most primitive ages when evidently there was no such a political Conjunction of Christians Arg. III. The Apostles delivered one Rule of Faith to all Churches the embracing and profession whereof celebrated in Baptism was a necessary condition to the admission into the Church and to continuance therein therefore Christians are combined together in one political Body Answ. 1. The Consequence is very weak for from the Antecedent it can onely be inferred that according to the Sentiment of the Ancients all Christians should consent in one Faith which Unity we avow and who denieth Answ. 2. By like reason all Mankind must be united in one political Body because all men are bound to agree in what the Light of nature discovereth to be true and good or because the Principles of natural Religion Justice and Humanity are common to all Arg. IV. God hath granted to the Church certain Powers and Rights as Jura Majestatis namely the Power of the Keys to admit into to exclude from the Kingdom of Heaven a Power to enact Laws for maintenance of its Order and Peace for its Edification and Welfare a Power to correct and excommunicate Offenders a Power to hold Assemblies for God's Service a Power to ordain Governours and Pastours Answ. 1. These Powers are granted to the Church because granted to each particular Church or distinct Society of Christians not to the whole as such or distinct from the Parts Answ. 2. It is evident that by virtue of such Grants particular Churches do exercise those Powers and it is impossible to infer more from them than a Justification of their Practice Answ. 3. St. Cyprian often from that common Grant doth infer the Right of exercising Discipline in each particular Church which Inference would not be good but upon our Supposition nor indeed otherwise would any particular Church have ground for its Authority Answ. 4. God hath granted the like Rights to all Princes and States but doth it thence follow that all Kingdoms and States must be united in one single Regiment the Consequence is just the same as in our Case Arg. V. All Churches were tied to observe the same Laws or Rules of Practice the same Orders of Discipline and Customes therefore all do make one Corporation Answ. 1. That All Churches are bound to observe the same Divine Institutions doth argue onely an Unity of relation to the same Heavenly King or a specifical Unity and Similitude of Policy the which we do avow Answ. 2. We do also acknowledge it convenient and decent that all Churches in principal Observances introduced by humane prudence should agree so near as may be an Uniformity in such things representing and preserving Unity of Faith of Charity of Peace Whence the Governours of the primitive Church did endeavour such an Uniformity as the Fathers of Nice profess in the Canon forbidding of Genu-flexion on Lord's days and in the days of Pentecost Answ. 3. Yet doth not such an agreement or attempt at it infer a political Unity no more than when all men by virtue of a primitive general Tradition were tied to offer Sacrifices and Oblations to God that Consideration might argue all men to have been under the same Government or no more than the usual Agreement of neighbour Nations in divers fashions doth conclude such an Unity Answ. 4. In divers Customes and Observances several Churches did vary with allowance which doth rather infer a difference of Polity than agreement in other Observances doth argue an Unity thereof Answ. 5. St. Cyprian doth affirm that in such matters every Bishop had a Power to use his own discretion without being obliged to comply with others Arg. VI. The Jewish Church was one Corporation and in correspondence thereto the Christian Church should be such Answ. 1. As the Christian Church doth in some things correspond to that of the Jews so it differeth in others being designed to excell it wherefore this argumentation cannot be valid and may as well be employed for our Opinion as against it Answ. 2. In like manner it may be argued that all Christians should annually meet in one place that all Christians should have one Arch-priest on Earth that we should all be subject to one temporal Jurisdiction that we should all speak one Language c. Answ. 3. There is a great difference in the case for the Israelites were one small Nation which conveniently might be embodied but the Christian Church should consist of all Nations which rendreth Correspondence in this particular unpracticable at least without great inconvenience Answ. 4. Before the Law Christian Religion and consequently a Christian Church did in substance subsist but what Unity of Government was there then Answ. 5. The Temporal Union of the Jews might onely figure the spiritual Unity of Christians in Faith Charity and Peace Arg. VII All Ecclesiastical Power was derived from the same Fountains by succession from the Apostles therefore the Church was one political Body Answ. 1. Thence we may rather infer that Churches are not so united because the Founders of them were several Persons endowed with co-ordinate and equal Power Answ. 2. The Apostles did in several Churches constitute Bishops independent from each other and the like may be now either by succession from those or by the constitutions of humane prudence according to emergences of occasion and circumstances of things Answ. 3. Divers Churches were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all were so according to Saint Cyprian Answ. 4. All temporal power is derived from Adam and the Patriarchs ancient Fathers of families Doth it thence follow that all the World must be under one secular Government Arg. VIII All Churches did exercise a Power of Excommunication or of excluding Hereticks Schismaticks disorderly and scandalous people Answ. 1. Each Church was vested with this Power this doth therefore onely infer a resemblance of several Churches in Discipline which we avow Answ. 2. This argueth that all Churches took themselves to be obliged to preserve the same Faith to exercise Charity and Peace to maintain the like Holiness of conversation What then Do we deny this Answ. 3. All Kingdoms and States do punish Offenders against Reason and Justice do banish seditious and disorderly persons do uphold the Principles and Practice of common Honesty and Morality Doth it thence follow that all Nations must come under one civil Government Arg. IX All Churches did maintain entercourse and commerce with each other by formed communicatory pacificatory commendatory synodical Epistles Answ. 1. This doth signifie that the Churches did by Admonition Advice c. help one another in maintenance of the common Faith did endeavour to preserve Charity Friendship and Peace this is all which thence may be concluded Answ. 2. Secular Princes are wont to send Ambassadours and Envoys with Letters and Instructions for settlement of Correspondence and preserving Peace they sometimes do recommend their Subjects to other Princes they expect
Have they not challenged propriety in both Swords Ecce duo Gladii How many Princes have they pretended to depose and dispossess of their Authority Consider the Pragmatical Sanctions Provisors Compositions Concordats c. which Princes have been forced to make against them or with them to secure their Interest Many good Princes have been forced to oppose them as Henry the Second of England King Lewis the Twelfth of France that Just Prince Pater Patriae Perdam Babylonis nomen How often have they used this as a pretence of raising and fomenting Wars confiding in their Spiritual Arms interdicting Princes that would not comply with their designs for advancing the interests not onely of their See but of their private Families Bodin observeth that Pope Nicholas I. was the first who excommunicated Princes Platina doth mention some before him But it is remarkable that although Pope Leo I. a high spirited Pope Fortissimus Leo as Liberatus calleth him was highly provoked against Theodosius Junior Pope Gelasius and divers of his Predecessours and Followers Pope Gregory II. against Leo Vigilius against Justinian c. yet none of them did presume to excommunicate the Emperours All these dealings are the natural result of this Pretence and supposing it well grounded are capable of a plausible justification for is it not fit seeing one must yield that Temporal should yield to Spiritual Indeed granting the Papal Supremacy in Spirituals I conceive the high flying Zelots of the Roman Church who subject all Temporal Powers to them have great reason on their side for co-ordinate Power cannot subsist and it would be onely an eternal Seminary of perpetual discords The quarrel cannot otherwise be well composed than by wholly disclaiming the fictitious and usurped power of the Pope for Two such Powers so inconsistent and cross to each other so apt to interfere and consequently to breed everlasting mischiefs to mankind between them could not be instituted by God He would not appoint two different Vicegerents in his Kingdom at the same time But it is plain that he hath instituted the civil Power and endowed it with a Sword That Princes are his Lieutenants That in the ancient times the Popes did not claim such Authority but avowed themselves Subjects to Princes 9. Consequently this Pretence is apt to engage Christian Princes against Christianity for they will not endure to be crossed to be depressed to be trampled on This Popes often have complained of not considering it was their own insolence that caused it 10. Whereas now Christendom is split into many parcels subject to divers civil Sovereignties it is expedient that correspondently there should be distinct Ecclesiastical Governments independent of each other which may comply with the respective civil Authorities in promoting the good and peace both of Church and State It is fit that every Prince should in all things govern all his Subjects and none should be exempted from subordination to his Authority As Philosophers and Physicians of the Body so Priests and Physicians of the Soul not in exercising their Function but in taking care that they do exercise it duly for the honour of God and in consistence with publick good otherwise many grievous inconveniences must ensue It is of perillous consequence that foreigners should have authoritative influence upon the Subjects of any Prince or have a power to intermeddle in affairs Princes have a natural Right to determine with whom their Subjects shall have intercourse which is inconsistent with a Right of foreigners to govern or judge them in any case without their leave Every Prince is obliged to employ the power entrusted to him to the furtherance of God's Service and encouragement of all good works as a Supreme power without being liable to obstruction from any other power It would irritate his power if another should be beyond his coercion It is observable that the Pope by intermeddling in the affairs of Kingdoms did so wind himself into them as to get a pretence to be Master of each Princes being his Vassals and Feudatories 11. Such an Authority is needless and useless it not serving the ends which it pretendeth and they being better compassed without it It pretendeth to maintain Truth but indeed it is more apt to oppress it Truth is rather as St. Cyprian wisely observeth preserved by the multitude of Bishops whereof some will be ready to relieve it when assaulted by others Truth cannot be supported merely by humane Authority especially that Authority is to be suspected which pretendeth dominion over our minds What Controversie being doubtfull in it self will not after his Decision continue doubtfull his Sentence may be eluded by interpretation as well as other Testimonies or Authorities The opinion of a man's great wisedom or skill may be the ground of assent in defect of other more cogent Arguments but Authority of Name or Dignity is not proper to convince a man's understanding Men obey but not believe Princes more than others if not more learned than others It pretendeth to maintain Order but how by introducing Slavery by destroying all Rights by multiplying Disorders by hindring Order to be quietly administred in each Countrey It pretendeth to be the onely means of Unity and Concord in Opinion by determining Controversies which its Advocates affirm necessary But how can that be necessary which never was de facto not even in the Roman Church Hath the Pope effected this do all his followers agree in all points do they agree about his Authority Do not they differ and dispute about infinity of questions Are all the points frivolous about which their Divines and Schoolmen dispute Why did not the Council of Trent it self without more adoe and keeping such a disputing refer all to his Oracular Decision Necessary points may and will by all honest people be known and determined without him by the clear Testimony of Scripture by consent of Fathers by General Tradition And other points need not to be determined That he may be capable of that Office he must be believed appointed by God thereto which is a question it self to be decided without him to satisfaction His power is apt no otherwise to knock down Controversies than by depressing Truth not suffering any Truth to be asserted which doth not favour its Interests Concord was maintained and Controversies decided without them in the ancient Church in Synods wherein he was not the sole Judge nor had observable influence The Fathers did not think such Authority needfull otherwise they would have made more use of it A more ready way to define Controversies is for every one not to prescribe to others or to prosecute for then men would more calmly see the Truth and consent It pretendeth to maintain Peace and Unity But nothing hath raised more fierce Dissentions or so many bloudy Wars in Christendom as it It is apt by tyrannical administration to become intolerable and so to break the
offices of humanity toward their subjects travelling or trading any where in the World common Reason doth require such things But may common Unity of Polity from hence be inferr'd Arg. X. The effectuâ—â— Preservation of Unity in the primitive Church is alledged as a strong Argument of its being united in one Government Answ. 1. That Unity of Faith and Charity and Discipline which we admit was indeed preserved not by influence of any one Sovereign Authority whereof there is no mention but by the concurrent vigilance of Bishops declaring and disputing against any Novelty in Doctrine or Practice which did start up by their adherence to the Doctrine asserted in Scripture and confirmed by Tradition by their aiding and abetting one another as Confederates against Errours and Disorders creeping in Answ. 2. The many Differences which arose concerning the Observation of Easter the Re-baptization of Hereticks the Reconciliation of Revolters and scandalous Criminals concerning the decision of Causes and Controversies c. do more clearly shew that there was no standing common Jurisdiction in the Church for had there been such an one recourse would have been had thereto and such Differences by its Authority would easily have been quashed Arg. XI Another Argument is grounded on the Relief which one Church did yield to another which supposeth all Churches under one Government imposing such Tribute Answ. 1. This is a strange Fetch as if all who were under obligation to relieve one another in need were to be under one Government Then all Mankind must be so Answ. 2. It appeareth by St. Paul that these Succours were of free Charity Favour and Liberality and not by Constraint Arg. XII The use of Councils is also alledged as an Argument of this Unity Answ. 1. General Councils in case Truth is disowned that Peace is disturbed that Discipline is loosed or perverted are wholsome Expedients to clear Truth and heal Breaches but the holding them is no more an Argument of political Unity in the Church than the Treaty of Munster was a sign of all Europe being under one civil Government Answ. 2. They are extraordinary arbitrary prudential means of restoring Truth Peace Order Discipline but from them nothing can be gathered concerning the continual ordinary State of the Church Answ. 3. For during a long time the Church wanted them and afterwards had them but rarely For the first three hundred years saith Bell. there was no general assembly afterwards scarce one in a hundred years And since the breach between the Oriental and Western Churches for many Centenaries there hath been none Yet was the Church from the beginning One till Constantine and long afterwards Answ. 4. The first General Councils indeed all that have been with any probable shew capable of that denomination were congregated by Emperours to cure the Dissentions of Bishops what therefore can be argued from them but that the Emperours did find it good to settle Peace and Truth and took this for a good mean thereto Alb. Pighius said that General Councils were an invention of Constantine and who can confute him Answ. 5. They do shew rather the Unity of the Empire than of the Church or of the Church as National under one Empire than as Catholick for it was the State which did call and moderate them to its Purposes Answ. 6. It is manifest that the congregation of them dependeth on the permission and pleasure of secular Powers and in all equity should do so as otherwhere is shewed Answ. 7. It is not expedient that there should be any of them now that Christendom slandeth divided under divers temporal Sovereignties for their Resolutions may intrench on the Interests of some Princes and hardly can they be accommodated to the Civil Laws and Customs of every State Whence we see that France will not admit the Decrees of their Tridentine Synod Answ. 8. There was no such inconvenience in them while Christendom was in a manner confined within one Empire for then nothing could be decreed or executed without the Emperour's leave or to his prejudice Answ. 9. Yea as things now stand it is impossible there should be a free Council most of the Bishops being sworn Vassals and Clients to the Pope and by their own Interests concerned to maintain his exorbitant Grandeur and Domination Answ. 10. In the opinion of St. Athanasius there was no reasonable cause of Synods except in case of new Heresies springing up which may be confuted by the joint consent of Bishops Answ. 11. As for particular Synods they do onely signifie that it was usefull for neighbour Bishops to conspire in promoting Truth Order and Peace as we have otherwhere shewed Councils have often been convened for bad Designs and been made Engines to oppress Truth and enslave Christendom That of Antioch against Athanasius of Ariminum for Arianism The second Ephesine to restore Eutyches and reject Flavianus The second of Nice to impose the Worship of Babies The Synod of Ariminum to countenance Arians So the fourth Synod of Laterane sub Inn. III. to settle the prodigious Doctrine of Transubstantiation and the wicked Doctrine of Papal Authority over Princes The first Synod of Lions to practise that hellish Doctrine of Deposing Kings The Synod of Constance to establish the maime of the Eucharist against the Calistines of Bohemia The Laterane under Leo X. was called as the Arch-bishop of Patras affirmed for the Exaltation of the Apostolical See The Synod of Trent to settle a raff of Errours and Superstitions Obj. II. It may farther be objected that this Doctrine doth favour the Conceits of the Independents concerning Ecclesiastical Discipline I answer No. For 1. We do assert that every Church is bound to observe the Institutions of Christ and that sort of Government which the Apostles did ordain consisting of Bishops Priests and People 2. We avow it expedient in conformity to the primitive Churches and in order to the maintenance of Truth Order Peace for several particular Churches or Parishes to be combined in political Corporations as shall be found convenient by those who have just Authority to frame such Corporations for that otherwise Christianity being shattered into numberless shreds could hardly subsist and that great Confusions must arise 3. We affirm that such Bodies having been established and being maintained by just Authority every man is bound to endeavour the upholding of them by Obedience by peaceable and compliant Demeanour 4. We acknowledge it a great Crime by factious behaviour in them or by needless separation from them to disturb them to divide them to dissolve or subvert them 5. We conceive it fit that every People under one Prince or at least of one Nation using the same Language Civil Law and Fashions should be united in the bands of Ecclesiastical Polity for that such a Unity apparently is conducible to the peace and welfare both of Church and State to the furtherance of God's worship and
of course by Papal appointment For this surely according to the Pope's meaning by which their obligation is to be measured is designed in the profession ordained by Pope Pius IV. wherein every beneficed Clergy-man is injoined to say And I do promise and swear true Obedience to the Roman Pontife the Successour of Saint Peter and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Which profession was appointed in pursuance of a Sanction made by the Trent Council that all such persons should vow and swear to abide in Obedience to the Roman Church and consequently how hard soever its Yoke should be they would not shake it off which inferreth most absolute Sovereignty of that Church or of the Pope who ruleth the roast in it But what that true Obedience doth import or how far the Papal Authority in the Pope's own sense and according to the publick spirit of that Church doth stretch is more explicitly signified in the Oath which all Bishops at their Consecration and all Metropolitans at their Instalment are required to take the which as it is extant in the Roman Pontifical set out by order of Pope Clement VIII doth run in these terms I N. Elect of the Church of N. from henceforward will be faithfull and obedient to Saint Peter the Apostle and to the Holy Roman Church and to our Lord the Lord N. Pope N. and to his Successours canonically coming in I will neither advise consent or doe any thing that they may lose life or member or that their Persons may be seised or hands any-wise laid upon them or any injuries offer'd to them under any pretence whatsoever The counsel which they shall entrust me withall by themselves their messengers or Letters I will not knowingly reveal to any to their prejudice I will help them to defend and keep the Roman Papacy and the Royalties of Saint Peter saving my Order against all men The Legate of the Apostolick See going and coming I will honourably treat and help in his necessities The rights honours privileges and authority of the Holy Roman Church of our Lord the Pope and his foresaid Successours I will endeavour to preserve defend increase and advance I will not be in any counsel action or treaty in which shall be plotted against our said Lord and the said Roman Church any thing to the hurt or prejudice of their Persons right honour state or power and if I shall know any such thing to be treated or agitated by any whatsoever I will hinder it to my power and as soon as I can will signify it to our said Lord or to some other by whom it may come to his knowledge The Rules of the Holy Fathers the Apostolick decrees ordinances or disposals reservations provisions and mandates I will observe with all my might and cause to be observed by others Hereticks Schismaticks and Rebels to our said Lord or his foresaid Successours I will to my power persecute and oppose I will come to a Council when I am call'd unless I be hinder'd by a Canonical impediment I will by my self in person visit the threshold of the Apostles every three years and give an account to our Lord and his foresaid Successours of all my Pastoral Ossi and of all things any-wise belonging to the state of my Church to the discipline of my Clergy and People and lastly to the salvation of Souls committed to my trust and will in like manner humbly receive and diligently execute the Apostolick commands And if I be detain'd by a lawfull impediment I will perform all the things aforesaid by a certain Messenger hereto specially impower'd a member of my Chapter or some other in Ecclesiastical Dignity or else having a Parsonage or in default of these by a Priest of the Diocese or in default of one of the Clergy of the Diocese by some other Secular or Regular Priest of approved integrity and Religion fully instructed in all things above-mentioned And such impediment I will make out by lawfull proofs to be transmitted by the foresaid Messenger to the Cardinal Proponent of the Holy Roman Church in the Congregation of the Sacred Council The Possessions belonging to my Table I will neither sell nor give away nor mortgage nor grant anew in fee nor any-wise alienate no not even with the consent of the Chapter of my Church without consulting the Roman Pontife And if I shall make any alienation I will thereby incur the Penalties contain'd in a certain Constitution put forth about this matter So help me God and these Holy Gospels of God Such is the Oath prescribed to Bishops the which is worth the most serious attention of all men who would understand how miserably slavish the condition of the Clergy is in that Church and how inconsistent their obligation to the Pope is with their duty to their Prince And in perusing it we may note that the clauses in a different character are in the more ancient Oath extant in the Gregorian Decretals by which it appeareth how the Pope doth more and more enlarge his Power and straiten the bands of Subjection to him And it is very remarkable that the new Oath hath chang'd those words REGVLAS SANCTORVM PATRVM into REGALIA SANCTI PETRI i. e. THE RVLES OF THE HOLY FATHERS into THE ROYALTIES OF SAINT PETER § XV. I know there are within the Roman Communion great store of Divines who do contract the Papal Sovereignty within a much narrower compass refusing to him many of those Prerogatives yea scarce allowing to him any of them There are those who affirm the Pope in Doctrine and Discipline subject to the Church or to a General Synod representing it Which opinion thwarteth a proposition in Bellarmine's opinion e'en almost an Article of faith but to be even with him they do hold his proposition to be quite heretical The Pope is simply and absolutely above the Vniversal Church this proposition is almost an Article of faith saith Bellarmine The Cardinal of Lorrain on the contrary But I saith he cannot deny but that I am a French-man and bred up in the Church of Paris which teaches that the Roman Pontife is subject to a Council and they who teach the contrary are there branded as Hereticks There are those who affirm the Pope if he undertake Points of Faith without assistence of a General Synod may teach Heresie which opinion as Bellarmine thought doth closely border on heresie And those who conceive that Popes may be and have been Hereticks whence Christians sometimes are not obliged to admit their Doctrine or observe their pleasure There are those who maintain the Pope no less than other Bishops subject to the Canons or bound to observe the Constitutions of the Church that he may not infringe them or over-rule against them or dispense with them and that to him attempting to doe so obedience is not due There are those who maintain that the Pope cannot subvert or violate the Rights and Liberties of particular
