A DEFENCE OF THE CONFUTER OF BELLARMIN's Second Note of the Church ANTIQUITY AGAINST THE CAVILS of the ADVISER IMPRIMATUR May 31. 1687. HEN. MAVRICE LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXVII A Defence of the Confuter of Bellarmin's Second Note of the Church Antiquity c. I Apprehend by this Author's Genius that 't is much easier for some Men to write Farce than Controversy And tho I cannot say whether or no any man ever undertook the Confutation of Bellarmin over a Pot as our Author elegantly begins his Advice yet he seems to me by his ludicrous Behaviour to have engaged in his Defence in that sort of humour He may think it Vanity if he pleases in the Reverend and Learned Author of the Piece he attaques to assail the Roman Champion himself yet even I who never enter'd the Field of Controversy before shall presume to engage with such a Smatterer in the Noble Science as his Second And yet immediately after this fit of Rhetorick he do's not pretend that the Pot-qualifications are the case of him who has undertaken to answer Bellarmin ' s Marks of the Church No Why then do's he commence his Advice with such a Suggestion Did he think fit to publish to the World that he had a mind to be impertinent An humour especially in Conjunction with Buffoonry in serious Affairs I would advise him against for the future if the powerful Influence of an ill habit has not totally over-rul'd his Liberty in the matter And thus after the witty Introduction to his little good Will little enough I dare say we come now to receive the Advice of this grave controversial Counsellor in the Case depending First Then he pretends for I 'le relate his Advice in short-hand as much as I can till I find something worth the transcribing that Bellarmin never meant what his Adversary undertakes to prove that the Plea of bare Antiquity is proper to the Church No! but this Gentleman must own that he did when I have told him only that by bare Antiquity his Adversary understands Antiquity abstracted from the Consideration of Truth those Ancient Truths deliver'd in the Scriptures Now I presume he will not say that Bellarmin any where expresly in his Book of Notes muchless in this Chapter makes the consent of Doctrines with the written Word which is not bare but true Antiquity a Note of the Church tho indeed such is the force of Truth he can hardly keep off of that Argument In his ninth Chapter he makes agreement in Doctrine with the Ancient Church a sixth Note of the Church Ancient he farther explains by Apostolic telling us likewise out of Tertullian that a Church is so call'd as for other Reasons so for her conspiring with the Apostles in their Doctrines and yet after all most pitifully slides off to quite another thing as will appear to any one who shall examine that Chapter But it may be almost worth a man's while to read the Adviser's Comment upon Bellarmin's Text tho I hate transcribing He says indeed says my Author that whoever at this time will find out the Catholick Church profess'd in the Creed amongst so many pretenders must not apply himself to any upstart Congregation which was never visible in the World but of late years but to such a Church which has been of as long standing as ever since Christ and the Apostles days and consequently such a Church to which Antiquity of necessity at this time belongs This Bellarmin asserts Where I observe First that by this last Expression he Represents his own flourishing Gloss as Bellarmin's Words which they are not a thing that looks a little towards a design of putting a trick upon his Readers 2ly That we are here shrewdly directed to find out the Catholick Church by finding out a particular to which we must stick without farther enquiry 3ly That this Man passes a genere ad genus from Antiquity to Visibility which the better Logick of his Master Bellarmin would not probably have suffer'd him to have done And lastly after all that he unluckily says the same thing in substance with what he disproves in his Adversary for what do's all his Gloss amount to but to this That he who would find out the true Church must overlook all such as boast not of Antiquity at all adventures without any regard had to the true Antiquity of their Doctrines or any thing else they pretend to and pitch upon that without any more ado which has been of as long standing of as long standing barely without any farther respect as ever since Christ and the Apostles days And what is such a standing as this but bare Antiquity Unless he can prove a necessary entail of Truth upon a long Succession which all the World can never do And therefore hoping he may be a little more happy in following than in giving Advice I present him with his own and the second he gives That when he would confute his Adversary he say not the same thing that he do's and withal desire him to attend for the future more diligently to the Sense than to the Expression of a Period But wherein do's the Confuter of Bellarmin thus unluckily jump with him Why in explicating and proving the same Antiquity to be a Note of the Church which Bellarmin affirms to be such To which I answer first that if Bellarmin by Antiquity