know what you say may say that Christ hath made two promises to his Church the one to assist her Soveraign Head and Pastor to make him Infallible another to assist General Councils to make them so But What need this latter if the former be well proved For if the Head be Infallible by vertue of a promise from Christ he must be Infallible whether in Council or out of it And therefore it is a ridiculous shift to say The Pope hath one promise to make him Infallible in a General Council ano-to make him so out of it But I commend you that since you thought one would not hold you would have two strings for the Popes Infallibility And it is but adding a third promise to the Church in general and then your threefold cord may be surely Infallible You give many Reasons but none so convincing as Experience Why the Popes should not be Impeccable and if you search Scripture Antiquity and Reason you may find as much why he should not be Infallible For that of the necessity of one and not the other for the Church is of your own devising it having been sufficiently proved that the certainty of Faith doth not at all depend upon the Popes or your Churches or Councils Infallibility And it seems still very strange to all who know the doctrine and promises of Christianity and that the promotion of Holiness is the great design of it and that Faith signifies nothing without Obedience and that the Spirit of God is a Spirit of Holiness as well as Truth that you dare challenge such an assistance of the Divine Spirit as may make your Popes Infallible who have led lives quite contrary to the Gospel of Christ. Nay such lives as his Lordship saith as no Epicurean Monster storied out to the world hath out-gone them in sensuality or other gross impiety if their own historians be true Your vindication of Pope Liberius his submitting his judgement to Athanasius because the Pope had passed no definition ex Cathedrâ in the business hath no strength at all unless you first prove that the Popes definitions ex Cathedrâ were held Infallible then which none would ever believe that read the passage which his Lordship cites out of Liberius his Epistle to Athanasius For as he saith The Pope complemented exceeding low that would submit his unerring judgement to be commanded by Athanasius who he well knew could erre Whether S. Ambrose in his Epistle meddles with any doctrinal definitions or only with some difficulties which that year happened about the observation of Easter the fourteenth of the first month falling on the Lords day is not very material to our purpose But that it was something else besides Astronomical definitions which I know what S. Ambrose's excellency was in might easily appear if you had read the Epistle So that you might have spared your large account of the Paschal Letters sent by the Bishops of Alexandria about the keeping of Easter which are no great novelties to such who are at all acquainted with Antiquity and given us a fuller account why in such a matter of dispute about the right of the day to be kept that year the Roman Bishops should not rather have stood to the Popes definition than write to S. Ambrose if it had been then taken for granted that the Pope was Infallible But I might as well have passed by this testimony of S. Ambrose as you do that of Lyra which is so express for the Erring and Apostatizing of several Popes that you thought the best Answer to it were to let it alone However you come off with the story of Peter Lombard which is not of that consequence to require any further examination of the truth of it I am sure you are hard put to it in the case of Honorius when you deny that Honorius did really maintain the Monothelites Heresie and excuse the Councils Sentence by saying it was only in case of mis-information Since it manifestly appears by the sixth Synod action 13. that they condemned his Epistle written to Sergius as containing heretical and pernicious Doctrine in it And in the seventh Synod he is reckoned up with Arrius Macedonius Eutyches Dioscorus and the rest of condemned Hereticks among whom he is likewise reckoned by Leo 2. in his Epistle to Constantine Which evidence is so great that Canus wonders at those who would offer to vindicate him And in the mean time you provide excellent moral means for the Pope to judge of matters of Faith by in General Councils if they may be guilty of so gross mis-information as you suppose here in the case of Honorius and not one barely but three successively the sixth seventh and eighth and the whole Church from their time till Albertus Pighius who first began to defend him For conclusion of this point his Lordship would fain know since this had been so plain so easie a way either to prevent all divisions about the Faith or to end all Controversies did they arise why this brief but most necessary proposition The Bishop of Rome
cannot erre in his judicial determinations concerning Faith is not to be found either in letter or sense in any Scripture in any Council or in any Father of the Church for the full space of a thousand years and more after Christ To this you answer 1. That in the sense wherein Catholicks maintain the Popes Infallibility to be a matter of necessary belief to all Christians it is found for sense both in Scripture Councils and Fathers as you say you have proved in proving the Infallibility of General Councils of which he is the most principal and necessary member So then when we enquire for the Infallibility of General Councils we are sent to the Pope for his Confirmation to make them so but when we enquire for the Popes Infallibility we are sent back again to the Councils for the proof of it And they are hugely to blame if they give not an ample testimony to the Pope since he can do them as good a turn But between them both we see the greatest reason to believe neither the