Churches settled in them agreeably to the ancient Canons of the Church Universal There are those who assert to General Councils a power of Reforming the Church without or against the Pope's consent There are those who as Bellarmine telleth us do allow the Pope to be no more in the Ecclesiastical Republick than as the Duke of Venice in his Senate or as the General of an Order in his Congregation and that he therefore hath but a very limited and subordinate Power There are consequently those who conceive the Pope notoriously erring or misdemeaning himself to the prejudice of the Christian State may be called to an account may be judged may be corrected may be discarded by a General Synod Such notions have manifestly prevailed in a good part of the Roman Communion and are maintained by most Divines in the French Church and they may be supposed every-where common where there is any liberty of judgment or where the Inquisition doth not reign There have been seasons wherein they have so prevailed as to have been defined for Catholick Truths in great Synods and by them to have been applied to practice For In the first great Synod of Pisa it was declared that Councils may reform the Church sufficiently both in Head and Members and accordingly that Synod did assume to judge two Popes Gregory XII and Benedict XIII contending for the Papacy whereof one was the true Pope and deposing them both did substitute Alexander V. who for one year as Antoninus reporteth according to the common opinion did hold the Seat of Peter The Synod of Constance declared that the Synod lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost making a General Council representing the Catholick Church militant hath immediately power from Christ to which every one of whatever state or dignity he be although it be Papal is bound to obey in those things which belong to Faith and the extirpation of the said Schism and the general reformation of the Church of God in Head and Members The which Doctrine they notably put in practice exercising jurisdiction over Popes and for Errours Misdemeanours or Contumacies discarding three of whom it is hard if one were not true Pope and chusing another who thereafter did pass for a right Pope and himself did confirm the Acts of that Council So that this Semi-heresie hath at least the authority of one Pope to countenance it Our most holy Lord the Pope said in answer thereunto that he would maintain and inviolably observe all and every of those things that were conciliarly determin'd concluded and decreed by the present Council in matters of Faith The Synod of Basil declared the same Point that Councils are superiour to Popes to be a truth of Catholick Faith which whoever doth stiffly oppose is to be accounted a Heretick Nor say they did any skilfull man ever doubt the Pope to be subject to the judgment of General Synods in things concerning Faith In virtue of which Doctrine and by its irresistable authority the Synod did sentence and reject Pope Eugenius as criminal heretical and contumacious These Synods although reprobated by Popes in Counter-synods are yet by many Roman Catholick Divines retained in great veneration and their Doctrine is so current in the famous Sorbonne that if we may believe the great Cardinal of Lorrain the contrary is there reputed heretical § XVI Yet notwithstanding these oppositions the former Opinion averring the Pope's absolute Sovereignty doth seem to be the genuine Doctrine of the Roman Church if it have any For those Divines by the Pope and his intimate confidents are looked upon as a mongrel brood or mutinous faction which he by politick connivence doth onely tolerate because he is not well able to correct or suppress them He is afraid to be violent in reclaiming them to his sense lest he spend his artillery in vain and lose all his power and interest with them Nor indeed do those men seem to adhere to the Roman Party out of entire judgment or cordial affection but in compliance with their Princes or upon account of their Interest or at best with regard to peace and quiet They cannot conveniently break with the Pope because his Interest is twisted with their own so as not easily to be disentangled For how can they heartily stick to the Pope whenas their Opinion doth plainly imply him to be an Usurper and a Tyrant claiming to himself and exercising authority over the Church which doth not rightfully belong to him to be a Rebel and Traitour against the Church invading and possessing the Sovereignty due to it for such questionless the Duke of Venice would be should he challenge and assume to himself such a Power over his Commonwealth as the Pope hath over Christendom to be an Impostour and Seducer pretending to infallible conduct which he hath not How can they honestly condemn those who upon such grounds do shake off such yokes refusing to comply with the Pope till he correct his Errours till he desist from those Usurpations and Impostures till he restore to the Church its Rights and Liberties How are the Doctrines of those men consistent or congruous to their practice For they call the Pope Monarch of the Church and Universal Pastour of Christians by God's appointment indefectibly yet will they not admit all his Laws and reject Doctrines which he teacheth particularly those which most nearly touch him concerning his own Office and Authority They profess themselves his loyal Subjects yet pretend Liberties which they will maintain against him They hold that all are bound to entertain Communion with him yet confess that he may be heretical and seduce into Errour They give him the name and shadow of a Supremacy but so that they can void the substance and reality thereof In fine where should we seek for the Doctrine of the Roman Church but at Rome or from Rome it self where these Doctrines are Heterodoxies § XVII We shall not therefore have a distinct regard to the Opinion of these Semi-romanists nor consider them otherwise than to confirm that part of Truth which they hold and to confute that part of Errour which they embrace allowing at least in word and semblance more power to the Pope than we can admit as due to him Our discourse shall be levelled at him as such as he pretendeth himself to be or as assuming to himself the forementioned Powers and Prerogatives § XVIII Of such vast Pretences we have reason to require sufficient Grounds He that demandeth assent to such important Assertions ought to produce clear proofs of them He that claimeth so mighty Power should be able to make out a good Title to it for No man may take this more than Pontifical honour to himself but he that is called by God as was Aaron They are worthily to be blamed who tumultuously and disorderly fall upon curbing or restraining those who by no law are subject to them We cannot well be justified
Authority can hardly be assigned For was it when he was constituted by our Lord an Apostle Then indeed probably he began to obtain all the primacy and preeminence he ever had but no such power doth appear then conferred on him or at any time in our Saviour's life at least if it was it was so covertly and indiscernibly that both he himself and all the Apostles must be ignorant thereof who a little before our Lord's Passion did more than once earnestly contest about Superiority And it is observable that whereas our Lord before his Passion did carefully teach and press on the Apostles the chief duties which they were to observe in their behaviour toward each other The maintenance of peace of charity of unity of humility toward one another yet of paying due respect and obedience to this Superiour he said nothing to them The collation of that Power could not well be at any time before the celebration of our Lord's Supper because before that time Saint Peter was scarce an Ecclesiastical Person at least he was no Priest as the Convention of Trent under a curse doth require us to believe for it were strange that an unconsecrated Person or one who was not so much as a Priest should be endowed with so much spiritual Power After his Resurrection our Lord did give divers common Instructions Orders and Commissions to his Apostles but it doth not appear that he did make any peculiar grant to St. Peter for as to the pretence of such an one drawn out of the Appendix to Saint John's Gospel or grounded on the words Pasce oves we shall afterward declare that to be invalid 4. If Saint Peter had been instituted Sovereign of the Apostolical Senate his Office and state had been in nature and kind very distinct from the common Office of the other Apostles as the Office of a King from the Office of any Subject as an ordinary standing perpetual successive Office from one that is onely extraordinary transitory temporary personal and incommunicable to speak according to distinctions now in use and applied to this case whence probably as it was expedient to be it would have been signified by some distinct name or title characterizing it and distinguishing it from others as that of Arch-apostle Arch-pastour High-priest Sovereign Pontife Pope his Holiness the Vicar of Christ or the like whereby it might have appeared that there was such an Officer what the nature of his Office was what specialty of respect and obedience was due to him But no such name or title upon any occasion was assumed by him or was by the rest attributed to him or in History is recorded concerning him the name of an Apostle being all that he took on him or by others was given to him 5. There was indeed no Office above that of an Apostle known to the Apostles or to the primitive Church this saith St. Chrysostome was the greatest authority and the top of authorities there was saith he none before an Apostle none superiour none equal to him this he asserteth of all the Apostles this he particularly applieth to Saint Paul this he demonstrateth from Saint Paul himself who purposely enumerating the chief Officers instituted by God in his Church doth place Apostles in the highest rank Our Lord saith Saint Paul gave some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastours and Teachers and God hath set some in his Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why not first a Pope an Universal Pastour an Oecumenical Judge a Vicar of Christ a Head of the Catholick Church Could Saint Paul be so ignorant could he be so negligent or so envious as to pass by without any distinction the Supreme Officer if such an one then had been As put case that one should undertake to recite the Officers in any State or Republick would he not do strangely if he should pretermit the King the Duke the Consul the Major thereof would not any one confiding in the skill diligence and integrity of such a relatour be induced from such an omission to believe there was no such Officer there St. Chrysostome therefore did hence very rationally infer that the Apostolical Office was the Supreme in the Christian state having no other Superiour to it Saint Peter therefore was no more than an Apostle and as such he could have no command over those who were in the same highest rank co-ordinate to him and who as Apostles could not be subject to any 6. Our Lord himself at several times declared against this kind of Primacy instituting equality among his Apostles prohibiting them to affect to seek to assume or admit a superiority of Power one above another There was saith Saint Luke among the twelve at the participation of the Holy Supper a strife among them who of them should be accounted the greatest or who had the best pretence to Superiority this strife our Lord presently did check and quash but how not by telling them that he already had decided the case in appointing them a Superiour but rather by assuring them that he did intend none such to be that he would have no Monarchy no exercise of any Dominion or Authority by one among them over the rest but that notwithstanding any advantages one might have before the other as greater in gifts or as preceding in any respect they should be one as another all humbly condescending to one another each being ready to yield help and service to one another The Kings said he of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise authority over them are called benefactours but ye shall not be so but he that is greater among you let him be as the younger and he that is leader as he that doth minister that is whatever privilege any of you obtaineth let it not be employed in way of command but rather of compliance and subserviency as occasion shall require let him not pretend to be a Superiour but rather behave himself as an Inferiour thus our Lord did smother the debate by removing from among them whatever greatness any of them did affect or pretend to forbidding that any of them should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercise any Dominion or Authority over the rest as worldly Princes did over their Subjects Again upon another occasion as the circumstances of the place do imply when two of the Apostles of special worth and consideration with our Lord Saint James and Saint John the Sons of Zebedee did affect a preeminence over the rest requesting of our Lord Grant unto us that we may sit one on thy right hand and the other on thy left hand in thy glory or in thy Kingdom as Saint Matthew hath it that is in that new state which they conceived our Lord was ready to introduce which request doth not seem to import any great matter of Authority
fed by him but the common Believers or People of God which St. Peter himself doth call the Flock of God Feed saith he to his fellow-Elders the flock of God which is among you and Saint Paul Take heed therefore unto your selves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers 9. Take Feeding for what you please for Teaching for Guiding the Apostles were not fit objects of it who were immediately taught and guided by God himself Hence we may interpret that saying of St. Chrysostome which is the most plausible argument they can alledge for them that our Lord in saying this did commit to St. Peter a charge or presidency over his brethren that is he made him a Pastour of Christian people as he did others at least if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be referred to the Apostles it must not signifie authority over them but at most a primacy of order among them for that Saint Peter otherwise should feed them St. Chrysostome could hardly think who presently after saith that seeing the Apostles were to receive the administration of the whole world they ought not afterward to converse with one another for that would surely have been a great damage to the world 10. But they forsooth must have Saint Peter solely obliged to feed all Christ's sheep so they do impose upon him a vast and crabbed Province a task very incommodious or rather impossible for him to undergo how could he in duty be obliged how could he in effect be able to feed so many flocks of Christian people scattered about in distant Regions through all Nations under Heaven he poor man that had so few helps that had no Officers or dependents nor wealth to maintain them would have been much put to it to feed the sheep in Britaine and in Parthia unto infinite distraction of thoughts such a charge must needs have engaged him But for this their great Champion hath a fine expedient Saint Peter saith he did feed Christ's whole flock partly by himself partly by others so that it seemeth the other Apostles were Saint Peter's Curates or Vicars and Deputies this indeed were an easie way of feeding thus although he had slept all his time he might have fed all the sheep under heaven thus any man as well might have fed them But this manner of feeding is I fear a later invention not known so soon in the Church and it might then seem near as absurd to be a shepherd as it is now in his own account to be a just man by imputation that would be a kind of putative pastorage as this a putative righteousness However the Apostles I dare say did not take themselves to be St. Peter's Surrogates but challenged to themselves to be accounted the Ministers the Stewards the Ambassadours of Christ himself from whom immediately they received their Orders in whose name they acted to whom they constantly refer their Authority without taking the least notice of Saint Peter or intimating any dependence on him It was therefore enough for Saint Peter that he had Authority restrained to no place but might as he found occasion preach the Gospel convert confirm guide Christians every where to truth and duty nor can our Saviour's words be forced to signifie more In fine this together with the precedent Testimonies must not be interpreted so as to thwart Practice and History according to which it appeareth that Saint Peter did not exercise such a Power and therefore our Lord did not intend to confer such an one upon him IV. Farther in confirmation of their Doctrine they do draw forth a whole shole of Testimonies containing divers Prerogatives as they call them of Saint Peter which do as they suppose imply this Primacy so very sharp-sighted indeed they are that in every remarkable accident befalling him in every action performed by him or to him or about him they can descry some argument or shrewd insinuation of his preeminence especially being aided by the glosses of some fancyfull Expositour From the change of his Name from his walking on the Sea from his miraculous draught of Fish from our Lord 's praying for him that his Faith should not fail and bidding him to confirm his Brethren from our Lord 's ordering him to pay the tribute for them both from our Lord's first washing his feet and his first appearing to him after the Resurrection from the prediction of his Martyrdom from sick persons being cured by his shadow from his sentencing Ananias and Saphira to death from his preaching to Cornelius from its being said that he passed through all from his being prayed for by the Church from Saint Paul's going to visit him from these passages I say they deduce or confirm his Authority Now in earnest is not this stout arguing is it not egregious modesty for such a point to alledge such proofs what cause may not be countenanced by such rare fetches who would not suspect the weakness of that Opinion which is fain to use such forces in its maintenance In fine is it honest or conscionable dealing so to wrest or play with the Holy Scripture pretending to derive thence proofs where there is no shew of consequence To be even with them I might assert the Primacy to Saint John and to that purpose might alledge his Prerogatives which indeed may seem greater than those of Saint Peter namely that he was the beloved disciple that he leaned on our Lord's breast that Saint Peter not presuming to ask our Lord a question desired him to doe it as having a more special confidence with our Lord that Saint John did higher service to the Church and all posterity by writing not onely more Epistles but also a most divine Gospel and a sublime Prophecy concerning the state of the Church that Saint John did outrun Peter and came first to the Sepulchre in which passage such acute devisers would find out marvellous significancy that Saint John was a Virgin that he did out-live all the Apostles and thence was most fit to be Universal Pastour that St. Hierome comparing Peter and John doth seem to prefer the latter for Peter saith he was an Apostle and John was an Apostle but Peter was onely an Apostle John both an Apostle and an Evangelist and also a Prophet and saith he that I may in brief speech comprehend many things and shew what privilege belongeth to John yea Virginity in John by our Lord a Virgin his Mother the Virgin is commended to the Virgin Disciple thus I might by Prerogatives and passages very notable infer the Superiority of Saint John to Saint Peter in imitation of their reasoning but I am afraid they would scarce be at the trouble to answer me seriously but would think it enough to say I trifled wherefore let it suffice for me in the same manner to put off those levities of discourse V. They argue this Primacy from the constant placing