meant such as his Confuter explains p. 45. as is pretended then he understood by that word an agreement in Doctrine with Christ and his Apostles for so 't is plain his Adversary meant but we have shown before that that could not be Bellarmin's Intention 2ly That if the Cardinals Discourse upon this Note do's really tend to prove not Antiquity but as the Confuter compendiously distinguishes Priority to belong to the Church as it seems to do then 't is demonstrable to me that he presently grew weary of his Note which he could not manage without blending and confounding it with another more proper and pertinent to his business tho besides his design The third Inconsistency which he thinks he has found in the Confuter of Bellarmin is this That having prov'd Antiquity not to be a proper Note of the Church because it did not always belong to it as a proper Characteristick of a thing ought to do there being a time when the Church was new p. 42. He should nothwistanding in the 45 p. assert that the holy Scriptures are the true Antiquity there being a time when they were new likewise and here he thinks he has undoubtedly caught him But alas his Pen was more nimble than his thoughts were deep If indeed Bellarmin's Adversary in this point had advanc'd this Proposition That Antiquity is a proper Note or inseparable Property of the Scriptures or written Word and had after this undertaken to prove that Antiquity could not be such a Note of the Church because the Church was
if the Bishops of Rome had in those days presumed to have broke down all the ancient mounds and boundaries of Jurisdiction the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Council of Nice and had in a word but offer'd at such an audacious attempt as an universal Monarchy over the whole Church of Christ that they would not have been taken notice of by those Councils as they were by others afterwards and by the African Bishops during that time Yes he may assure himself we should have had a brand of Infamy set upon them that would have lasted to all Posterity if any but the Church of Rome had the keeping of the Records But there 's something behind still in this Paragraph which looks as if he were fond of it therefore we must do it the civility of a remark and that is that the ancient Fathers urge the continued succession of these very Bishops of Rome as an Argument of the True Orthodox Faith and Religion professed in that Church Ergo What What you please I have told this Gentleman before that the Orthodoxy of the Faith of the Church of Rome in those days is no way concern'd in the present debate for the Church over which the Bishops we speak of presided might be sound in the Faith for the Pope's universal Jurisdiction was then no Article of it and yet they through passion inadvertency or perhaps natural ambition lay the first Foundation of that monstrous Fabric of Papal power that after-Ages built upon it I shall not here enter upon a Discourse concerning the proof of the Truth of Doctrines by succession of Bishops because the Adviser uses it only as a Medium to prove tho' poor man he has made but bad use of it that no Bishop of Rome could by any means sow those Seeds which might be afterwards improv'd into dangerous innovations yet I must tell him that after all those Fathers ultimately resolve the truth of all Doctrines into their harmony and agreement with the Apostolic writings The ridiculous Buffoonry that fills up the rest of the Paragraph sufficiently exposes its Author of it self only whereas he tells us we have no other way to look fair than by blackning the Church of Rome I must tell him in return That in my Mind they are equally impertinent who would wash an Aethiopian white and who would paint him blacker than he is In the next Paragraph about Image-worship he palliates very finely as if Paint and Varnish were still as requisite to a Discourse upon that indefensible Subject as to the Subject it self The Confuter hinting briefly to him by what advances Image-worship crept up to that height wherein 't is now taught and practic'd in the Church of Rome begins as he ought from the very first Steps or unhappy Occasions only of that religious Worship that was afterwards given them viz. the Historical use of them 300 years after Christ improv'd into the Rhetorical as he well expresses it in 300 years more after that Now upon this fastens the Adviser without ever taking notice of the Religious Adoration that is paid them that great Alteration of Religion the Confuter complains of and of which the former uses of them were only unhappily Introductory but slurs it over in the general terms of other Reasons others with a witness for which the Confuter condemns the Church of Rome of Innovation in Religion Is this Ingenuity Is this Arguing But alas 't is as good as the Cause will bear How then is the Church of England laid upon her back by the Alteration in Religion which the Confuter in this place charges upon the Church of Rome Do's the Church of England worship Images If not She can never be in the same Condemnation for not worshipping with that Church which doth worship them But here perhaps lies the Mystery