one nor the other to be Infallible But 2. You would offer at something too for his personal Infallibility in which I highly commend your prudence that you say You will omit Scripture and you might as well have omitted all that follows since you say only That the testimonies you have produced seem to do it in effect and at last say That it is an Assertion you have wholly declined the maintaining of and judge it expedient to do so still And you may very well do so if there be no better proofs for it than those you have produced but however we must examine them Doth not the Council of Chalcedon seem to say in effect that the Pope is Infallible when upon the reading of his Epistle to them in condemnation of the Eutychian Heresie the whole Assembly of Prelates cry out with acclamation and profess that S. Peter who was Infallible spake by the mouth of Leo and that the Pope was interpreter of the Apostles voice You do well to use those cautious expressions of seeming to say in effect for it would be a very hard matter to imagine any such thing as the Popes Infallibility in the highest expressions used by the Council of Chalcedon For after the reading of Leo's Epistle against Eutyches and many testimonies of the Fathers to the same purpose the Council begins their acclamations with these words This is the Faith of the Fathers this is the Faith of the Apostles all who are orthodox hold thus And after it follows Peter by Leo hath thus spoken the Apostles have taught thus Which are all the words there extant to that purpose And Is not this a stout argument for the Popes personal Infallibility For What else do they mean but only that Leo who succeeded in the Apostolical See of S. Peter at Rome did concurr in Faith with S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles But Do they say that it was impossible that Leo should erre or that his judgement was Infallible or only that he owned that Doctrine which was Divine and Apostolical And the Council of Ephesus your next testimony hath much less than this even nothing at all For the Council speaks not concerning S. Peter or the Pope in the place by you cited only one of the Popes officious Legats Philip begins very formally with S. Peter's being Prince and Head of the Apostles c. and that he to this day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lives in his successours and passeth judgement Is it not a very good Inference from hence that the Council acknowledged the Popes personal Infallibility because one of the Popes Legats did assert in the Council that S. Peter lived and judged by the Pope And yet Might not this be done without his personal Infallibility in regard of his succession in that See which was founded by S. Peter But you are very hard driven when you are fain to take up with the Sentence of a Roman Priest instead of a General Council and any judgement in matters of Faith instead of Infallibility Your other testimonies of S. Hierom S. Augustine and S. Cyprian have been largely examined already and for the remaining testimonies of four Popes you justly fear it would be answered that they were Popes and spake partially in their own cause And you give us no antidote against these fears but conclude very warily That you had hitherto declined the defence of that Assertion and professed that it would be sufficient for Protestants to acknowledge the Pope Infallible in and with General Councils only But as we see no reason to believe General Councils at all Infallible whether with or without the Pope so neither can we see but if the Infallibility of the Council depends on the Popes Confirmation you are bound to defend the Popes personal Infallibility as the main Bulwark of your Church CHAP. III. Of the errours of pretended General Councils The erroneous Doctrine of the Church of Rome in making the Priests intention necessary to the essence of Sacraments That principle destructive to all certainty of Faith upon our Authours grounds The absurdity of asserting that Councils define themselves to be Infallible Sacramental actions sufficiently distinguished from others without the Priests Intention Of the moral assurance of the Priests Intention and the insufficiency of a meer virtual Intention The Popes confirmation of Councils supposeth personal Infallibility Transubstantiation an errour decreed by Pope and Council The repugnancy of it to the grounds of Faith The Testimonies brought for it out of Antiquity examin'd at large and shewed to be far from proving Transubstantiation Communion in one kind a violation of Christs Institution The Decree of the Council of Constance implyes a non obstante to it The unalterable nature of Christs Institution cleared The several evasions considered and answered No publick Communion in one kind for a thousand years after Christ. The indispensableness of Christs Institution owned by the Primitive Church Of Invocation of Saints and the Rhetorical expressions of the Fathers which gave occâ—sion to it No footsteps of the Invocation of Saints in the three first Centuries nor precept or example in Scripture as our Adversaries confess Evidences against Invocation of Saints from the Christians Answers to the Heathens The worship of Spirits and Heroes among the Heathens justifiable on the same grounds that Invocation of Saints is in the Church of Rome Commemoration of the Saints without Invocation in S. Augustins time Invocation of Saints as practised in the Church of Rome a derogation to the merits of Christ. Of the worship of Images and the near approach to Pagan Idolatry therein No Vse or Veneration of Images in the Primitive Church The Church of Rome justly chargeable with the abuses committed in the worship of Images ALthough nothing can be more unreasonable then to pretend that Church Person or Council to be Infallible which we can prove to have actually