the Apostles in any sense 6. If some privileges of Saint Peter were derived to Popes why were not all why was not Pope Alexander VI. as holy as Saint Peter why was not Pope Honorius as found in his private judgment why is not every Pope inspired why is not every Papal Epistle to be reputed Canonical why are not all Popes endowed with power of doing miracles why doth not the Pope by a Sermon convert thousands why indeed do Popes never preach why doth not he cure men by his shadow he is say they himself his shadow what ground is there of distinguishing the privileges so that he shall have some not others where is the ground to be found 7. If it be objected that the Fathers commonly do call Bishops Successours of the Apostles to assoil that objection we may consider that whereas the Apostolical Office virtually did contain the functions of Teaching and ruling God's people the which for preservation of Christian doctrine and edification of the Church were requisite to be continued perpetually in ordinary standing Offices these indeed were derived from the Apostles but not properly in way of succession as by univocal propagation but by Ordination imparting all the power needfull for such Offices which therefore were exercised by persons during the Apostles lives concurrently or in subordination to them even as a Dictatour at Rome might create inferiour Magistrates who derived from him but not as his Successours for as Bellarmine himself telleth us there can be no proper succession but in respect of one preceding but Apostles and Bishops were together in the Church The Fathers therefore so in a large sense call all Bishops Successours of the Apostles not meaning that any one of them did succeed into the whole Apostolical Office but that each did receive his power from some one immediately or mediately whom some Apostle did constitute Bishop vesting him with Authority to feed the particular Flock committed to him in way of ordinary charge according to the sayings of that Apostolical person Clemens Rom. The Apostles preaching in Regions and Cities did constitute their first Converts having approved them by the Spirit for Bishops and Deacons of those who should afterward believe and having constituted the foresaid Bishops and Deacons they withall gave them farther charge that if they should dye other approved men successively should receive their Office thus did the Bishops supply the room of the Apostles each in guiding his particular charge all of them together by mutual aid conspiring to govern the whole Body of the Church 8. In which regard it may be said that not one single Bishop but all Bishops together through the whole Church do succeed Saint Peter or any other Apostle for that all of them in union together have an universal Sovereign Authority commensurate to an Apostle 9. This is the notion which St. Cyprian doth so much insist upon affirming that the Bishops do succeed Saint Peter and the other Apostles by vicarious ordination that the Bishops are Apostles that there is but one chair by the Lord's word built upon one Peter One undivided Bishoprick diffused in the peacefull numerosity of many Bishops whereof each Bishop doth hold his share One Flock whom the Apostles by unanimous agreement did feed and which afterward the Bishops do feed having a portion thereof allotted to each which he should govern So the Synod of Carthage with St. Cyprian So also St. Chrysostome saith that the Sheep of Christ were committed by him to Peter and to those after him that is in his meaning to all Bishops 10. Such and no other power Saint Peter might devolve on any Bishop ordained by him in any Church which he did constitute or inspect as in that of Antioch of Alexandria of Babylon of Rome The like did the other Apostles communicate who had the same power with Saint Peter in founding and settling Churches whose Successours of this kind were equal to those of the same kind whom St. Peter did constitute enjoying in their several precincts an equal part of the Apostolical power as St. Cyprian often doth assert 11. It is in consequence observable that in those Churches whereof the Apostles themselves were never accounted Bishops yet the Bishops are called Successours of the Apostles which cannot otherwise be understood than according to the sense which we have proposed that is because they succeeded those who were constituted by the Apostles according to those sayings of Irenaeus and Tertullian we can number those who were instituted bishops by the Apostles and their Successours and All the Churches do shew those whom being by the Apostles constituted in the Episcopal Office they have as continuers of the Apostolical seed So although Saint Peter was never reckoned Bishop of Alexandria yet because 't is reported that he placed Saint Mark there the Bishop of Alexandria is said to succeed the Apostles And because Saint John did abide at Ephesus inspecting that Church and appointing Bishops there the Bishops of that See did refer their Origine to him So many Bishops did claim from Saint Paul So St. Cyprian and Firmilian do assert themselves Successours of the Apostles who yet perhaps never were at Carthage or Caesarea So the Church of Constantinople is often in the Acts of the Sixth General Council called this great Apostolick Church being such Churches as those of whom Tertullian saith that although they do not produce any of the Apostles or Apostolical men for their authour yet conspiring in the same faith are no less for the consanguinity of doctrine reputed Apostolical Yea hence St. Hierome doth assert a parity of merit and dignity Sacerdotal to all Bishops because saith he all of them are Successours to the Apostles having all a like power by their ordination conferred on them 12. Whereas our Adversaries do pretend that indeed the other Apostles had an extraordinary charge as Legates of Christ which had no succession but was extinct in their persons but that Saint Peter had a peculiar charge as ordinary Pastour of the whole Church which surviveth To this it is enough to rejoyn that it is a mere figment devised for a shift and affirmed precariously having no ground either in Holy Scripture or in ancient Tradition there being no such distinction in the Sacred or Ecclesiastical Writings no mention occurring there of any Office which he did assume or which was attributed to him distinct from that extraordinary one of an Apostle and all the Pastoral charge imaginable being ascribed by the Ancients to all the Apostles in regard to the whole Church as hath been sufficiently declared 13. In fine If any such conveyance of power of power so great so momentous so mightily concerning the perpetual state of the Church and of each person therein had been made it had been for general direction and satisfaction for voiding all doubt and debate about it for stifling these pretended Heresies
add If an Angel from Heaven should tell you beside what you have received in the Legal and Evangelical Scriptures let him be anathema in which words we have St. Austin's warrant not onely to refuse but to detest this Doctrine which being nowhere extant in Law or Gospel is yet obtruded on us as nearly relating both to Christ and his Church as greatly concerning both our Faith and Practice 2. To enforce this Argument we may consider that the Evangelists do speak about the propagation settlement and continuance of our Lord's Kingdom that the Apostles do often treat about the state of the Church and its edification order peace unity about the distinction of its Officers and Members about the qualifications duties graces privileges of Spiritual Governours and Guides about prevention and remedy of Heresies Schisms Disorders upon any of which occasions how is it possible that the mention of such a Spiritual Monarch who was to have a main influence on each of those particulars should wholly escape them if they had known such an one instituted by God In the Levitical Law all things concerning the High-Priest not onely his Designation Succession Consecration Duty Power Maintenance Privileges but even his Garments Marriage Mourning c. are punctually determined and described and is it not wonderfull that in the many descriptions of the New-Law no mention should be made concerning any Duty or Privilege of its High-Priest whereby he might be directed in the administration of his Office and know what observance to require 3. Whereas also the Scripture doth inculcate duties of all sorts and doth not forget frequently to press duties of respect and obedience toward particular Governours of the Church is it not strange that it never should bestow one precept whereby we might be instructed and admonished to pay our duty to the Universal Pastour especially considering that God who directed the Pens of the Apostles and who intended that their Writings should continue for the perpetual instruction of Christians did foresee how requisite such a precept would be to secure that duty for if but one such precept did appear it would doe the business and void all contestation about it 4. They who so carefully do exhort to honour and obey the temporal Sovereignty how come they so wholly to wave urging the no less needfull obligations to obey the Spiritual Monarch while they are so mindfull of the Emperour why are they so neglectfull of the Pope insomuch that divers Popes afterward to ground and urge obedience to them are fain to borrow those precepts which command obedience to Princes accommodating them by analogy and inference to themselves 5. Particularly Saint Peter one would think who doth so earnestly injoin to obey the King as Supreme and to honour him should not have been unmindfull of his Successours or quite have forborn to warn Christians of the respect due to them surely the Popes afterward do not follow him in this reservedness for in their Decretal Epistles they urge nothing so much as obedience to the Apostolical See 6. One might have expected something of that nature from St. Paul himself who did write so largely to the Romans and so often from Rome that at least some word or some intimation should have dropped from him concerning these huge Rights and Privileges of this See and of the regard due to it Particularly then when he professedly doth enumerate the Offices instituted by God for standing use and perpetual duration for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the Body of Christ till we all come in the Vnity of Faith c. He commendeth them for their Faith which was spoken of through the whole world yet giveth them no advantage above others as St. Chrysostome observeth on those words for obedience to the Faith among all Nations among whom also are ye this saith St. Chrysostome he saith to depress their conceit to void their haughtiness of mind and to teach them to deem others equal in Dignity with them When He writeth to that Church which was some time after Saint Peter had setled the Popedom he doth onely style them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 called Saints and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beloved of God which are common adjuncts of all Christians He saith their Faith was spoken of generally but of the fame of their Authority being so spread he taketh no notice that their obedience had come abroad to all men but their commands had not it seemeth come anywhere He wrote divers Epistles from Rome wherein he resolveth many cases debated yet never doth urge the Authority of the Roman Church for any point which now is so ponderous an Argument 7. But however seeing the Scripture is so strangely reserved how cometh it to pass that Tradition is also so defective and staunch in so grand a case We have in divers of the Fathers particularly in Tertullian in St. Basil in St. Hierome Catalogues of Traditional Doctrines and Observances which they recite to assert Tradition in some cases supplemental to Scripture in which their purpose did require that they should set down those of principal moment and they are so punctual as to insert many of small consideration how then came they to neglect this concerning the Papal Authority over the whole Church which had been most pertinent to their design and in consequence did vastly surpass all the rest which they do name 8. The designation of the Roman Bishop by succession to obtain so high a degree in the Church being above all others a most remarkable and noble piece of History which it had been a horrible fault in an Ecclesiastical History to slip over without carefull reporting and reflecting upon it yet Eusebius that most diligent Compiler of all passages relating to the original Constitution of the Church and to all transactions therein hath not â—ne word about it who yet studiously doth report the Successions of the Roman Bishops and all the notable occurrences he knew concerning them with favourable advantage 9. Whereas this Doctrine is pretended to be a Point of Faith of vast consequence to the subsistence of the Church and to the Salvation of men it is somewhat strange that it should not be inserted into any one ancient Summary of things to be believed of which Summaries divers remain some composed by publick consent others by persons of Eminency in the Church nor by fair and forcible consequence should be deducible from any Article in them especially considering that such Summaries were framed upon occasion of Heresies springing up which disregarded the Pope's Authority and which by asserting it were plainly confuted We are therefore beholden to Pope Innocent III. and his Laterane Synod for first Synodically defining this Point together with other Points no less new and unheard of before The Creed of Pope Pius IV. formed the other day is the first as I take it
to a Donatist his Adversary citing the Authority of St. Cyprian against him he thus replieth But now seeing it is not Canonical which thou recitest with that liberty to which the Lord hath called us I do not receive the opinion differing from Scripture of that man whose praise I cannot reach to whose great learning I do not compare my writings whose wit I love in whose speech I delight whose charity I admire whose martyrdom I reverence This Liberty not onely the Ancients but even divers Popes have acknowledged to belong to every Christian as we shall hereafter shew when we shall prove that we may lawfully reject the Pope as a Patron of Errour and Iniquity 6. It particularly doth thwart Scripture by wronging Princes in exempting a numerous sort of People from subjection to their Laws and Judicatures whereas by God's Ordination and express Command every soul is subject to them not excepting the Popes themselves in the opinion of St. Chrysostome except they be greater than any Apostle By pretending to govern the Subjects of Princes without their leave to make Laws without his permission or confirmation to cite his Subjects out of their Territories c. which are encroachments upon the Rights of God's unquestionable Ministers III. Farther because our Adversaries do little regard any allegation of Scripture against them pretending themselves to be the onely Masters of its sense or of common sense Judges and Interpreters of them we do alledge against them that this pretence doth also cross Tradition and the common Doctrine of the Fathers For 1. Common usage and practice is a good interpreter of Right and that sheweth no such Right was known in the Primitive Church 2. Indeed the state of the Primitive Church did not admit it 3. The Fathers did suppose no Order in the Church by original Right or divine Institution superiour to that of a Bishop whence they commonly did style a Bishop the Highest Priest and Episcopacy the top of Ecclesiastical Orders The chief Priest saith Tertullian that is the Bishop hath the right of giving baptism Although saith St. Ambrose the Presbyters also do it yet the beginning of the Ministery is from the highest Priest Optatus calleth Bishops the tops and Princes of all The Divine Order of Bishops saith Dionysius is the first of Divine Orders the same being also the extreme and last of them for into it all the frame of our Hierarchy is resolved and accomplished This language is common even among Popes themselves complying with the speech then current for Presbyters saith Pope Innocent I. although they are Priests yet have they not the top of High priesthood No man saith P. Zosimus I. against the precepts of the Fathers should presume to aspire to the highest Priesthood of the Church It is decreed saith Pope Leo I. that the Chorepiscopi or Presbyters who figure the sons of Aaron shall not presume to snatch that which the Princes of the Priests whom Moses and Aaron did typifie are commanded to doe Note by the way that seeing according to this Pope's mind after St. Hierome Moses and Aaron did in the Jewish Policy represent Bishops there was none there to prefigure the Pope In those days the Bishop of Nazianzum a petty Town in Cappadocia was an High-priest so Gregory calleth his Father And the Bishop of a poor City in Africk is styled Sovereign Pontif of Christ most blessed Father most blessed Pope and the very Roman Clergy doth call St. Cyprian most blessed and glorious Pope which Titles the Pope doth now so charily reserve and appropriate to himself But innumerable Instances of this kind might be produced I shall onely therefore add two other passages which seem very observable to the enforcement of this discourse St. Hierome reprehending the discipline of the Montanists hath these words With us the Bishops do hold the places of the Apostles with them a Bishop is in the third place for they have for the first rank the Patriarchs of Pepusa in Phrygia for the second those whom they call Cenones so are Bishops thrust down into the third that is almost the last place as if thence Religion became more stately if that which is first with us be the last with them Now doth not St. Hierome here affirm that every Bishop hath the place of an Apostle and the first rank in the Church doth not he tax the advancement of any Order above this may not the Popish Hierarchy most patly be compared to that of the Montanists and is it not equally liable to the censure of St. Hierome doth it not place the Roman Pope in the first place and the Cardinals in the second detruding the Bishops into a third place Could the Pepusian Patriarch or his Cenones either more over-top in dignity or sway by power over Bishops than doth the Roman Patriarch and his Cardinals Again St. Cyprian telleth Pope Cornelius that in Episcopacy doth reside the sublime and divine power of governing the Church it being the sublime top of the Priesthood He saith the Blessed man concerning Pope Cornelius did not suddenly arrive to Episcopacy but being through all Ecclesiastical Offices promoted and having in divine administrations often merited of God did by all the steps of Religion mount to the sublimest pitch of Priesthood where it is visible that St. Cyprian doth not reckon the Papacy but the Episcopacy of Cornelius to be that top of Priesthood above which there was nothing eminent in the Church unto which he passing through the inferiour degrees of the Clergy had attained In fine it cannot well be conceived that the Ancients constantly would have spoken in this manner if they had allowed the Papal Office to be such as now it doth bear it self the which indeed is an Order no less distant from Episcopacy than the rank of a King differeth from that of the meanest Baron in his Kingdom Neither is it prejudicial to this Discourse or to any preceding that in the Primitive Church there were some distinctions and subordinations of Bishops as of Patriarchs Primates Metropolitans common Bishops for These were according to prudence constituted by the Church it self for the more orderly and peaceable administration of things These did not import such a difference among the Bishops that one should domineer over others to the infringing of primitive fraternity or common liberty but a precedence in the same rank with some moderate advantages for the common good These did stand under Authority of the Church and might be changed or corrected as was found expedient by common agreement By virtue of these the Superiours of this kind could doe nothing over their subordinates in an arbitrary manner but according to the regulation of Canons established by consent in Synods by which their influence was amplified or curb'd When any of these did begin to domineer or exceed his limits he was liable to account and correction he was
will then be deemed high presumption contumacy rebellion to dissent from his determinations how false soever or tax the practices countenanced by him however irregular and culpable He will assume to himself the privilege not to be crossed in any thing and soon will claim infallibility the mother of incorrigibility No errour can be so palpable which that Authority will not protect and shroud from confutation no practice so enormous which it will not palliate and guard from reproof There will be Legions of mercenary Tongues to speak and stipendiary Pens to write in defence of its Doctrines and Practices so that whoever will undertake to oppose it shall be voted down and overwhelmed with noise and shall incur all the discouragement and persecution imaginable So poor Truth will become utterly defenceless wretched Vertue destitute of succour or patronage This is so in speculation and we see it confirmed by experience for when from the influence of this Power as P. Adrian VI. did ingenuously confess an apparent degeneracy in Doctrine in Discipline in Practice had seised on Christendom all the world feeling it and crying out loudly for reformation yet how stiff a repugnance did the adherents to this interest make thereto with what industry and craft did Popes endeavour to decline all means of remedy What will not this Party doe rather than acknowledge themselves mistaken or liable to errour what palliations what shifts do not they use what evidence of light do they not outface 5. The same will induce a general corruption of manners For the chief Clergy partaking of its growth and protected by its interest reciprocally supporting it and being sheltred by it from any curb or controll will swell into great pride and haughtiness will be tempted to scrape and hoard up wealth by rapine extortion simony will come to enjoy ease and sloth will be immersed in sensuality and luxury and will consequently neglect their charge The inferiours will become enamoured and ambitious of such dignity and will use all means and arts to attain it Thence emulation discord sycophantry will spring Thence all Ecclesiastical Offices will become venal to be purchased by bribes flattery favour The higher ranks will become fastuous supercilious and domineering The lower will basely crouch cogg What then must the people be the guides being such Were such guides like to edifie the people by their Doctrine Were they not like to damnifie them by their Example That thus it hath happened Experience doth shew and History doth abundantly testifie This was soon observed by a Pagan Historian Am. Marcellin By St. Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What mischief this what scandal to Religion what detriment to the Church what ruins of Souls it produceth is visible The descriptions of Rome and of that Church by Mantuan do in a lively manner represent the great degeneracy and corruptions of it 6. This Authority as it would induce corruption of manners so it would perpetuate it and render the state of things incorrigible For this Head of the Church and the supporters of his Authority will often need reformation but never will endure it That will happen of any Pope which the Fathers of Basil complained of in Pope Eugenius If the Pope would as Pope Adrian VI. yet he will not be able to reform the interests of his dependents crossing it If there hath happened a good Pope who desired to reform yet he hath been ridiculous when he endeavoured it and found it impossible to reform even a few particulars in his own house the incorrigible Roman Court. The nature and pretended foundation of this spiritual Authority doth encourage it with insuperable obstinacy to withstand all reformation for whereas if any temporal Power doth grow intolerable God's Providence by Wars and Revolutions of State may dispense a redress they have prevented this by supposing that in this case God hath tied his own hands this Authority being immovably fixed in the same hands from which no revolution can take it whence from its exorbitancies there can be no rescue or relief 7. This Authority will spoil him in whom it is seated corrupting his mind and manners rendring him a Scandal to Religion and a pernicious Instrument of wickedness by the influence of his example To this an uncontrollable power bridled with no restraint and impunity doth naturally tend and accordingly hath it been How many notorious Reprobates Monsters of wickedness have been in that See If we survey the Lives of the Popes written by Historians most indifferent or as most have been partial in favour to them we shall find at first good ones Martyrs Confessours Saints but after this exorbitant power had grown how few good ones how many extremely bad The first Popes before Constantine were Holy men the next were tolerable while the Papacy kept within bounds of modesty but when they having shaked off their Master and renounced allegiance to the Emperour i. e. after Gregory II. few tolerable generally they were either rake-hells or intolerably arrogant insolent turbulent and ravenous Bellarmine and Baronius do bobb off this by telling us that hence the providence of God is most apparent But do they call this preserving the Church the permission of it to continue so long in such a condition under the prevalence of such mischiefs when hath God deserted any People if not then when such Impiety more than Pagan doth reign in it But what in the mean time became of those Souls which by this means were ruined what amends for the vast damage which Religion sustained for the introducing so pernicious Customs hardly to be extirpated To what a pass of shameless wickedness must things have come when such men as Alexander VI. having visibly such an impure brood should be placed in this Chair Even after the Reformation began to curb their impudence and render them more wary yet had they the face to set Paul the Third there How unfit must such men be to be the Guides of all Christendom to breathe Oracles of Truth to enact Laws of Sanctity How improper were those Vessels of Satan to be Organs of that Holy Spirit of discipline which will flee deceit and remove from thoughts that are without understanding and will not abide where unrighteousness cometh in It will engage the Popes to make the Ecclesiastical Authority an Engine of advancing the Temporal concerns of his own Relations his Sons his Nephews What indeed is the Popedom now but a Ladder for a Family to mount unto great estate What is it but introducing an old man into a place by advantage whereof a Family must make hay while the Sun shines 8. This Pretence upon divers obvious accounts is apt to create great mischief in the world to the disturbance of Civil Societies and destruction or debilitation of temporal Authority which is certainly God's Ordinance and necessary to the well-being of mankind so that supposing it we may in