Mr. Mountague in the 21. Chap. of his Appeal to Caesar approves of the giving them Civil Respect and Reverence as was done by Pope Gregory in Rememoration and more effectual Representment of the Prototype all which amounts to no more even in his own Exposition in that Chap. than to a bare Historical use of them And what of all this Do's it hence follow that the whole Church of England is equally laid on her Back with the Church of Rome that religiously worships them Is there no difference betwixt Mr. Mountague's private Opinion and the Doctrine of the Church of England No difference betwixt a meer Historical and that Religious use that is made of them in the Church of Rome Well but Mr. Mountague confesses that the Historical and Rhetorical uses of them are allow'd by the Church of England And suppose so for once what becomes of the poor Consequence still for that 's what I am concern'd for The Church of England allows an use of Images harmless in it self and therefore She is equally culpable with a Church that allows nay commands an use of them sinful in it self Consquences so big with Absurdity that a man needs but name them to expose them But after all the Church of England has no such Doctrine that I know of nor do's Mr. Mountague say so He says indeed Chap. 20. that we do not account the Papists Idolatrous for these Historical and Rhetorical uses of them and in the same Chap. that it is not the Doctrine of the Church of England to have departed from the Church of Rome about this point if She had gone no farther in Practice nor Precept than what St. Gregory recommended and that he for his part could have actually gone thus far along with them But he affirms no such thing of the Church of England as the Adviser would make him But since he has been pleas'd to make use of Mr. Mountague's Name as a sort of an Abetter of their Doctrino in this Point I think I cannot do Him nor the Reader greater Justice than here to give a Specimen of his Sense of this Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome Thus then says he in the 19. Chap. one of those cited by our Author I do not I cannot I will not deny that Idolatry is grosly committed in the Church of Rome The ruder sort at least are not excusable who go to it with down-right Idolatry without any relative Adoration worshipping that which they behold with their Eyes This Idolatry is Ancient in their Schools as he there shews not amongst the Vulgar only The little Flourishes which follow are not worth a remark for who says That such an use of Images as he there speaks of leaves the Church of Rome without all title to Antiquity or that it Vnchurches her This I am sure is a Rhetorical use of words instead of a Logical one which obliges a Disputant to keep to his terms a strictness alas that will never agree with thin Sense and a bad Cause The Confutation of his Comparison betwixt the Introduction of the worship of Images and Lawn-sleeves c. I leave to the
once new the Argument would with equal force have recoil'd upon that same Assertion of his in relation to the Scriptures Or if Bell. had affirm'd only that the Church is truely Ancient and his Adversary had denied it upon the Score of its former newness he could not neither if his own Objection were good have rightly affirm'd that the Ss. are the true Antiquity But who can discover the least repugnancy betwixt these two Assertions that Antiquity is a Note of the Church and consequently as the Confuter well argues proper to it and inseparable from it which yet cannot be true if the Church was once new and this that the Scriptures are the true Antiquity i. e. that the Doctrines deliver'd in the Scripures or written Word are the oldest and truest Doctrines in the Christian Church Thus I have often observ'd that a few plain Words will unriddle great Mysteries in appearance and that some Men are unhappily apt to run away with a bare jingle of Words instead of harmony in Sense In the fourth Remark we meet with no less a charge than that of a contradiction and that 's a bad business indeed in so narrow a compass of Pages but where has this starter of difficulties espied it for 't is not easily discernable Why the Confuter of Bellarmin has asserted absolutely p. 42. That Antiquity is not a proper note of the Church whereas p. 45. He has found out an Antiquity that is proper to the Church In good time Bellarmin uses the word equivocally either for that which is ancient or for that which is first the former his Confuter says p. 42. is not a Note proper to the Church but that the latter which Bellarmin did not originally mean by his Note of Antiquity tho he was forc'd to run into it belongs to the Church And is this now ad idem and if not where 's the contradiction If discoursing with this Gentleman I should own my self a Member of the Catholick Church and finding afterwards that according to their usual and presumptuous blunder by the Catholick Church he meant the Roman Catholick Church I should deny my self to be a Member of it should I be guilty of a Contradiction for shame what trifling is this I thought some sort of People had better understood the dubious import of Words used equivocally His fifth Remark wants nothing but Truth to make it a very good one and is this That the Confuter of Bellarmin has produced a Citation out of St. Cyprian which is so far from favouring his own Cause that it really supports his Adversaries and is the very ground of what they maintain and he opposes And in earnest then amongst such great variety he was very unhappy in his choice But how does the Adviser make this appear why by two or three pert Interogations and that 's all To which if I opposed only as many more I might reasonably seem to have given him a just Answer For the place is so extremely pertinent to the Argument the Confuter was upon that for my own part I can scarce perswade my self the Adviser was in earnest when he made his Remark if he knew what he was about The Confuter was showing that bare Antiquity as before explained could not be a proper Criterion to judge of the true Church by for that amongst other Reasons wicked Doctrines running down to Posterity even from the Infancy of the Gospel made use at length of the Plea of Antiquity to give them countenance and support which pretence says he was notwithstanding refuted by the Fathers in several remarkable Words Amongst others of which he alledges that passage in St. Cyprian's Epistle to Pompeius Custom without truth is but Antiquity of error and there is a short way of Religious and simple minds to find out what is truth for if we return to the beginning and original of Divine Tradition Humane Error ceases Thither let us return to our Lords Original the Evangelical Beginning the Apostolical Tradition c. Is not now our Lord 's Original the Evangelical Beginning terms synonimous with Apostolical Tradition that ancient Truth the Confuter desires to appeal to Or is this as the Adviser farther boasts That setting up the very Tradition which Catholicks appeal to Yes says he But why so for no other reason doubtless but because he luckily espied the Word Tradition in that sentence and perhaps found it under that head in his Common-place Book Now seriously if this Gentleman pleases I 'le produce him half an hundred Instances out of the Ancient Fathers Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian c. where Tradition is used by them for the Scriptures or written Word of God. If he had but consulted that other Epistle to Caecilius Cited by the Confuter in his Margent he would have found it taken there five or six times in that very sense and that 't is really so in the place now before us is so demonstrably evident from the Epistle whence it is cited that none who had ever consulted the Original could with the least modesty or judgment have alledged it in Defence of Tradition as stated in the Church of Rome For the Holy Martyr refuting here what Pope Stephen had replied to him in a Letter concerning the Baptism of Hereticks repeats several Passages of it Of which this is one Si quis ergo a quacunque Haeresi venerit ad nos nihil innovetur nisi quod Traditum est ut manus illi imponatur in poenitentiam To which St. Cyprian immediately replies Whence is this Tradition does it descend from the Authority of our Lord and the Gospel or from the Injunctions and Epistles of the Apostles For God testifies That those things are to be done which are written If therefore it be commanded either in the Gospel or in the Epistles of the Apostles or in the Acts that they who come from any Heresie over to the Church be not Baptized but only have imposition of hands for repentance let this Divine and Holy Tradition be observed But if c. And now what thinks our Adviser of St. Cyprian's Apostolical Tradition which pleased him so wonderfully at first sight and I dare say he never look'd farther Are the Gospels the Epistles and the Acts the only Tradition which Catholicks appeal to Let him remember his Trent-Creed and then tell me We come now in the next place to his Remarks and Advice in relation to the Confuter's second Proposition That the present Church of Rome vainly pretends to true Antiquity i. e. ancient Truth And here we find him all on a sudden taken with a very strong fit of the Gentleman he 's upon his Punctilio's and teaching his Adversary better manners than to charge the Church of Rome with Lyes and yet this Master of Controversial Ceremonies is off of his breeding within two Pages after where we have him ranking the Divines and Disputants of the Church of England with honest Coblers and Tinkers as if they were really at a