vain pray for Kings and all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty For suppose the two powers Spiritual and Temporal to be co-ordinate and independent each of other then must all Christians be put into that perplexed state of repugnant and incompatible obligations concerning which our Lord saith No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other They will often draw several ways and clash in their designs in their laws in their decisions one willing and commanding that which the other disliketh and prohibiteth It will be impossible by any certain bounds to distinguish their Jurisdiction so as to prevent contest between them all temporal matters being in some respect spiritual as being referible to spiritual ends and in some manner allyed to Religion and all spiritual things becoming temporal as they conduce to the secular peace and prosperity of States there is nothing which each of these Powers will not hook within the verge of its cognizance and jurisdiction each will claim a right to meddle in all things one pretending thereby to further the good of the Church the other to secure the interest of the State and what end or remedy can there be of the differences hence arising there being no third Power to arbitrate or moderate between them Each will prosecute its cause by its advantages the one by instruments of temporal power the other by spiritual arms of censures and curses And in what a case must the poor people then be how distracted in their consciences how divided in their affections how discordant in their practices according as each pretence hath influence upon them by its different arguments or peculiar advantages How can any man satisfie himself in performing or refusing obedience to either How many by the intricacy of the point and contrary pulling will be withdrawn from yielding due complyance on the one hand or the other What shall a man doe while one in case of disobedience to his Commands doth brandish a Sword the other thundreth out a Curse against him one threatneth death the other excision from the Church both denounce damnation What animosities and contentions what discomposures and confusions must this Constitution of things breed in every place and how can a Kingdom so divided in it self stand or not come into desolation Such an advantage infallibly will make Popes affect to invade the temporal Power It was the reason which Pope Paschal alledged against Henry IV. because he did Ecclesiae regnum auferre It is indeed impossible that a co-ordination of these Powers should subsist for each will be continually encroaching on the other each for its own defence and support will continually be struggling and clambring to get above the other there will never be any quiet till one come to subside and truckle under the other whereby the Sovereignty of the one or the other will be destroyed Each of them soon will come to claim a Supremacy in all causes and the power of both Swords and one side will carry it It is indeed necessary that men for a time continuing possessed with a reverence to the Ecclesiastical Authority as independent and uncontrollable it should at last overthrow the temporal by reason of its great advantages above it for The Spiritual Power doth pretend an Establishment purely Divine which cannot by any accidents undergoe any change diminutions or translation to which Temporal dominions are subject Its power therefore being perpetual irreversible depending immediately of God can hardly be checked can never be conquered It fighteth with Tongues and Pens which are the most perillous Weapons It can never be disarmed fighting with Weapons that cannot be taken away or deprived of their edge and vigour It worketh by most powerfull considerations upon the Consciences and affections of men upon pain of damnation promising heaven and threatning hell which upon some men have an infinite sway upon all men a considerable influence and thereby will be too hard for those who onely can grant Temporal Rewards or inflict Temporal Punishments It is surely a notable advantage that the Pope hath above all Princes that he commandeth not onely as a Prince but as a Guide so that whereas we are not otherwise bound to obey the commands of Princes than as they appear concordant with God's Law we must observe his commands absolutely as being therefore lawfull because he commandeth them that involving his assertion of their lawfulness to which without farther inquiry or scruple we must submit our understanding his words sufficiently authorizing his commands for just We are not onely obliged to obey his commands but to embrace his doctrines It hath continual opportunities of conversing with men and thereby can insinuate and suggest the obligation to obey it with greatest advantage in secrecy in the tenderest seasons It claimeth a power to have its instruction admitted with assent and will it not instruct them for its own advantage All its Assertions must be believed is not this an infinite advantage By such advantages the Spiritual Power if admitted for such as it pretendeth will swallow and devour the Temporal which will be an extreme mischief to the world The very pretence doth immediately crop and curtail the natural Right of Princes by exempting great numbers of Persons the participants and dependents of this Hierarchy from subjection to them By withdrawing Causes from their Jurisdiction By commanding in their Territories and drawing people out of them to their Judicatories By having influence on their Opinions By dreigning them of Wealth c. To this discourse Experience abundantly doth yield its Attestation for How often have the Popes thwarted Princes in the exercise of their power challenging their Laws and Administrations as prejudicial to Religion as contrary to Ecclesiastical Liberty Bodin l. 9. observeth that if any Prince were a Heretick that is if the Pope could pick occasion to call him so or a Tyrant that is in his opinion or any-wise scandalous the Pope would excommunicate him and would not receive him to favour but upon his acknowledging himself a feudatory to the Pope So he drew in most Kingdoms to depend on him How often have they excommunicated them and interdicted their people from entertaining communion with them How many Commotions Conspiracies Rebellions and Insurrections against Princes have they raised in several Countries How have they inveigled people from their Allegiance How many Massacres and Assassinations have they caused How have they depressed and vilified the Temporal Power Have they not assumed to themselves Superiority over all Princes The Emperour himself the chief of Christian Princes they did call their Vassal exacting an Oath from them whereof you have a Form in the Canon Law and a declaration of Pope Clement V. that it is an Oath of Fealty
Church as having been from the beginning the School of the Apostles and the Metropolis of Religion although yet from the East the instructours of the Christian Doctrine did go and reside there but from hence they desired not to be deemed inferiours because they did not exceed in the greatness and numerousness of their Church They allowed some regard though faintly and with reservation to the Roman Church upon account of their Apostolical foundation they implied a stronger ground of pretence from the grandeur of that City yet did not they therefore grant themselves to be inferiours at least as to any substantial Privilege importing Authority If by Divine right upon account of his succession to Saint Peter he had such preeminence why are the other causes reckoned as if they could add any thing to God's Institution or as if that did need humane confirmation The pretence to that surely was weak which did need corroboration and to be propp'd by worldly considerations Indeed whereas the Apostles did found many Churches exercising Apostolical authority over them eminently containing the Episcopal why in conscience should one claim privileges on that score rather than or above the rest Why should the See of Antioch that most ancient and truly Apostolical Church where the Christian name began where Saint Peter at first as they say did sit Bishop for seven years be postponed to Alexandria Especially why should the Church of Jerusalem the Seat of our Lord himself the mother of all Churches the fountain of Christian Doctrine the first Consistory of the Apostles enobled by so many glorious performances by the Life Preaching Miracles Death Burial Resurrection Ascension of our Saviour by the first preaching of the Apostles the effusion of the Holy Spirit the Conversion of so many people and Constitution of the first Church and Celebration of the first Synods upon these considerations not obtain preeminence to other Churches but in honour be cast behind divers others and as to Power be subjected to Caesarea the Metropolis of Palestine The true reason of this even Baronius himself did see and acknowledge for that saith he the Ancients observ'd no other rule in instituting the Ecclesiastical Sees than the division of Provinces and the Prerogative before established by the Romans there are very many examples Of which examples that of Rome is the most obvious and notable and what he so generally asserteth may be so applied thereto as to void all other grounds of its preeminence X. The truth is all Ecclesiastical presidencies and subordinations or dependencies of some Bishops on others in administration of spiritual affairs were introduced merely by humane Ordinance and established by Law or Custome upon prudential accounts according to the exigency of things Hence the Prerogatives of other Sees did proceed and hereto whatever Dignity Privilege or Authority the Pope with equity might at any time claim is to be imputed To clear which point we will search the matter nearer the quick propounding some observations concerning the ancient forms of Discipline and considering what interest the Pope had therein At first each Church was settled apart under its own Bishop and Presbyters so as independently and separately to manage its own concernments each was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 governed by its own head and had its own Laws Every Bishop as a Prince in his own Church did act freely according to his will and discretion with the advice of his Ecclesiastical Senate and with the consent of his people the which he did use to consult without being controllable by any other or accountable to any farther than his obligation to uphold the verity of Christian profession and to maintain fraternal communion in charity and peace with neighbouring Churches did require in which regard if he were notably peccant he was liable to be disclaimed by them as no good Christian and rejected from communion together with his Church if it did adhere to him in his misdemeanours This may be collected from the remainders of State in the times of St. Cyprian But because little disjointed and incoherent Bodies were like dust apt to be dissipated by every wind of external assault or intestine faction and peaceable union could hardly be retained without some ligature of discipline and Churches could not mutually support and defend each other without some method of entercourse and rule of confederacy engaging them Therefore for many good purposes for upholding and advancing the common interests of Christianity for protection and support of each Church from inbred disorders and dissentions for preserving the integrity of the faith for securing the concord of divers Churches for providing fit Pastours to each Church and correcting such as were scandalously bad or unfaithfull it was soon found needfull that divers Churches should be combined and linked together in some regular form of Discipline that if any Church did want a Bishop the neighbour Bishops might step in to approve and ordain a fit one that if any Bishop did notoriously swerve from the Christian rule the others might interpose to correct or void him that if any errour or schism did peep up in any Church the joint concurrence of divers Bishops might avail to stop its progress and to quench it by convenient means of instruction reprehension and censure that if any Church were oppressed by persecution by indigency by faction the others might be engaged to afford effectual succour and relief for such ends it was needfull that Bishops in certain precincts should convene with intent to deliberate and resolve about the best expedients to compass them And that the manner of such proceeding to avoid uncertain distraction confusion arbitrariness dissatisfaction and mutinous opposition should be settled in an ordinary course according to rules known and allowed by all In defining such precincts it was most natural most easie most commodious to follow the divisions of Territory or Jurisdiction already established in the Civil State that the Spiritual administrations being in such circumstances aptly conformed to the Secular might go on more smoothly and expeditely the wheels of one not clashing with the other according to the judgment of the two great Synods that of Chalcedon and the Trullane which did ordain that if by Royal authority any city be or should hereafter be re-established the order of the churches shall be according to the civil and publick form Whereas therefore in each Nation or Province subject to one Political Jurisdiction there was a Metropolis or Head-city to which the greatest resort was for dispensation of Justice and dispatch of principal Affairs emergent in that Province it was also most convenient that also the determination of Ecclesiastical matters should be affixed thereto especially considering that usually those places were opportunely seated that many persons upon other occasions did meet there that the Churches in those Cities did exceed the rest in number
how ready the Emperours were to promote the dignity of that Bishop we see by many of their Edicts to that purpose as particularly that of Leo. So for the honour of their City the Emperours usually did favour the Pope assisting him in the furtherance of his designs and extending his Privileges by their Edicts at home and Letters to the Eastern Emperours recommending their affairs So in the Synod of Chalcedon we have the Letters of Valentinian together with those of Placidia and of Eudoxia the Empresses to Theodosius in behalf of Pope Leo for retractation of the Ephesine Synod wherein they do express themselves engaged to maintain the honour of the Roman See Seeing that saith Placidia Mother of Theodosius it becometh us in all things to preserve the honour and dignity of this chief City which is the Mistress of all others So Pope Nicholas confesseth that the Emperours had extolled the Roman See with divers privileges had enriched it with gifts had enlarged it with benefits or benefices c. 14. The Popes had the advantage of being ready at hand to suggest what they pleased to the Court and thereby to procure his Edicts directed or dictated by themselves in their favour for extending their power or repressing any opposition made to their encroachments Baronius observeth that the Bishops of Constantinople did use this advantage for their ends for thus he reflecteth on the Edict of the Emperour Leo in favour of that See These things Leo but questionless conceived in the words of Acacius swelling with pride And no less unquestionably did the Popes conceive words for the Emperour in countenance of their Authority Such was the Edict of Valentinian in favour of Leo against Hilarius Bishop of Arles in an unjust cause as Binius confesseth who contested his Authority to undo what was done in a Gallicane Synod And we may thank Baronius himself for this Observation By this Reader thou understandest that when the Emperours ordained Laws concerning Religion they did it by transcribing and enacting the Laws of the Church upon the admonition of the Holy Bishops requiring them to doe their duty It was a notable Edict which Pope Hilarius alledgeth It was also decreed by the Laws of Christian Princes that whatsoever the Bishop of the Apostolick See should upon examination pronounce concerning Churches and their Governours c. should with reverence be received and strictly observed c. Such Edicts by crafty suggestions being at opportune times from easie and unwary Princes procured did hold not being easily reversed and the Power which the Pope once had obtained by them he would never part with fortifying it by higher pretences of Divine immutable right The Emperour Gratian having gotten the World under him did order the Churches to those who would communicate with Pope Damasus This and the like countenances did bring credit and authority to the Roman See 15. It is therefore no wonder that Popes being seated in the Metropolis of the Western Empire the head of all the Roman State should find interest sufficient to make themselves by degrees what they would be for they not onely surpassing the Provincial Bishops in wealth and repute but having power in Court who dared to pull a feather with them or to withstand their encroachments What wise man would not rather bear much than contest upon such disadvantages and without probable grounds of success 16. Princes who favoured them with such concessions and abetted their undertakings did not foresee what such encrease of power in time would arise to or suspect the prejudice thence done to Imperial Authority They little thought that in virtue thereof Popes would check and mate Princes or would claim superiority over them for the Popes at that time did behave and express themselves with modesty and respect to Emperours 17. Power once rooted doth find seasons and favourable junctures for its growth the which it will be intent to embrace The confusions of things the eruptions of Barbarians the straits of Emperours the contentions of Princes c. did all turn to account for him and in confusion of things he did snatch what he could to himself The declination and infirmity of the Roman Empire gave him opportunity to strengthen his interests either by closing with it so as to gain somewhat by its concession or by opposing it so as to head a Faction against it As he often had opportunity to promote the designs of Emperours and Princes so those did return to him encrease of Authority so they trucked and bartered together For when Princes were in straits or did need assistence from his reputation at home to the furtherance of their designs or support of their interest in Italy they were content to honour him and grant what he desired as in the case of Acacius which had caused so long a breach the Emperour to engage Pope Hormisdas did consent to his will And at the Florentine Synod the Emperour did bow to the Pope's terms in hopes to get his assistence against the Turks When the Eastern Emperours by his means chiefly were driven out of Italy he snatched a good part of it to himself and set up for a Temporal Prince When Princes did clash he by yielding countenance to one side would be sure to make a good market for himself for this pretended Successour to the Fisherman was really skilled to angle in troubled Waters They have been the incendiaries of Christendom the kindlers and fomenters of War And would often stir up Wars and inclining to the stronger part would share with the Conquerour as when he stirr'd up Charles against the Lombards They would upon spiritual pretence be interposing in all affairs He did oblige Princes by abetting their Cause when it was unjust or weak his spiritual Authority satisfying their Conscience whence he was sure to receive good acknowledgment and recompence As when he did allow Pepin's usurpation He pretended to dispose of Kingdoms and to constitute Princes reserving obeisance to himself Gregory VII granted to Robert Guislard Naples and Sicily beneficiario jure Innocent II. gave to Roger the title of King There is scarce any Kingdom in Europe which he hath not claimed the Sovereignty of by some pretence or other Princes sometime for quiet sake have desired the Pope's consent and allowance of things appertaining of right to themselves whence the Pope took advantage to claim an original right of disposing such things The proceeding of the Pope upon occasion of Wars is remarkable when he did enter League with a Prince to side with him in a War against another he did covenant to prosecute the Enemy with Spiritual Arms that is with Excommunications and Interdicts engaging his Confederates to use Temporal Arms. So making Ecclesiastical Censures tools of Interest When Princes were in difficulties by the mutinous disposition of Princes the emulation of Antagonists he would as served his interest interpose hooking in some advantage
appeareth that at that time according to common opinion and practice authoritative Presidency was not affixed to the Roman Chair In the Synod of Chalcedon Pope Leo did indeed assume to himself a kind of Presidency by his Legates and no wonder that a man of a stout and ardent Spirit impregnated with high conceits of his See and resolved with all his might to advance its interests as his Legates themselves did in effect declare to the world should doe so having so favourable a time by the misbehaviour of Dioscorus and his adherents against whom the Clergy of Constantinople and other Fathers of the Synod being incensed were ready to comply with Leo who had been the Champion and Patron of their Cause in allowing him extraordinary respect and whatever advantages he could pretend to Yet in effect the Emperour by his Commissioners did preside there they propounding and allowing matters to be discussed moderating debates by their interlocution and driving them to an issue maintaining order and quiet in proceedings performing those things which the Pope's Legates at Trent or otherwhere in the height of his power did undertake To them supplicatory addresses were made for succour and redress by persons needing it as for instance Command said Eusebius of Dorylaeum that my supplications may be read Of them leave is requested for time to deliberate Command saith Atticus in behalf of other Bishops that respite be given so that within a few days with a calm mind and undisturbed reason those things may be formed which shall be pleasing to God and the Holy Fathers Accordingly they order the time for consultation Let said they the hearing be deferred for five days that in the mean time your Holiness may meet at the house of the most Holy Archbishop Anatolius and deliberate in common about the faith that the doubtfull may be instructed They were acknowledged Judges and had thanks given them for the issue by persons concerned I said Eunomius Bishop of Nicomedia do thank your Honour for your right judgment And in the cause between Stephanus and Bassianus concerning their title to the Bishoprick of Ephesus they having declared their sense the Holy Synod cryed this is right judgment Christ hath decided the case God judgeth by you And in the result upon their declaring their opinion the whole Synod exclaimed This is a right judgment this is a pious order When the Bishops transported with eagerness and passion did tumultuously clamour they gravely did check them saying These vulgar exclamations neither become Bishops nor shall advantage the parties In the great contest about the privileges of the Constantinopolitan See they did arbitrate and decide the matter even against the sense and endeavours of the Pope's Legates the whole Synod concurring with them in these acclamations this is a right sentence we all say these things these things please us all things are duely ordered let 〈◊〉 things ordered be held The Pope's Legates themselves did avow this authority in them for If said Paschasinus in the case of the Egyptian Bishops your authority doth command and ye injoin that somewhat of humanity be granted to them c. And in another case If said the Bishops supplying the place of the Apostolical See your Honours do command we have an information to suggest Neither is the Presidency of these Roman Legates expressed in the Conciliar Acts but they are barely said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to concur and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sit together with the other Fathers and accordingly although they sometimes talked high yet it is not observable that they did much there their Presidency was nothing like that at Trent and in other like Papal Synods It may be noted that the Emperour's Deputies are always named in the first place at the entrance of the Acts before the Pope's Legates so that they who directed the Notaries were not Popish In effect the Emperour was President though not as a Judge of Spiritual matters yet as an Orderer of the Conciliar transactions as the Synod doth report it to Leo the faithfull Emperours said they did preside or govern it for good order sake In the Fifth General Synod Pope Vigilius indeed was moved to be present and in his way to preside but he out of state or policy declined it wherefore the Patriarch of Constantinople was the Ecclesiastical President as in the beginning of every Collation doth appear whence clearly we may infer that the Pope's Presidency is no-wise necessary to the being of a General Council In the Sixth General Synod the Emperour in each Act is expesly said to preside in person or by his Deputies although P. Agatho had his Legates there In the Synod of Constance sometimes the Cardinal of Cambray sometimes of Hostia did preside by order of the Synod it self and sometime the King of the Romans did supply that place so little essential was the Pope's Presidency to a Council deemed even then when Papal authority had mounted to so high a pitch Nor is there good reason why the Pope should have this privilege or why this Prerogative should be affixed to any one See so that if there be cause as if the Pope be unfit or less fit if Princes or the Church cannot confide in him if he be suspected of prejudice or partiality if he be party in causes or controversies to be decided if he do himself need correction Princes may not assign or the Church with allowance of Princes may not chuse any other President more proper in their judgment for that charge in such cases the publick welfare of Church and State is to be regarded Were an Erroneous Pope as Vigilius or Hâ—â—orius fit to govern a Council gathered to consult about defining Truth in the matter of their Errour Where a Lewd Pope as Alexander VI John XII Paul III innumerable such scandalously vitious worthy to preside in a Synod convocated to prescribe strict Laws of Reformation Were a Furious Pugnacious Pope as Julius II apt to moderate an Assembly drawn together for settlement of Peace Were a Pope engaged in Schism as many have been a proper Moderatour of a Council designed to suppress Schism Were a Gregory VII or an Innocent IV or a Boniface VIII an allowable manager any where of Controversies about the Papal Authority Were now indeed any Pope fit to preside in any Council wherein the Reformation of the Church is concerned it being notorious that Popes as such do most need Reformation that they are the great obstructours of it that all Christendom hath a long time a Controversie with them for their detaining it in bondage In this and many other cases we may reject their Presidency as implying iniquity according to the Rule of an old Pope I would know of them where they would have that judgment they pretend examin'd what by themselves that the same may be adversaries witnesses and judges to such
be derogated from persons dying in the peace and communion of the universal Church by his condemning that perverse opinion Yet did the Synod in smart terms reflecting on the Pope and giving him the lie not regarding his opinion or authority decree that persons deceased were liable to be anathematized they did anathematize Theodorus they did expresly condemn each of the Chapters they threatned deposition or excommunication on whoever should oppose their Constitutions they anathematize whoever doth not anathematize Theodorus But Pope Vigilius did refuse to approve their Doctrine and Sentence and therefore which was the case of many other Bishops as Baronius himself doth confess and argue was driven into banishment wherein he did expire Yet posterity hath embraced this Synod as a legitimate and valid General Synod and the Popes following did profess the highest reverence thereto equally with the preceding General Synods so little necessary is the Pope's consent or concurrence to the validity of Synodical definitions Upon this Baronius hath an admirable reflexion Here stay saith he O Reader and consider the matter attently Ay do so I pray That it is no new thing that some Synod in which the Pope was not even present by his Legates but did oppose it should yet obtain the title of an Oecumenical Synod whenas afterward the Pope's will did come in that it should obtain such a title So in the opinion of this Doctour the Pope can easily change the nature of things and make that become a General Synod which once was none yea which as it was held did not deserve the name of any Synod at all O the virtue of Papal Magick or rather O the Impudence of Papal Advocates The Canons of the sixth General Council exhibited by the Trullane or Quinisext Synod clearly and expresly do condemn several Doctrines and Practices of Rome I ask whether the Pope did confirm them they will to be sure as they are concerned to do answer No and indeed Pope Sergius as Anastasius in his Life reporteth did refuse them yet did they pass for legitimate in the whole Church for in their general Synod the second Nicene without contradiction one of them is alledged out of the very original paper wherein the Fathers had subscribed as a Canon of the Holy General Sixth Synod and avowed for such by the Patriarch Tarasius both in way of argument of defence and of profession in his Synodical Epistle to the Patriarchs where he saith that together with the divine doctrines of the Sixth Synod he doth also embrace the Canons enacted by it of which Epistle Pope Adrian in his Answer thereto doth recite a part containing those words and applaud it for Orthodox signifying no offence at his embracing the Trullane Canons And all those 102 Canons are again avowed by the Synod in their Antithesis to the Synod of Constantinople In fine if we believe Anastasius Pope John VII did being timorous out of humane frailty direct these Canons without amendment by two Metropolites to the Emperour that is he did admit them so as they stand But it may be instanced that divers Synods have asked the Popes consent for ratification of their Decrees and Acts. So the Fathers of the Second General Synod having in an Episstle to Pope Damasus and the Western Bishops declared what Constitutions they had made in the close speak thus In which things being legally and canonically settled by us we do exhort your reverence to acquiesce out of spiritual charity and fear of the Lord So the Synod of Chalcedon did with much respect ask from Pope Leo the confirmation of its Sanctions That you may know how that we have done nothing for favour or out of spite but as guided by the divine direction we have made known to you the force of all that has been done for your concurrence and for the confirmation and approbation of the things done Of the Fifth Synod Pope Leo II. saith that he agrees to what was determin'd in it and confirms it with the authority of the Blessed Saint Peter To these allegations we reply That it was indeed the manner of all Synods for notification of things and promulgation of their Orders for demonstration and maintenance of concord for adding weight and authority to their determinations for engaging all Bishops to a willing complyance in observing them for attestation to the common interest of all Bishops in the Christian truth and in the governance and edification of the Church having framed Decrees concerning the publick State to demand in fairest terms the consent to them of all Catholick Bishops who were absent from them to be attested by their subscription So did Constantine recommend the Nicene Decrees to all Bishops undertaking that they would assent to them So more expresly the Synod of Sardica in their Epistle to all Bishops of the Catholick Church Do ye also our brethren and fellow-ministers the more use diligence as being present in spirit with our Synod to yield consent by your subscription that concord may be preserved every where by all the fellow-ministers So did Pope Liberius request of the Emperour Constantius that the faith delivered at Nice might be confirmed by the subscription of all Bishops So did Athanasius procure a Synod at Alexandria to confirm the Decrees at Sardica and in Palestine concerning him So the Macedonian Bishops are said to have authorized their Agents to ratifie the faith of Consubstantiality Many such Instances occur in story by which it may appear that the Decrees of Synods concerning Faith or concerning any matters of common interest were presented to all Bishops and their consent requested or required because say the Roman Clergy in Saint Cyprian a decree cannot be firm which has not the consent of many Whence it is no wonder if any Synods did thus proceed toward so eminent a Bishop as was he of Rome that they should endeavour to give him satisfaction that they should desire to receive satisfaction from him of his conspiring with them in Faith of his willingness to comply in observing good Rules of Discipline that as every vote had force so the suffrage of one in so great dignity and reputation might adjoin some regard to their judgment The Pope's confirmation of Synods what was it in effect but a declaration of his approbation and assent the which did confirm by addition of Suffrage as those who were present by their Vote and those who were absent by their Subscription are said to confirm the Decrees of Councils every such consent being supposed to encrease the authority whence the number of Bishops is sometimes reckoned according to the subscriptions of Bishops absent as the Council of Sardica is sometimes related to consist of three hundred Bishops although not two hundred were present the rest concurring by subscription to its definitions Other Bishops in yielding their suffrage do
in their generations accommodating their discourse to the state of times and places 11. It is also to be observed that often the Popes are supposed to speak and constitute things by their own authority which indeed were done by Synods consisting of Western Bishops more closely adhering to that See in regard to those Regions the Decrees of which Synods were binding in those places not so much by virtue of Papal authority as proceeding from the consent of their own Bishops how ready soever He were to assume all to himself pretending those Decrees as precepts of the Apostolical See Whence all the Acts of modern Popes are invalid and do not oblige seeing they do not act in Synod but onely of their own Head or with the advice of a few Partizans about them men linked in common interest with them to domineer over the Church 12. Yet even in the Western Countries in later times their Decrees have been contested when they did seem plainly to clash with the old Canons or much to derogate from the Liberties of Churches nor have there wanted learned Persons in most times who so far as they durst have expressed their dislike of this Usurpation For although the Bishop of Rome be more venerable than the rest that are in the world upon account of the dignity of the Apostolical See yet it is not lawfull for him in any case to transgress the order of Canonical governance for as every Bishop who is of the Orthodox Church and the Spouse of his own See doth intirely represent the Person of our Saviour so generally no Bishop ought pragmatically to act any thing in anothers Diocese 13. In the times of Pope Nicolas I. the Greeks did not admit the Roman Decrees so that Pope in an Epistle to Photius complains that he did not receive the Decrees of the Popes whenas yet they ordained nothing but what the Natural what the Mosaical and what the Law of Grace required And in another Epistle he expostulates with him for saying that they neither had nor did observe the Decrees made by the Holy Popes of the Prime See of the Roman Church 14. That which greatly did advance the Papal Jurisdiction and introduced his Usurpation of obtruding new Decrees on the Church was the venting of the forged Decretal Epistles under the name of Old Popes which when the Pope did alledge for authorizing his practices the French Bishops endeavouring to assert their Privilege did alledge that they were not contained in the whole body of their Canons 15. The power of enacting and dispensing with Ecclesiastical Laws touching extoriour Discipline did of old belong to the Emperour And it was reasonable that it should because old Laws might not conveniently sute with the present state of things and the publick welfare because new Laws might condâ—ce to the good of Church and State the care of which is incumbent on him because the Prince is bound to use his power and authority to promote God's Service the best way of doing which may be by framing Orders conducible thereto Accordingly the Emperours did enact divers Laws concerning Ecclesiastical matters which we see extant in the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian These things saith the Council of Arles we have decreed to be presented to our Lord the Emperour desiring his clemency that if any thing be defective it may be supplied by his prudence if any thing be unreasonable it may be corrected by his judgment if any thing be reasonably ordered it may by his help the Divine Grace assisting be perfected We may observe that Popes did allow the validity of Imperial Laws Pope Gregory I. doth alledge divers Laws of divers Emperours concerning Ecclesiastical affairs as authentick and obligatory Rules of practice 16. Divers Churches had particular rights of independency upon all power without themselves Such as the Church of Cyprus in the Ephesine Synod did claim and obtain the confirmation of Such was the ancient Church of Britain before Austin came into England The Welch Bishops are consecrated by the Bishop of St. Davids and he himself in like manner is ordained by others who are as it were his Suffragans professing no manner subjection to any other Church V. Sovereign power immediately by it self when it pleaseth doth exercise all parts of Jurisdiction setting it self in the Tribunal or mediately doth execute it by others as its Officers or Commissioners Wherefore now the Pope doth claim and exercise Universal Jurisdiction over all the Clergy requiring of them engagements of strict submission and obedience to him demanding that all causes of weight be referred to him citing them to his bar examining and deciding their causes condemning suspending deposing censuring them or acquitting absolving restoring them as he seeth cause or findeth in his heart He doth encourage people to accuse their pastours to him in case any doth infringe his Laws and Orders But in general that originally or anciently the Pope had no such right appropriate to him may appear by arguments by cross instances by the insufficiency of all pleas and examples alledged in favour of this claim For 1. Originally there was not at all among Christians any Jurisdiction like to that which is exercised in Civil Governments and which now the papal Court doth execute For this our Saviour did prohibit and Saint Peter forbad the Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And St. Chrysostome affirmeth the Episcopal power not to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Ecclesiastical History doth inform us that such a Jurisdiction was lately introduced in the Church as by other great Bishops so especially by the Bishop of Rome For saith Socrates from that time the Episcopacy of Alexandria beyond the Sacerdotal Order did assume a domineering power in affairs The which kind of power the Roman Bishops had long before assumed for saith he the Episcopacy of Rome in like manner as that of Alexandria had already a great while agoe gone before in a domineering power beyond that of the Priesthood At first the Episcopal power did onely consist in Paternal admonition and correption of offenders exhorting and persuading them to amendment and in case they contumaciously did persist in disorderly behaviour bringing them before the Congregation and the cause being there heard and proved with its consent imposing such penance or correction on them as seemed needfull for the publick good or their particular benefit All things saith St. Cyprian shall be examin'd you being present and judging And elsewhere according to your divine suffrages according to your pleasure 2. Originally no one Bishop had any Jurisdiction over another or authority to judge his actions as St. Cyprian who well knew the current judgment and practice of his age in many places doth affirm who particularly doth reflect on the Roman Bishop for presuming to censure his brethren who dissented from him Let us all saith he
expect the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ who onely hath power to prefer us to the government of his Church and to judge of what we doe 3. Even the community of Bishops did not otherwise take notice of or intermeddle with the proceedings of any Bishop in his precinct and charge except when his demeanour did concern the general state of the Church intrenching upon the common faith or publick order and peace In other cases for one or more Bishops to meddle with the proceedings of their brother was taken for an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pragmatical intrusion upon anothers business and an invasion of that Liberty which did belong to each Bishop by the grant of our Lord and the nature of his Office As by those passages of St. Cyprian and the declaration of the Synod with him doth appear 4. In cases needing decision for the publick good of the Church the Law and custom of the Church confirmed by the Nicene Synod did order that jurisdiction should be exercised and all causes finally determined in each Province so that no regard is had to the Pope no exception in favour of him being expressed or implyed The which Constitution if we believe Pope Leo himself cannot in any case by any power be revoked or infringed That is most expresly confirmed by the Synod of Antioch in the Code of the Universal Church If any Bishop accused of certain crimes shall be condemned by all the Bishops in the Province and all shall unanimously vote against him he shall not be judged again by others but the unanimous sentence of the Bishops of the Province shall remain valid Here is no consideration or exception from the Pope 5. Accordingly in practice Synods without regard or recourse to the Pope did judge Bishops upon offences charged against them 6. The execution of those judgments was entrusted to Metropolitan Bishops or had effect by the peoples consent for it being declared that any Bishop had incurred condemnation the people did presently desert him Every Bishop was obliged to confer his part to the execution as Pope Gelasius affirmeth 7. If the Pope had such judicial power seeing there were from the beginning so many occasions of exercising it there would have been extant in History many clear instances of it but few can be alledged and those as we shall see impertinent or insufficient 8. Divers Synods great and smaller did make Sanctions contrary to this pretence of the Pope appointing the decision of Causes to be terminated in each Diocese and prohibiting appeals to him which they would not have done if the Pope had originally or according to common law and custom a supreme judicial power 9. The most favourable of ancient Synods to Papal interest that of Sardica did confer on the Pope a power qualified in matter and manner of causing Episcopal causes to be revised which sheweth that before he had no right in such cases nor then had an absolute power 10. The Pope's power of judging Bishops hath been of old disclaimed as an illegal and upstart encroachment When the Pope first nibbled at this bait of ambition St. Cyprian and his Bishops did reprehend him for it The Bishop of Constantinople denied that Pope Gelasius alone might condemn him according to the Canons The Pope ranteth at it and reasoneth against it but hath no material argument or example for it concerning the Papal authority peculiarly beside the Sardican Canon 11. The Popes themselves have been judged for Misdemeanour Heresie Schism as hereafter we shall shew 12. The Popes did execute some judgments onely by a right common to all Bishops as Executours of Synodical Decrees 13. Other Bishops did pretend to Judicature by Privilege as Juvenalis Bishop of Jerusalem did pretend that to him did belong the Judgment of the Bishop of Antioch 14. The Popes were subject to the Emperours who when they pleased did interpose to direct or qualifie all Jurisdiction commanding the Popes themselves wherefore the Popes were not Judges Sovereign but subordinate Pope Gregory I. did refer the great Question about the title of Oecumenical Bishop to the judgment of the Emperour Mauricius These things will more fully appear in the discussion of the particulars concerning the chief Branches of Jurisdiction more especially under the Tenth Branch of Sovereignty They alledge that passage of Valentinian in his Epistle to Theodosius That the most blessed Bishop of Rome to whom Antiquity hath given a Priesthood over all hath a See and Power to judge both of Faith and Priests This was suggested by Pope Leo and his adherents to the young Emperour but it signifieth no more but that in the Judgment of Priests as of Faith he was to have his share or at most to be a leading person therein Theodosius a mature grave pious Prince did not regard that pretence of Leo nor the appeal of Flavianus VI. To the Sovereign of any State belongeth the Choice Constitution Confirmation Commissionating of all inferiour Magistrates that none uncapable unworthy or unfit for Offices or disaffected to the State be entrusted with the management of Affairs Wherefore the Pope doth claim and exercise these Prerogatives so far as he can pretending at least that no Bishop can be constituted without his designation or his licence and his confirmation of the nomination collation or election And these Privileges by the great Advocates are upon highest terms asserted to him In this matter may be distinguished 1. The Designation of the Person by Election or otherwise 2. The Confirmation of that 3. The Ordination or Consecration of him to his Office the which conferreth on him his Character and Authority 4. The Authority by which he acteth Into all these the Pope hath intruded himself and he will have a finger in them 1. He gladly would have drawn to himself the collation and disposal of all Benefices challenging a general right to dispose of all at his pleasure but not having been able wholly to deprive Princes and Patrons of their Nominations and Corporations of their Election yet he hath by Reservations Provisions Collations of Vacancies apud Sedem Resignations Devolutions and other such tricks extremely encroached on the rights of all to the infinite vexation damage and mischief of Christendom 2. He pretendeth that no Bishop shall be ordained without his Licence 3. He obligeth the person Ordained to swear obedience to him 4. He pretendeth that all Bishops are his Ministers and Deputies But no such Privileges have any foundation or warrant in Holy Scripture in Ancient Doctrine or in Primitive Usage they are all Encroachments upon the original Rights and Liberties of the Church derived from Ambition and Avarice subsisting upon Usurpation upheld by Violence This will appear from a Survey of Ancient Rules and Practices concerning this matter The first constitution after our Lord's decease of an Ecclesiastical person was that of Matthias into the vacant Apostolate or Bishoprick
of Rome as obnoxious to imputation of novelty but if it be not consonant to the Scriptures let them confute it or if it be not consentaneous to the Fathers who have preceded or if it be not apt to confute the irreligious c. It was not his judicial authority which they did insist upon to maintain his Epistle but the orthodoxie and intrinsick usefulness of it to confute errours upon which account they did embrace and confirm it by their suffrage XIII If the Pope were a Sovereign of the Church as they make him it were at least expedient that he should be infallible for why otherwise should he undertake confidently to pronounce in all cases to define high and difficult Points to impose his Dictates and require assent from all If he be fallible it is very probable that often he doth obtrude errours upon us for matters of Faith and Practice Wherefore the true fast friends of Papal interest do assert him to be infallible when he dictateth as Pope and setting himself into his Chair doth thence mean to instruct the whole Church And the Pope therefore himself who countenanceth them may be presumed to be of that mind Pighius said bouncingly The judgment of the Apostolick See with a Council of domestick Priests is far more certain than the judgment of an universal Council of the whole earth without the Pope This is the Syllogism we propose The Supreme Judge must be infallible The Pope is not infallible Therefore The Major the Jesuits Canonists and Courtiers are obliged to prove it being their Assertion and they do prove it very wisely and strongly The Minor is asserted by the French Doctours and they do with clear evidence maintain it The Conclusion we leave them to infer who are concerned It is in effect Pope Gregory's Argumentation No Bishop can be Universal Bishop or Universal Pastour and Judge of the Church because no Bishop can be Infallible for that the lapse of such a Pastour would throw down the Church into ruine by errour and impiety Therefore the Vniversal Church which God forbid falls when he falls who is call'd Vniversal The state and order of our Lord's family will decay when that which is required in the body is not to be found in the head But that he is not infallible much Experience and History do abundantly shew The Ancients knew no such pretender to infallibility otherwise they would have left disputing and run to his Oracular Dictates for information They would have onely asserted this point against Hereticks We should have had Testimonies of it innumerable It had been the most famous point of all I will not mention Pope Stephanus universally approving the Baptism of Hereticks against the Decrees of the Synod of Nice and other Synods Nor Pope Liberius complying with Arianism Nor Pope Innocent I. and his followers at least till Pope Gelasius first asserting the Communion of Infants for needfull Nor Pope Vigilius dodging with the Fifth Synod Nor Pope Honorius condemned by so many Councils and Popes for Monothelitism But surely Pope Leo and Pope Gelasius were strangely deceived when they condemned Partaking in one kind Pope Gregory was foully out when he condemned the worship of Images and when he so declaimeth against the title of Vniversal Bishop and when he avowed himself a Subject to the Emperour Mauritius and when he denied the Books of Maccabees to be Canonical and when he asserted the perfection of Holy Scripture Pope Leo II. was mistaken when he did charge his infallible Predecessour Honorius of Monothelitism Pope Nicholas was a little deceived when he determined the attrition of Christ's Body Pope Vrban II. was out when he allowed it lawfull for good Catholicks to commit murther on Persons excommunicate Pope Innocent IV. erred when he called Kings The Pope's Slaves Surely those Popes did err who confirmed the Synods of Constance and Basil not excepting the determinations in favour of General Councils being Superiour to Popes All those Popes have devilishly erred who have pretended to dispose of Kingdoms to depose Princes to absolve Subjects of their Oaths Pope Adrian II. did not take the Pope to be infallible when he said he might not be judged excepting the case of Heresie and thereby excuseth the Orientals for anathematizing Honorius he being accused of Heresie There is one Heresie of which if all Histories do not lie grievously divers Popes have been guilty a Heresie defined by divers Popes the Heresie of Simony How many such Hereticks have sate in that Chair of which how many Popes are proclaimed guilty with a loud voice in History The hand says St. Bernard does all the Papal business shew me a man in all this greatest City who would admit thee to be Pope without the mediation of a bribe Yea how few for some Ages have been guiltless of this Heresie I may be answered they were no Popes because their Election was null but then the Church hath often and long been without a Head Then numberless Acts have been void and Creations of Cardinals have been null and consequently there hath not probably been any true Pope for a long time In the judgment of so many great Divines which did constitute the Synod of Basil many Popes near all surely have been Hereticks who have followed or countenanced the opinion that Popes are superiour to General Councils the which there is flatly declared Heresie Pope Eugenius by name was there declared a pertinacious Heretick deviating from the faith It often happeneth that the Pope is not skilled in Divinity as Pope Innocent X. was wont to profess concerning himself to wave discourse about Theological points he therefore cannot pronounce in use of ordinary means but onely by miracle as Balaam's Ass. So Pope Innocent X. said that the Vicar of Jesus Christ was not obliged to examine all things by dispute for that the truth of his decrees depended onely on divine Inspiration what is this but downright Quakerism Enthusiasm Imposture Pope Clemens V. did not take himself to be infallible when in his great Synod of Vienna the question whether beside remission of sin also vertue were conferred to Infants he resolved thus very honestly The second opinion which says that informing grace and vertues are in baptism conferred both upon infants and adult persons we think fit with the consent of the holy council to be chosen as being more probable and more consonant and agreeable to the Divinity of the modern Doctours Which of the two Popes were in the right Pope Nicholas IV. who decided that our Lord was so poor that he had right to nothing or Pope John XXII who declared this to be a Heresie charging our Lord with injustice XIV A Sovereign is in Dignity and Authority Superiour to any number of Subjects however conjoined or congregated as a Head is above all the Members however compacted He is not Supreme who is any-wise subject
sense of good men in all times XVIII It is a Prerogative of Sovereign power to Erect Translate Spiritual Presidencies Wherefore this the Pope claimeth Cum ex illo c. But at first he had nothing to doe therein except in his own Province or Diocese As Christianity did grow and enter into Cities so the neighbour Bishops did ordain Bishops there Princes often as they did endow so they did erect Episcopal Sees and did as was sutable change places Pope Paschal II. doth by complaining attest to this writing to the Archbishop of Poland What shall I say of the translations of Bishops which among you are presumed to be made not by Apostolick authority but the King's command XIX It is a great Prerogative of Sovereignty to impose Taxes on the Clergy or People Wherefore the Pope doth assume this as for instance that Decree of Pope Innocent IV. in the First Synod of Lions By the common consent of the Council we ordain that all the Clergy as well those who are under authority as the Prelates pay for three years a twentieth part of their Ecclesiastical revenues towards the assistence of the holy Land into the hands of those who shall be thereto appointed by the prudence of the Apostolick See and let all know that this they are bound faithfully to doe under pain of excommunication But Antiquity knew no such Impositions when the Church the Clergy the Poor were maintained and relieved by voluntary Offerings or Obventions Even the invidious splendour of the Roman Bishop was supported by the Oblations of Matrons as Marcellinus observeth This is an encroachment upon the right of Princes unto whom Clergy-men are Subjects and bound to render tribute to whom tribute belongeth SUPPOSITION VII A farther grand Assertion of the Roman Party is this That the Papal Supremacy is indefectible and unalterable BUT good reasons may be assigned why even supposing that the Pope had an Universal Sovereignty in virtue of his Succession to Saint Peter conferred on him it is not assuredly consequent that it must always or doth now belong to him For it might be settled on him not absolutely but upon conditions the which failing his authority may expire It might be God's will that it should onely continue for a time And there are divers ways whereby according to common rules of justice he might be disseised thereof 1. If God had positively declared his will concerning this Point that such a Sovereignty was by him granted irrevocably and immutably so that in no case it might be removed or altered then indeed it must be admitted for such but if no such declaration doth appear then to assert it for such is to derogate from his power and providence by exemption of this case from it It is the ordinary course of providence so to confer power of any kind or nature on men as to reserve to himself the liberty of transferring it qualifying it extending or contracting it abolishing it according to his pleasure in due seasons and exigencies of things Whence no humane power can be supposed absolutely stable or immovably fixed in one person or place 2. No power can have a higher source or firmer ground than that of the Civil Government hath for all such power is from heaven and in relation to that it is said There is no power but from God the powers that are are ordained by God But yet such power is liable to various alterations and is like the Sea having ebbs and flows and ever changing its bounds either personal or local Any temporal Jurisdiction may be lost by those revolutions and vicissitudes of things to which all humane Constitutions are subject and which are ordered by the will and providence of the most High who ruleth in the Kingdom of men appointing over it whom he pleaseth putting down one and setting up another Adam by God's appointment was Sovereign of the world and his first-born Successours derived the same power from him yet in course of time that order hath been interrupted and divers independent Sovereignties do take place Every Prince hath his authority from God or by virtue of Divine Ordination within his own Territory and according to God's Ordinance the lawfull Successour hath a right to the same authority yet by accidents such authority doth often fail totally or in part changing its extent Why then may not any Spiritual power be liable to the same vicissitudes why may not a Prelate be degraded as well as a Prince why may not the Pope as well as the Emperour lose all or part of his Kingdom Why may not the Successour of Peter no less than the Heir of Adam suffer a defaileur of Jurisdiction That Spiritual Corporations Persons and Places are subject to the same contingences with others as there is like reason to suppose so there are Examples to prove God removed his Sanctuary from Shiloh Go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh where I set my name at first c. He deserted Jerusalem He removeth the Candlesticks He placed Eli of the Family of Ithamar in the High-Priesthood and displaced his Race from it I said indeed saith God that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me for ever but now the Lord saith Be it far from me c. 3 The reason and exigency of things might be sufficient ground for altering an Universal Jurisdiction for when it should prove very inconvenient or hurtfull God might order such an alteration to happen and men be obliged to allow it As God first did institute one Universal Monarchy but that form upon the multiplication of mankind and peopling of the earth proving incommodious providence gave way for its change and the setting up of particular Governments to which men are bound to submit So God might institute a singular Presidency of the Church but when the Church grew vastly extended so that such a Government would not conveniently serve the whole he might order a division in which we should acquiesce 4. It hath ever been deemed reasonable and accordingly been practised that the Church in its exteriour form and political administrations should be suted to the state of the world and Constitution of worldly Governments that there might be no clashing or disturbance from each to other Wherefore seeing the World is now settled under so many Civil Sovereignties it is expedient that Ecclesiastical Discipline should be so modelled as to comply with each of them And it his reasonable that any pretence of Jurisdiction should veil to the publick good of the Church and the World That it should be necessary for the Church to retain the same form of policy or measure of power affixed to persons or places can no-wise be demonstrated by sufficient proof and it is not consistent with experience which sheweth the Church to have subsisted with variations of that kind There hath in all times been found much reason or necessity to make alterations
as well in the places and bounds of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as of Secular Empire Wherefore Saint Peter's Monarchy reason requiring might be cantonized into divers spiritual Supremacies and as other Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions have been chopp'd and chang'd enlarged or diminished removed and extinguished so might that of the Roman Bishop The Pope cannot retain power in any State against the will of the Prince he is not bound to suffer correspondences with Foreigners especially such who apparently have interests contrary to his honour and the good of his people 5. Especially that might be done if the continuance of such a Jurisdiction should prove abominably corrupt or intolerably grievous to the Church 6. That power is defectible which according to the nature and course of things doth sometime fail But the Papal Succession hath often been interrupted by contingencies of Sedition Schism Intrusion Simoniacal Election Deposition c. as before shewed and is often interrupted by Vacancies from the death of the Incumbents 7. If leaving their dubious and false suppositions concerning Divine Institution Succession to Saint Peter c. we consider the truth of the case and indeed the more grounded plea of the Pope that Papal preeminence was obtained by the wealth and dignity of the Roman City and by the collation or countenance of the Imperial authority then by the defect of such advantages it may cease or be taken away for when Rome hath ceased to be the Capital City the Pope may cease to be Head of the Church When the Civil powers which have succeeded the Imperial each in its respective Territory are no less absolute than it they may take it away if they judge it fit for whatever power was granted by humane Authority by the same may be revoked and what the Emperour could have done each Sovereign power now may doe for it self An indefectible power cannot be settled by man because there is no power ever extant at one time greater than there is at another so that whatever power one may raise the other may demolish there being no bounds whereby the present time may bind all posterity However no humane Law can exempt any Constitution from the providence of God which at pleasure can dissolve whatever man hath framed And if the Pope were devested of all adventitious power obtained by humane means he would be left very bare and hardly would take it worth his while to contend for Jurisdiction 8. However or whencesoever the Pope had his Authority yet it may be forfeited by defects and defaults incurred by him If the Pope doth encroach on the rights and liberties of others usurping a lawless domination beyond reason and measure they may in their own defence be forced to reject him and shake off his yoke If he will not be content to govern otherwise than by infringing the Sacred Laws and trampling down the inviolable Privileges of the Churches either granted by Christ or established by the Sanctions of General Synods he thereby depriveth himself of all Authority because it cannot be admitted upon tolerable terms without greater wrong of many others whose right out-weigheth his and without great mischief to the Church the good of which is to be preferred before his private advantage This was the Maxime of a great Pope a great stickler for his own dignity for when the Bishop of Constantinople was advanced by a General Synod above his ancient pitch of dignity that Pope opposing him did say that whoever doth affect more than his due doth lose that which properly belonged to him the which Rule if true in regard to another's case may be applied to the Pope for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged and with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again On such a supposition of the Papal encroachment we may return his words upon him It is too proud and immoderate a thing to stretch beyond ones bounds and in contempt of antiquity to be willing to invade other mens right and to oppose the Primacies of so many Metropolitans on purpose to advance the dignity of one For the privileges of Churches being instituted by the Canons of the holy Fathers and fixt by the Decrees of the venerable Synod of Nice cannot be pluckt up by any wicked attempt nor altered by any innovation Far be it from me that I should in any Church infringe the Decrees of our Ancestours made in favour of my Fellow-priests for I do my self injury if I disturb the rights of my brethren The Pope surely according to any ground of Scripture or Tradition or ancient Law hath no Title to greater Principality in the Church than the Duke of Venice hath in that State Now if the Duke of Venice in prejudice to the publick right and liberty should attempt to stretch his power to an absoluteness of command or much beyond the bounds allowed him by the constitution of that Common-wealth he would thereby surely forfeit his Supremacy such as it is and afford cause to the State of rejecting him the like occasion would the Pope give to the Church by the like demeanour 9. The Pope by departing from the Doctrine and Practice of Saint Peter would forfeit his Title of Successour to him for in such a case no succession in place or in name could preserve it The Popes themselves had swerved and degenerated from the example of Peter They are not the Sons of the Saints who hold the places of the Saints but they that doe their works Which place is rased out of St. Hierome They have not the inheritance of Peter who have not the faith of Peter which they tear asunder by ungodly division So Gregory Nazianzene saith of Athanasius that he was Successour of Mark no less in piety than presidency the which we must suppose to be properly succession otherwise the Mufti of Constantinople is Successour to St. Andrew of St. Chrysostome c. the Mufti of Jerusalem to St. James If then the Bishop of Rome instead of teaching Christian Doctrine doth propagate Errours contrary to it If instead of guiding into Truth and Godliness he seduceth into Falshood and Impiety If instead of declaring and pressing the Laws of God he delivereth and imposeth Precepts opposite prejudicial destructive of God's Laws If instead of promoting genuine Piety he doth in some instances violently oppose it If instead of maintaining true Religion he doth pervert and corrupt it by bold Defalcations by Superstitious additions by Foul mixtures and alloys If he coineth new Creeds Articles of Faith new Scriptures new Sacraments new Rules of Life obtruding them on the Consciences of Christians If he conformeth the Doctrines of Christianity to the Interests of his Pomp and Profit making gain godliness If he prescribe Vain Profane Superstitious ways of Worship turning Devotion into Foppery and Pageantry If instead of preserving Order and Peace he fomenteth Discords and Factions in the Church being a Make-bate and Incendiary among
which Conclusions it is evident That the Apostles themselves would not be able to understand many of them That ancient Fathers did never think any thing about them That divers of them consist in application of artificial terms and phrases devised by humane subtilty That divers of them are in their own nature disputable were before disputed by wise men and will ever be disputed by those who freely use their judgment That there was no need of defining many of them That they blindly lay about them condemning and cursing they know not who Fathers Schoolmen Divines c. who have expresly affirmed points so damned by them That many Truths are uncharitably back'd with Curses which disparageth them seeing a man may err pardonably 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in many things we offend all For instance what need was there of defining what need of cursing those who think concupiscence to be truly and properly sin upon Saint Paul's Authority calling it so That Adam presently upon his transgression did lose the sanctity and justice in which he was constituted What need of cursing those who say that men are justified by the sole remission of sins according to Saint Paul's notion and use of the word Justification What need of cursing those who say the grace of God by which we are justified is onely the favour of God whereas it is plain enough that God's grace there in Saint Paul doth signifie nothing else applied to that case Or that Faith is nothing else but a reliance in God's mercy remitting sins for Christ seeing it is plain that Saint Paul doth by Faith chiefly mean the belief of that principal point of the Gospel Or that good works do not cause an encrease of justification seeing Saint Paul doth exclude justification by works and it is a free work of God uncapable of degrees Or that after remission of sin in justification a guilt of paying temporal pain doth abide Or that a man cannot by his works merit encrease of grace and glory and eternal life seeing a man is not to be blamed who doth dislike the use of so sawcy a word the which divers good men have disclaimed What need of cursing those who do not take the Sacraments to be precisely Seven or who conceive that some one of their seven may not be truly and properly a Sacrament seeing the word Sacrament is ambiguous and by the Fathers applied to divers other things and defined generally by St. Austin Signum rei sacrae and that before Peter Lombard ever did mention that number What need of damning those who do conceive the Sacraments equal in dignity What need of defining that Sacraments do confer grace ex opere operato which is an obscure Scholastical phrase What need of cursing those who say that a Character is not impressed in the soul of those who take Baptism Confirmation or Orders seeing what this Character is or this spiritual and indeleble mark they do not themselves well understand or agree What need of cursing those who do not think that the validity of Sacraments and consequently the assurance of our being Christians dependeth on the Intention of the Minister What need of cursing those who think that a Pastour of the Church may change the Ceremonies of administring the Sacraments seeing St. Cyprian often teacheth that every Pastour hath full authority in such cases within his own precinct What need of defining the Second Book of Maccabees to be Canonical against the common opinion of the Fathers most expresly of St. Austin himself of the most learned in all Ages of Pope Gelasius himself in decret which the authour himself calling his work an Epitome and asking pardon for his errours disclaimeth and which common sense therefore disclaimeth Their new Creed of Pius IV. containeth these novelties and heterodoxies 1. Seven Sacraments 2. Trent Doctrine of Justification and Original sin 3. Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass. 4. Transubstantiation 5. Communicating under one kind 6. Purgatory 7. Invocation of Saints 8. Veneration of Reliques 9. Worship of Images 10. The Roman Church to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches 11. Swearing Obedience to the Pope 12. Receiving the Decrees of all Synods and of Trent A DISCOURSE Concerning the UNITY OF THE CHURCH By ISAAC BARROW D. D. late Master of Trinity College in Cambridge Aug. de Bapt. 3. Non habet Charitatem Dei qui Ecclesiae non diligit Vnitatem LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1683. A DISCOURSE Concerning the UNITY OF THE CHURCH EPHES. 4.4 One Body and one Spirit THE Vnity of the Church is a Point which may seem somewhat speculative and remote from Practice but in right Judgments it is otherwise many Duties depending upon a true notion and consideration of it so that from ignorance or mistake about it we may incur divers offences or omissions of Duty hence in Holy Scripture it is often proposed as a considerable Point and usefull to Practice And if ever the Consideration of it were needfull it is so now when the Church is so rent with Dissentions for our satisfaction and direction about the Questions and Cases debated in Christendom for on the Explication of it or the true Resolution wherein it doth consist the Controversies about Church-Government Heresie Schism Liberty of Conscience and by consequence many others do depend yea indeed all others are by some Parties made to depend thereon Saint Paul exhorting the Ephesians his disciples to the maintenance of Charity and Peace among themselves doth for inducement to that Practice represent the Unity and Community of those things which jointly did appertain to them as Christians the Unity of that Body whereof they were members of that Spirit which did animate and act them of that Hope to which they were called of that Lord whom they all did worship and serve of that Faith which they did profess of that Baptism whereby they were admitted into the same state of Duties of Rights of Privileges of that one God and universal Father to whom they had all the same relations He beginneth with the Vnity of the Body that is of the Christian Church concerning which Unity what it is and wherein it doth consist I mean now to discourse In order to clearing which Point we must first state what the Church is of which we discourse for the word Church is ambiguous having both in Holy Scripture and common use divers senses somewhat different For 1 Sometimes any Assembly or Company of Christians is called a Church as when mention is made of the Church in such a house whence Tertullian saith Where there are three even Laicks there is a Church 2. Sometimes a particular Society of Christians living in spiritual Communion and under Discipline as when the Church at such a Town the Churches of such a Province the Churches all the Churches are mentioned
any of the dissenting Parties to the Judgment of such Authority Indeed if such an Authority had then been avowed by the Christian Churches it is hardly conceivable that any Schisms could subsist there being so powerfull a Remedy against them then notably visible and most effectual because of its fresh Institution before it was darkned or weakned by Age. Whereas the Apostolical Writings do inculcate our Subjection to one Lord in Heaven it is much they should never consider his Vicegerent or Vicegerents upon Earth notifying and pressing the Duties of Obedience and Reverence toward them There are indeed Exhortations to honour the Elders and to obey the Guides of particular Churches but the Honour and Obedience due to those Paramount Authorities or Universal Governours is passed over in dead silence as if no such thing had been thought of They do expresly avow the Secular Pre-eminence and press Submission to the Emperour as Supreme why do they not likewise mention this no less considerable Ecclesiastical Supremacy or enjoin Obedience thereto why Honour the King and be subject to Principalities so often but Honour the Spiritual Prince or Senate doth never occur If there had been any such Authority there would probably have been some intimation concerning the Persons in whom it was setled concerning the Place of their residence concerning the Manner of its being conveyed by Election Succession or otherwise Probably the Persons would have some proper Name Title or Character to distinguish them from inferiour Governours that to the Place some mark of Pre-eminence would have been affixed It is not unlikely that somewhere some Rules or Directions would have been prescribed for the management of so high a Trust for preventing Miscarriages and Abuses to which it is notoriously liable It would have been declared Absolute or the Limits of it would have been determined to prevent its enslaving God's heritage But of these things in the Apostolical Writings or in any near those times there doth not appear any footstep or pregnant intimation There hath never to this day been any place but one namely Rome which hath pretended to be the Seat of such an Authority the Plea whereof we largely have examined At present we shall onely observe that before the Roman Church was founded there were Churches otherwhere there was a great Church at Jerusalem which indeed was the Mother of all Churches and was by the Fathers so styled however Rome now doth arrogate to her self that Title There were issuing from that Mother a fair Offspring of Churches those of Judaea of Galilaea of Samaria of Syria and Cilicia of divers other places before there was any Church at Rome or that Saint Peter did come thither which was at least divers years after our Lord's Ascension Saint Paul was converted after five years he went to Hierusalem then Saint Peter was there after fourteen years thence he went to Hierusalem again and then Saint Peter was there after that he met with Saint Peter at Antioch Where then was this Authority seated How then did the political Unity of the Church subsist Was the Seat of the Sovereign Authority first resident at Jerusalem when Saint Peter preached there Did it walk thence to Antiochia fixing it self there for seven years Was it thence translated to Rome and setled there ever since Did this roving and inconstancy become it 5. The primitive State of the Church did not well comport with such an Unity For Christian Churches were founded in distant places as the Apostles did find opportunity or received direction to found them which therefore could not without extreme inconvenience have resort or reference to one Authority any where fixed Each Church therefore separately did order its own Affairs without recourse to others except for charitable Advice or Relief in cases of extraordinary difficulty or urgent need Each Church was endowed with a perfect Liberty and a full Authority without dependence or subordination to others to govern its own Members to manage its own Affairs to decide Controversies and Causes incident among themselves without allowing Appeals or rendring Accounts to others This appeareth by the Apostolical Writings of Saint Paul and Saint John to single Churches wherein they are supposed able to exercise spiritual Power for establishing Decency removing Disorders correcting Offences deciding Causes c. 6. This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Liberty of Churches doth appear to have long continued in practice inviolate although tempered and modelled in accommodation to the circumstances of place and time It is true that if any Church did notoriously forsake the Truth or commit Disorder in any kind other Churches did sometime take upon them as the Case did move to warn advise reprove it and to declare against its proceedings as prejudicial not onely to the welfare of that Church but to the common interests of Truth and Peace but this was not in way of commanding Authority but of fraternal Solicitude or of that Liberty which Equity and Prudence do allow to Equals in regard to common good So did the Roman Church interpose in reclaiming the Church of Corinth from its Disorders and Seditions So did Saint Cyprian and Saint Denys of Alex. meddle in the Affairs of the Roman Church exhorting Novatian and his Adherents to return to the Peace of their Church It is also true that the Bishops of several adjacent Churchs did use to meet upon Emergencies concerning the maintenance of Truth Order and Peace concerning Settlement and Approbation of Pastours c. to consult and conclude upon Expedients for attaining such Ends this probably they did at first in a free way without rule according to occasion as Prudence suggested but afterwards by confederation and consent those Conventions were formed into method and regulated by certain Orders established by consent whence did arise an Ecclesiastical Unity of Government within certain Precincts much like that of the United States in the Netherlands the which course was very prudential and usefull for preserving the Truth of Religion and Unity of Faith against heretical Devices springing up in that free age for maintaining Concord and good Correspondence among Christians together with an Harmony in Manners and Discipline for that otherwise Christendom would have been shattered and crumbled into numberless Parties discordant in Opinion and Practice and consequently alienated in Affection which inevitably among most men doth follow Difference of Opinion and Manners so that in short time it would not have appeared what Christianity was and consequently the Religion being overgrown with Differences and Discords must have perished Thus in the case about admitting the Lapsi to Communion Saint Cyprian relates when the persecution of Decius ceased so that leave was now given us to meet in one place together a considerable number of Bishops whom their own faith and God's protection had preserved sound and entire from the late Apostasie and Persecution being assembled we deliberated of the composition of the matter with wholsome moderation
c. Which thing also Agrippinus of blessed memory with his other Fellow-bishops who then governed the Church of Christ in the African Province and in Numidia did establish and by the well-weighed examination of the common advice of them all together confirmed it Thus it was the custome in the Churches of Asia as Firmilian telleth us in those words Vpon which occasion it necessarily happens that every year we the Elders and Rulers do come together to regulate those things which are committed to our care that if there should be any things of greater moment by common advice they be determined Yet while things went thus in order to common Truth and Peace every Church in more private matters touching its own particular state did retain its Liberty and Authority without being subject or accountable to any but the common Lord in such cases even Synods of Bishops did not think it proper or just for them to interpose to the prejudice of that Liberty and Power which derived from a higher Source These things are very apparent as by the course of Ecclesiastical History so particularly in that most pretious Monument of Antiquity St. Cyprian's Epistles by which it is most evident that in those times every Bishop or Pastour was conceived to have a double relation or capacity one toward his own Flock another toward the whole Flock One toward his own Flock by virtue of which he taking advice of his Presbyters together with the conscience of his People assisting did order all things tending to particular Edification Order Peace Reformation Censure c. without fear of being troubled by Appeals or being liable to give any account but to his own Lord whose Vicegerent he was Another toward the whole Church in behalf of his People upon account whereof he did according to occasion or order apply himself to confer with other Bishops for preservation of the common Truth and Peace when they could not otherwise be well upheld than by the joint conspiring of the Pastours of divers Churches So that the Case of Bishops was like to that of Princes each of whom hath a free Superintendence in his own Territory but for to uphold Justice and Peace in the World or between adjacent Nations the entercourse of several Princes is needfull The Peace of the Church was preserved by communion of all Parts together not by the subjection of the rest to one Part. 7. This political Unity doth not well accord with the nature and genius of the Evangelical dispensation Our Saviour affirmed that his Kingdom is not of this World and Saint Paul telleth us that it consisteth in a Spiritual influence upon the Souls of men producing in them Vertue Spiritual Joy and Peace It disavoweth and discountenanceth the elements of the world by which worldly designs are carried on and worldly frames sustained It requireth not to be managed by politick artifices or fleshly wisedom but by Simplicity Sincerity Plain-dealing as every Subject of it must lay aside all guile and dissimulation so especially the Officers of it must doe so in conformity to the Apostles who had their conversation in the world and prosecuted their design in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisedom but by the grace of God not walking in craftiness or handling the word of God deceitfully c. It needeth not to be supported or enlarged by wealth and pomp or by compulsive force and violence for God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and the weak things of the world to confound the mighty and base despicable things c. that no flesh should gloâ—y in his presence And The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God c. It discountenanceth the imposition of new Laws and Precepts beside those which God hath injoined or which are necessary for order and edification derogating from the Liberty of Christians and from the Simplicity of our Religion The Government of the Christian State is represented purely spiritual administred by meek persuasion not by imperious awe as an humble ministery not as stately domination for the Apostles themselves did not Lord it over mens faith but did co-operate to their joy they did not preach themselves but Christ Jesus to be the Lord and themselves their servants for Jesus It is expresly forbidden to them to domineer over God's people They are to be qualified with Gentleness and Patience they are forbidden to strive and enjoined to be gentle toward all apt to teach patient in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves They are to convince to rebuke to exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine They are furnished with no Arms beside the divine Panoply they bear no sword but that of the Spirit which is the word of God they may teach reprove they cannot compell They are not to be entangled in the cares of this life But supposing the Church was designed to be one in this manner of political regiment it must be quite another thing nearly resembling a worldly state yea in effect soon resolving it self into such an one supposing as is now pretended that its management is committed to an Ecclesiastical Monarch it must become a worldly Kingdom for such a Polity could not be upheld without applying the same means and engines without practising the same methods and arts whereby secular Governments are maintained It s Majesty must be supported by conspicuous Pomp and Phantastry It s Dignity and Power must be supported by Wealth which it must corrade and accumulate by large Incomes by exaction of Tributes and Taxes It must exert Authority in enacting of Laws for keeping its State in order and securing its Interests backed with Rewards and Pains especially considering its Title being so dark and grounded on no clear warrant many always will contest it It must apply Constraint and Force for procuring Obedience and correcting Transgression It must have Guards to preserve its Safety and Authority It must be engaged in Wars to defend its self and make good its Interests It must use Subtilty and Artifice for promoting its Interests and countermine the Policies of Adversaries It must erect Judicatories and must decide Causes with Formality of legal process whence tedious Suits crafty Pleadings Quirks of Law and Pettifoggeries Fees and Charges Extortion and Barretry c. will necessarily creep in All which things do much disagree from the original constitution and design of the Christian Church which is averse from pomp doth reject domination doth not require craft wealth or force to maintain it but did at first and may subsist without any such means I do not say that an Ecclesiastical Society may not lawfully for its support use Power Policy wealth in some measure to uphold or defend it self but that a Constitution needing such things is not Divine or that so far as it doth use them it is
no more than Humane Thus in effect we see that it hath succeeded from the Pretence of this Unity the which hath indeed transformed the Church into a mere worldly State wherein the Monarch beareth the garb of an Emperour in external splendour surpassing all worldly Princes crowned with a triple Crown He assumeth the most haughty Titles of Our most holy Lord the Vicar general of Christ c. and he suffereth men to call him the Monarch of Kings c. He hath Respects paid him like to which no Potentate doth assume having his Feet kissed riding upon the backs of men letting Princes hold his Stirrup and lead his Horse He hath a Court and is attended with a train of Courtiers surpassing in State and claiming Precedence to the Peers of any Kingdom He is encompassed with armed Guards He hath a vast Revenue supplied by Tributes and Imposts sore and grievous the exaction of which hath made divers Nations of Christendom to groan most lamentably He hath raised numberless Wars and Commotions for the promotion and advancement of his Interests He administreth things with all depth of Policy to advance his Designs He hath enacted Volumes of Laws and Decrees to which Obedience is exacted with rigour and forcible constraint He draweth grist from all Parts to his Courts of Judgment wherein all the formalities of suspence all the tricks of squeezing money c. are practised to the great trouble and charge of Parties concerned Briefly it is plain that he doth exercise the proudest mightiest subtlest Domination that ever was over Christians 8. The Union of the whole Church in one Body under one Government or Sovereign Authority would be inconvenient and hurtfull prejudicial to the main designs of Christianity destructive to the Welfare and Peace of Mankind in many respects This we have shewed particularly concerning the Pretence of the Papacy and those Discourses being applicable to any like Universal Authority perhaps with more advantage Monarchy being less subject to abuse than other ways of Government I shall forbear to say more 9. Such an Union is of no need would be of small use or would doe little good in balance to the great Mischiefs and Inconveniences which it would produce This Point also we have declared in regard to the Papacy and we might say the same concerning any other like Authority substituted thereto 10. Such a Connexion of Churches is not any-wise needfull or expedient to the Design of Christianity which is to reduce Mankind to the Knowledge Love and Reverence of God to a just and loving Conversation together to the practice of Sobriety Temperance Purity Meekness and all other Vertues all which things may be compassed without forming men into such a Policy It is expedient there should be particular Societies in which men may concur in worshipping God and promoting that Design by instructing and provoking one another to good practice in a regular decent and orderly way It is convenient that the Subjects of each temporal Sovereignty should live as in a civil so in a spiritual Uniformity in order to the preservation of Goodwill and Peace among them for that Neighbours differing in opinion and fashions of practice will be apt to contend each for his way and thence to disaffect one another for the beauty and pleasant harmony of Agreement in Divine things for the more commodious succour and defence of Truth and Piety by unanimous concurrence But that all the World should be so joined is needless and will be apt to produce more mischief than benefit 11. The Church in the Scripture sense hath ever continued One and will ever continue so notwithstanding that it hath not had this political Unity 12. It is in fact apparent that Churches have not been thus united which yet have continued Catholick and Christian. It were great no less folly than uncharitableness to say that the Greek Church hath been none There is no Church that hath in effect less reason than that of Rome to prescribe to others 13. The Reasons alledged in proof of such an Unity are insufficient and inconcluding the which with great diligence although not with like perspicuity advanced by a late Divine of great repute and collected out of his Writings with some care are those which briefly proposed do follow together with Answers declaring their invalidity Arg. I. The name Church is attributed to the whole body of Christians which implieth Unity Answ. This indeed doth imply an Unity of the Church but determineth not the kind or ground thereof there being several kinds of Unity one of those which we have touched or several or all of them may suffice to ground that comprehensive Appellation Arg. II. Our Creeds do import the belief of such an Unity for in the Apostolical we profess to believe the Holy Catholick Church in the Constantinopolitan the Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Answ. 1. The most ancient Summaries of Christian Faith extant in the first Fathers Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian c. do not contain this Point The word Catholick was not originally in the Apostolical or Roman Creed but was added after Ruffin and Saint Austin's time This Article was inserted into the Creeds upon the rise of Heresies and Schisms to discountenance and disengage from them Answ. 2. We do avow a Catholick Church in many respects One wherefore not the Unity of the Church but the Kind and Manner of Unity being in question the Creed doth not oppose what we say nor can with reason be alledged for the special kind of Unity which is pretended Answ. 3. That the Unity mentioned in the Constantinopolitan Creed is such as our Adversaries contend for of external Policy is precariously assumed and relieth onely upon their interpretation obtruded on us Answ. 4. The genuine meaning of that Article may reasonably be deemed this That we profess our adhering to the Body of Christians which diffused over the World doth retain the Faith taught the Discipline setled the Practices appointed by our Lord and his Apostles that we maintain general Charity toward all good Christians that we are ready to entertain communion in Holy Offices with all such that we are willing to observe the Laws and Orders established by Authority or Consent of the Churches for maintenance of Truth Order and Peace that we renounce all heretical doctrines all disorderly practices all conspiracy with any factious combinations of people Answ. 5. That this is the meaning of the Article may sufficiently appear from the reason and occasion of introducing it which was to secure the Truth of Christian Doctrine the Authority of Ecclesiastical Discipline and the common Peace of the Church according to the Discourses and Arguments of the Fathers Irenaeus Tertullian St. Austin Vincentius Lirinensis the which do plainly countenance our Interpretation Answ. 6. It is not reasonable to interpret the Article so as will not consist with the State of the Church in the Apostolical and
Aeneas Sylvius his Account hereof Ibid. Catholick How much the abuse of that Word hath conduced to the Pope's Pretences 264. Censures Ecclesiastical Censures the great advantages made from them by the Pope 182. Ceremonies Why multitude of them in the Church of Rome 139. Charity Want thereof in the Church of Rome 286. Charity among Christians 299 301. breach thereof denominates a man to be no Christian 300. Charity to the Poor of other Churches in primitive Times no Argument of Unity of Church Government 320. Church Unity thereof 293. The various acceptations of the Word Church 294. The Titles and Privileges thereof 295. Church Government and Discipline in ancient times 162 c. Church Government No necessity of one kind onely of external Admistration thereof 306 307. The contrary shewed to be most proper and convenient in seq Church of Rome An Account of them who by voluntary Consent or Command of Princes do adhere in Confederation to the Church of Rome 325. Civil Magistrates Authority 271. Clergy Romish Clergy's Exemption from secular Jurisdiction whence 138. Communion Church Communion 296. Community of Men on several accounts may be termed One 297. Confession Auricular Confession 139. Confirmation of Magistrates belongs not to the Pope 269. Conscience The Usurpations made thereupon by the Popish Doctrines 288. Constantine M. His Judgment of Eusebius 86. No General Synod before his Reign 185. Controversies in the Church how in ancient times determined 115 149 264 303 304. Council of Trent Their Character 2. Enjoyned the Pope's Supremacy should not be disputed 18. Councils Their Authority above the Pope's 25. Councils Their Infallibility why pretended 139. Councils General Councils which so esteemed 188 first called by the Emperours ibid. when first celebrated 209 Use of them proves not there was Unity of Government in the Primitive Church 320 the proper occasion of General Councils assigned ibid Cup in the Sacrament why with-holden from the Laity 139. S. Cyprian's Account of S. Peter's primacy of Order 33 his Epistle concerning the deposing Marcianus examined 235 c. S. Cyril's supplying the Place of P. Celestine in the General Council 203 204. Cyril of Hierusalem the first according to Socrates who did introduce Appeals 249. D. POpe Damasus An Epistle of his in Theodoret whence Bellarmine's pretence for the Pope's Supremacy adjudged spurious 156 157. Decrees of Popes when contested against the ancient Canons 214. Whence their new Decrees introduced ibid. Decretal Epistles Their forgery and great advantage to the Church of Rome 184. Discipline and Order of the Primitive Church 211. Discipline The enacting and dispensing with Ecclesiastical Laws about the same belong'd of old to Emperours 214. Discipline of the Church 305. main Form thereof not to be violated ibid. Dispensations 184. the Pope no power to grant them 270 281. Dissentions The Mischiefs arising from them 175 18â— The Profits accrewing from hence to the Romanists ibid. Dissentions How reconciled among Christians 323. E. ECclesiastical Jurisdiction not impugn'd by disclaiming S. Peter's Superiority 40. Emperours not Popes did first conâ—â—â—gate General Synods 185. Testimonies of Popes owning the same 193. Emperours themselves or Honourable Persons authorized by them did heretofore preside in General Synods 203. Empires Their Original and Increase 174. Episcopacy The Ends assigned of that Order 87. Eusebius Constantine M. his Character of him 86. Excommunicated Persons not admitted into Communion by other Churches 305 324 325. Exemptions The Pope no Power to grant them 270. F. FAith Unity of the Church preserved by it 299. Fathers What regard to be given to their account of S. Peter's Primacy of Order or bare Dignity 32. Fathers A Censure of their Writings 71. Bellarmine's account of the same ibid. The latter Fathers most guilty in Expressions 72. Fathers A Character of their Writings 119. Feed my sheep The Romish Interpretation rejected and the true established ibid. G. GLosses of the Romanists on Scripture 70 their Corruptions and Partiality herein 73. Gregory M. his Character and Authority against the Pope 123. H. HEresie of Simony Popes guilty of it 266. Hereticks How confuted in ancient times 115 c. Humility strictly enjoyned to Christ's Apostles and Followers 39. I. JEsuites Their Character 182. Jesus according to common notion of the Jews did imply his being the Son of God 30. Ignorance of Popes in Divinity 267. Ignorance How serviceable to the Church of Rome 182. Image Worship 139 280. Indulgences 184. Infallibility Pretence to it the greatest Tyranny 137. Whence pretended 139. The mother of Incorrigibility and Corruption of Manners 140. v. 265. Inspiration The Popes and Synods bold pretensions to it 286. Jurisdiction Universal Jurisdiction over the Clergy the Pope's Presumption herein and when begun 215. Jurisdiction Temporal and Ecclesiastical nature thereof 271. K. KEys Power thereof as also all other Authority communicated to all the Apostles equally 42 64. Kings have the Power onely of calling General Councils 191. The unreasonableness of the contrary 192. v. Emperours L. LEgends of the Church of Rome the Profits arising from them 184. Laws Ecclesiastical Laws In whose Power to enact them 212. The Pope subject to them ibid. M. MArriage The Romanists abuse thereof 284. Why forbidden to their Priests 139. Mass. Doctrine thereof ibid. Merit Doctrine thereof in the Chur. of Rome 138 286. Miracles Why pretended to by the Romanists 139. Monarchy Universal Monarchy not politick nor convenient 130 neither in Church nor State 152. Monarchy less subject to abuse than other ways of Government 315. Monastries why exempted by the Pope from secular Jurisdiction 138. Monkery 140. N. POpe Nicholas the first who excommunicated Princes secundum Bodin 146. O. OAth of Bishops of Rome at their Election 22. Obedience Blind Obedience 177. Order and Discipline of the Primitive Church 211. v. Discipline Ordination Priority therein did anciently ground a Right to Precedence 34. Orthodox Who such in the Primitive Church 299. P. PAstours of the Church Their duty to maintain Peace and Charity 304. Patriarchs not an higher Order than Primates 169 their Institution and Authority 170 171. Peace to be inviolable among Christians 301 the Sacraments conducive to the same 302 as also Convocation of Synods ibid. S. Peter in personal accomplishments most eminent among the Apostles 32 It is probable he was first called to the Apostolical office 33 his Zeal and Activity 30 34 his Superiority in Power rejected 35 was no Priest at the Celebration of our Lord's Supper contra Concil Trid. 36 not Bishop of Rome 82 whether ever at Rome 83 whence his Primacy asserted 27. Popes Supremacy The Controversies about it 1 The great Disturbances it hath caused 2 pretended authority to depose Princes 3 their behaviour according to their circumstances 17 pretended Supremacy in Spirituals 20 their imperious arbitrary Government 40 the insolent Titles given them 41 no Judge of Controversies 115 c. their Character before and after Constantine 142 Usurpation on Princes 145 Causes of the growth of pretended Supremacy 172
5.34 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soz. 8.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theoph. Soz. 8.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist. 122. Scripsimus ista ad Venerium Mediolanensem ad Chromatium Aquilegiensem Episcopum Pallad cap. 2. Flavianus autem contra se prolatâ sententiâ per ejus legatos Sedem Apostolicam appellavit libello Liber cap. 12. Necessitate coactus fuit ità agere eò quòd reliqui Patriarchae adessent Marc. 7.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Placidia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syn. Chalc. Act. 1. p. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 25. Omnes mansuetudini vestrae cum gemitibus lachrymis supplicant Sacerdotes ut quia nostri fideliter reclamârunt eisdem libellum appellationis Flavianus Episcopus dedit generalem Synodum jubeatis intra Italiam celebrari P. Leo Epist. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. Ep. 113 ad P. Leonem Vid. Ep. 112. ad Domnum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist. 138. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist. 145. Vid. Theod. Epist. supr Epist. 127 129. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ep. 138 136. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist. 113. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ep. 118. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod Epist. 86. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. Ep. 116. ad Renatum Presb. That holy See has the principality over the Churches in all the world for many reasons but especially because she continued free from the taint of heresie and none otherwise minded ever sate in her she having kept the Apostolick state always unmixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. Epist. 112. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. Ep. 119. ad Anatol. Greg. lib. 2. Indict 11. Ep. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syn. Chalc. Act. 1. Ingressus est ad Calendionem Antiochenum Patriarcham sumptis ab eo intercessionis Synodicis Literis Romanum Pontificem Simplicium appellavit sicut B. fecerat Athanasius suasit scribere pro se Acacio Constantinopolitano Episcopo Liber cap. 18. Baron Ann. 483. § 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soz. 8.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Naz. Orat. 23. 1 Pet. 2.13 Regimen Ecclesiae est Monarchicum ergo omnis auctoritas est in uno ab illo in alios derivatur Bell. 4.24 Providemus Ecclesiae tali de tali Persona praeficimus eum in Patrem Pastorem Episcopum ejusdem Ecclesiae committentes ei administrationem in temporalibus spiritualibus in nomine c. Ibid. In Ecclesia militanti quae instar triumphantis habet unus est omnium moderator arbiter Jesu Christi vicarius à quo tanquam capite omnis in subjecta membra potestas authoritas derivatur quae à Christo Domino sine medio in ipsum influit P. Pius II. in Bull. Retract Sanctitas vestra ità gerit curam Ecclesiae Christi ut Ministros plurimos habeat per quos curam exerceat hi autem sunt Clerici omnes quibus mandatus est cultus Dei Presbyteri praesertim maximè Curati prae omnibus Episcopi apud Cham. de Pont. Oecum 10 13. Summus Pontifex caput est omnium Pontificum â quo illi tanquam à capite membra descendunt de cujus plenitudine omnes accipiunt quos ipse vocat in partem solicitudinis non in plenitudinem potestatis Durand Mimat Offic. 2.1.17 N. Dei Apostolicae Sedis gratiâ Episcopus Colon This was an expedient Vid. Concil Col. 1.7.4.7 1 Thess. 3.2 1 Tim. 4.6 Tit. 1.7 2 Tim. 2.24 Act. 20.28 Naz. Or. 30. Eph. 4.11 1 Cor. 12.29 Ordo confertur à Deo immediatè jurisdictio mediatè Bell. 4.25 * 2 Cor. 10.8.13.10 †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Thess. 5.12 ‖ Eph. 4.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. ad Magnes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. ad Eph. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. ad Trall De Dei Christi ejus judicio Cypr. Ep. 52. alibi saepe Vnus in Ecclesia ad tempus Sacerdos ad tempus Judex vice Christi Cypr. Ep. 55. Sed expectemus universi judicium Domini nostri Jesu Christi qui unus solus habet potestatem praeponendi nos in Ecclesiae suae gubernatione de actu nostro judicandi Cypr. in Con. Carthag 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baf Const. Mon. cap. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys. in Coloss. Orat. 3. Oportere nos omnes qui Deo auctorâ— sumuâ— in Sacerdâ—râ—â— constituti illius certaminibus obâ—iate c. Anatol. in Syn. Chalc. p. 512. Leo Ep. 84. Seièsque nos non tuos esse ne â—e jactas extollis Clericos quos ut fratres Co-episcopos recognoscere si elatio permitteret debueras Ann. Pith. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Chrys. sup 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys. in Coloss. Orat. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys. in Joh. Orat. 83. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Flavian in Chalc. Act. 1. p. 4. Evagr. Act. Eph. p. 134. Act. Conc. sub Menna p. 70. Congruum duximus vicariâ Sedis nostra te auctoritate fulciri Baron An. 482. § 46. Vices enim nostrâ— ità tuae credidimus charitati ut in partem sis vocaâ—â—â— soliâ—itudinis non in plenitudinem potestatiâ— P. Leo. Ep. 84. ad Anastas Thessal P. Joh. VIII Ep. 93. P. Pasch. II. Epist. apud Eadm p. 113 c. * Extrav commun 1.1 p. 310. Occulti inimici regni Matt. Par. p. 524. Sedis Apostolicae nuncii vel literae praeter jussum Regiae Majestatis nullam in potestate tua susceptionem aut aditum promerentur nullus inde clamor nullum judicium ad sedem Apostolicam destinantur P. Pasch. II. Eadm p. 113. Bell. 2.10 Bell. 2.26 de Conc. 2.17 Grat. Dist. 40. cap. 6. Dist. 21. cap. 7. Caus. 9. qu. 3. cap. 10. Extrav comm lib. 1. tit 8. cap. 1. P. Leo. IX Ep. 1. cap. 10. 17. P. Nich. 1. Ep. 8. p. 504. P. Joh. VIII Ep. 75. p. 31. P. Gelas. Ep. 4. p. 625 626. Ep. 13. p. 640. P. Greg. VII Ep. 8. Ep. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 P. Adrian in Syn. VIII Act. 7. pag. 963. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiph. haer 70. Audianorum Dum enim putas omnes abs te abstineri posse solum te ab omnibus abstinuisti Firm. apud Cypr. Ep. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sozom. 3.8 Sozom. 3.11 Anathema tibi Papa Liberi Hil. fragm * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Evag. 2.4 †Niceph. 16.17 Baron Ann. 484. § 35. ‖ Baron A. 457. § 25. * Africani Antistites Vigilium Rom. Episc. damnatorem Capitulorum Synodaliter à Catholica communione reservato ei poenitentiae loco recludunt l. excludunt Vict. Tun. post Cons. Basilii V. C. Ann. 10. †Plat. p. 131. Dist. 19. cap. 21 22. ‖ Plat. p. 223. * Plat. p. 291. †P.
for the like reason Saint Peter might assume the Bishoprick of Rome I answer 1. It is not certain that Saint James the Bishop of Jerusalem was an Apostle meaning an Apostle of the primary rank for Eusebius the greatest Antiquary of old times doth reckon him one of the 70 disciples So doth the Authour of the Apostolical Constitutions in divers places suppose Hegesippus that most ancient Historian was of the same mind who saith that there were many of this name and that this James did undertake the Church with the Apostles Of the same opinion was Epiphanius who saith that Saint James was the Son of Joseph by another Wife The whole Greek Church doth suppose the same keeping three distinct solemnities for him and the two Apostles of the same name Gregory Nyssene St. Hierome and divers other ancient Writers do concur herein whom we may see alledged by Grotius Dr. Hammond who themselves did embrace the same opinion Valesius Blondel c. Salmasius after his confident manner saith it is certain that he was not one of the twelve I may at least say it is not certain that he was and consequently the objection is grounded on an uncertainty 2. Granting that Saint James was one of the Apostles as some of the Ancients seem to think calling him an Apostle and as divers modern Divines conceive grounding chiefly upon these words of Saint Paul But other of the Apostles saw I none save James the Lord's Brother and taking Apostles there in the strictest sense I answer That the case was peculiar and there doth appear a special reason why one of the Apostles should be designed to make a constant residence at Jerusalem and consequently to preside there like a Bishop For Jerusalem was the Metropolis the Fountain the Centre of the Christian Religion where it had birth where was greatest matter and occasion of propagating the Gospel most people disposed to embrace it resorting thither where the Church was very numerous consisting as St. Luke or Saint James in him doth intimate of divers myriads of believing Jews whence it might seem expedient that a person of greatest Authority should be fixed there for the confirming and improving that Church together with the propagation of Religion among the people which resorted thither the which might induce the Apostles to settle Saint James there both for discharging the Office of an Apostle and the supplying the room of a Bishop there According to him saith Eusebius The Episcopal Throne was committed by the Apostles or our Lord saith Epiphanius did entrust him with his own Throne But there was no need of fixing an Apostle at other places nor doth it appear that any was so fixed especially Saint Peter was uncapable of such an employment requiring settlement and constant attendance who beside his general Apostleship had a peculiar Apostleship of the dispersed Jews committed to him who therefore was much engaged in travel for propagation of the Faith and edifying his Converts every where 3. The greater consent of the most ancient Writers making St. Iames not to have been one of the twelve Apostles it is thence accountable why as we before noted Saint James was called by some ancient Writers the Bishop of Bishops the Prince of Bishops c. because he was the first Bishop of the first See and Mother Church the Apostles being excluded from the comparison Upon these considerations we have great reason to refuse the assertion or scandal cast on Saint Peter that he took on him to be Bishop of Rome in a strict sense as it is understood in this controversie SUPPOSITION V. A father Assertion is this superstructed by consequence on the former That the Bishops of Rome according to God's institution and by original right derived thence should have an Vniversal Supremacy and jurisdiction containing the privileges and prerogatives formerly described over the Christian Church THIS Assertion to be very uncertain yea to be most false I shall by divers considerations evince 1. If any of the former Suppositions be uncertain or false this Assertion standing on those legs must partake of those defects and answerably be dubious or false If either Peter was not Monarch of the Apostles or if his privileges were not successive or if he were not properly Bishop of Rome at his decease then farewell the Romish claim if any of those things be dubious it doth totter if any of them prove false then down it falleth But that each of them is false hath I conceive been sufficiently declared that all of them are uncertain hath at least been made evident The Structure therefore cannot be firm which relieth on such props 2. Even admitting all those Suppositions the inference from them is not assuredly valid For Saint Peter might have an Universal Jurisdiction he might derive it by Succession he might be Bishop of Rome yet no such Authority might hence accrue to the Roman Bishop his Successour in that See For that Universal Jurisdiction might be derived into another Chanel and the Bishop of Rome might in other respects be Successour to him without being so in this As for instance in the Roman Empire before any Rule of Succession was established therein the Emperour was Sovereign Governour and he might dye Consul of Rome having assumed that place to himself yet when he dyed the Supreme Authority did not lapse into the hands of the Consul who succeeded him but into the hands of the Senate and People his Consular Authority onely going to his Successour in that Office So might Saint Peter's Universal Power be transferred unto the Ecclesiastical College of Bishops and of the Church his Episcopal inferiour Authority over the singular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Province of Rome being transmitted to his Followers in that Chair 3. That in truth it was thus and that all the Authority of Saint Peter and of all other Apostles was devolved to the Church and to the representative Body thereof the Fathers did suppose affirming the Church to have received from our Lord a Sovereign Power This saith St. Cyprian is that One Church which holdeth and possesseth all the power of its Spouse and Lord in this we preside for the honour and unity of this we fight saith he in his Epistle to Jubaianus wherein he doth impugn the proceedings of Pope Stephanus the which Sentence St. Austin appropriateth to himself speaking it absolutely without citing St. Cyprian To this Authority of the Church St. Basil would have all that confess the faith of Christ to submit To which end we exceedingly need your assistence that they who confess the Apostolick faith would renounce the schisms which they have devised and submit themselves henceforth to the Authority of the Church They after the Holy Scripture which saith that each Bishop hath a care of God's Church and is obliged to feed the Church of God and is appointed to edify the body of Christ do suppose the administration
of Ecclesiastical Affairs concerning the publick state of the Church the defence of the common Faith the maintenance of order peace and unity jointly to belong unto the whole body of Pastours according to that of St. Cyprian to Pope Stephanus himself Therefore most dear brother the body of Priests is copious being joined together by the glue of mutual concord and the bond of unity that if any of our College shall attempt to make heresie and to tear or waste the flock of Christ the rest may come to succour and like usefull and mercifull shepherds may recollect the sheep into the flock And again Which thing it concerns us to look after and redress most dear brother who bearing in mind the divine clemency and holding the scales of the Church-government c. So even the Roman Clergy did acknowledge For we ought all of us to watch for the body of the whole Church whose members are digested through several Provinces Like the Trinity whose power is one and undivided there is one Priesthood among divers Bishops So in the Apostolical Constitutions the Apostles tell the Bishops that an universal Episcopacy is entrusted to them So the Council of Carthage with St. Cyprian Clear and manifest is the mind and meaning of our Lord Jesus Christ sending his Apostles and affording to them alone the power given him of the Father in whose room we succeeded governing the Church of God with the same power Christ our Lord and our God going to the Father commended his Spouse to us A very ancient Instance of which administration is the proceeding against Paulus Samosatenus when the Pastours of the Churches some from one place some from another did assemble together against him as a pest of Christ's flock all of them hastning to Antioch where they deposed exterminated and deprived him of communion warning the whole Church to reject and disavow him Seeing the Pastoral charge is common to us all who bear the Episcopal Office although thou fittest in a higher and more eminent place Therefore for this cause the Holy Church is committed to you and to us that we may labour for all and not be slack in yielding help and assistence to all Hence Saint Chrysostome said of Eustathius his Bishop For he was well instructed and taught by the grace of the Holy Spirit that a President or Bishop of a Church ought not to take care of that Church alone wherewith he is entrusted by the Holy Ghost but also of the whole Church dispersed throughout the world They consequently did repute Schism or Ecclesiastical Rebellion to consist in a departure from the consent of the body of the Priesthood as St. Cyprian in divers places doth express it in his Epistles to Pope Stephen and others They deem all Bishops to partake of the Apostolical Authority according to that of St. Basil to St. Ambrose The Lord himself hath translated thee from the Judges of the Earth unto the Prelacy of the Apostles They took themselves all to be Vicars of Christ and Judges in his stead according to that of St. Cyprian For Heresies are sprung up and Schisms grown from no other ground nor root but this because God's Priest was not obeyed nor was there one Priest or Bishop for a time in the Church nor a Judge thought on for a time to supply the room of Christ. Where that by Church is meant any particular Church and by Priest a Bishop of such Church any one not bewitched with prejudice by the tenour of Saint Cyprian's discourse will easily discern They conceive that our Saviour did promise to Saint Peter the Keys in behalf of the Church and as representing it They suppose the combination of Bishops in peaceable consent and mutual aid to be the Rock on which the Church is built They alledge the Authority granted to Saint Peter as a ground of claim to the same in all Bishops jointly and in each Bishop singly according to his rata pars or allotted proportion Which may easily be understood by the words of our Lord when he says to blessed Peter whose place the Bishops supply Whatsoever c. I have the sword of Constantine in my hands you of Peter said our great King Edgar They do therefore in this regard take themselves all to be Successours of Saint Peter that his power is derived to them all and that the whole Episcopal Order is the Chair by the Lord's voice founded on Saint Peter thus St. Cyprian in divers places before touched discourseth and thus Firmilian from the Keys granted to Saint Peter inferreth disputing against the Roman Bishop Therefore saith he the power of remitting sins is given to the Apostles and to the Churches which they being sent from Christ did constitute and to the Bishops which do succeed them by vicarious ordination 4. The Bishops of any other Churches founded by the Apostles in the Fathers style are Successours of the Apostles in the same sense and to the same intent as the Bishop of Rome is by them accounted Successour of Saint Peter the Apostolical power which in extent was universal being in some sense in reference to them not quite extinct but transmitted by succession yet the Bishops of Apostolical Churches did never claim nor allowedly exercise Apostolical Jurisdiction beyond their own precincts according to those words of St. Hierome Tell me what doth Palestine belong to the Bishop of Alexandria This sheweth the inconsequence of their discourse for in like manner the Pope might be Successour to Saint Peter and Saint Peter's universal power might be successive yet the Pope have no singular claim thereto beyond the bounds of his particular Church 5. So again for instance Saint James whom the Roman Church in her Liturgies doth avow for an Apostle was Bishop of Jerusalem more unquestionably than Saint Peter was Bishop of Rome Jerusalem also was the root and the mother of all Churches as the Fathers of the Second General Synod in their Letter to Pope Damasus himself and the Occidental Bishops did call it forgetting the singular pretence of Rome to that Title Yet the Bishops of Jerusalem Successours of Saint James did not thence claim I know not what kind of extensive Jurisdiction yea notwithstanding their succession they did not so much as obtain a metropolitical Authority in Palestine which did belong to Caesarea having been assigned thereto in conformity to the Civil Government and was by special provision reserved thereto in the Synod of Nice whence St. Jerome did not stick to affirm that the Bishop of Jerusalem was subject to the Bishop of Caesarea for speaking to John Bishop of Jerusalem who for compurgation of himself from errours imputed to him had appealed to Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria he saith Thou hadst rather cause molestation to ears possessed than render honour to thy Metropolitan that is to the Bishop of Caesarea By which