Club together over the Pot he speaks of in his Introduction for the Confutation of Bellarmin and to instance no farther in this fulsome kind what else is his whole scribble but one continued breach of Good Manners and common Civiliey unless he thinks it the part of the Gentleman to Boffoon a whole Church and all her Clergy I shall not farther recriminate though I justly might from several of their late Papers were it worth the while I shall only therefore tell him that Bellarmin in that very Chapter we are now upon gives his Adversaries the Lye twice very roundly and why should he be angry with a man for copying after such an Original And that I could wish some People were not so deeply concern'd in the Character of those who in the Apostle's homely Phrase shall in the latter times speak Lyes in Hypocrisie 1 Tim. 4. 2. and by lying Wonders 2 Thess 2. 9. impose upon the People as to deserve such plain English But the Lye deserves a Stab they say and therefore we may now expect a keen Pen when pointed with such generous Resentments In the second place therefore he pretends that the Confuter in kicking down the Church of Rome has overthrown his own at the same blow For he having asserted p. 49. not as the Adviser words it That the addition of Articles to the ancient Creed takes of all claim to the ancient Truth as if a Church that coins new and false Articles of Faith does thereby forfeit her Title to those true and ancient ones she before retain'd though not impugn'd by these new ones as the Adviser would suggest but that the present Church of Rome having superadded several Articles of her own contrary to several of those Christian Truths upon which she was originally founded becomes another Church from what she was then and cannot plead Antiquity for her present Constitution the Adviser subsumes that neither then can the Church of England be the ancient Church who besides the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds has another of a later date of nine and thirty Articles besides another Plot-Creed call'd the Test Sure this Man wrote only to make People merry Or is he really not able to distinguish betwixt Articles of the Christian Faith of necessity to be believ'd in order to Salvation and such he cannot but know the Church of Rome accounts all the Articles of the new Trent Creed and those of Communion and external agreement which tho ancient Truths and if we cannot give better proofs of their true Antiquity than they can do of their necessary Articles wee 'l be content to lose them are yet of an inferior Nature And as to our Plot Creed in particular I 'le set another Plot-Creed with a Witness against it and that is the deposing Power by Law establish'd by a Law that 's a Creed in the strictest Sense to them the Definition of a General Council and had it not been for this and other Plot-Creeds of absolving Subjects from their Allegiance and the like I am apt to believe they had never been troubled with ours In the next Paragraph the Adviser leads us such a Dance there 's no keeping Pace with him He frisks and frolicks it so in his Field of Crontroversy that he puts me in mind of the Diversion of another sort of Animal lately come into a good Pasture and in a warm Sun. I was in despair for some time of finding out his meaning in his long Ramble of two Pages but beating about for it laid in a very narrow compass I found it at last in a Corner of the Field of Controversy and 't is in short this That the Confuter's Argumentation which see p. 50. c. do's not prove that when a Change or Alteration in Religion begins publickly to be abetted maintained and propagated c. That then such an Alteration in Religion could spread it self over the whole Christian World and yet the Authors Promoters Abetters and Embracers of it not be known and taken notice of This being a popular tho very weak refuge insisted upon by greater men than the Adviser I shall give it a more distinct tho short Answer First then I say That the Confuter p. 52. has given him one particular Instance of an acknowledg'd Change of which they themselves cannot yet assign the Author by whom nor the time when it was introduc'd and that he has farther p. 53 c. as much as his design'd Brevity would admit evinc'd the Rise and Progress of two notorious changes in Religion establish'd in the Church of Rome and the Opposition they met with and could at h pleasure have farther enlarg'd upon this Subject Now either of these Ratiocinations are a sufficient Confutation of Bellarmin's adopted by the Adviser And how little he has replied to his Instances we shall see by and by 2dly He is mightily out in his Computation unless the old blunder of the Roman being the Catholick Church run still in his Head if he thinks all those Doctrines of theirs which we charge with the want of true Antiquity were ever universally receiv'd over the whole Christian World as he flourishes to exaggerate the Matter What thinks he of one of the Confuter's instances the Papal Authority to go no further But I hope his better Knowledg in this point will supersede me the labour of enlarging upon so copious an Argument 3dly I must tell the Adviser that the Doctrines we complain of being generally such as are calcuted for the Meridian of Rome the greater Veneration Wealth and Grandeur of the Pope and his Clergy 't is no wonder at all that we hear not of so much Bustle and Noise about them in the Western World as we might otherwise have expected And if he asks me as he 's good at such silly questions Where the Church of England was all this time and why She did not Preach and make Laws against such Corruptions and their Abetters I presume to ask his Wisdom again Where She was under the late Reign of Cromwel and why She did not Preach and make Laws against him and his Abetters Why truly She was in both Cases under the invincible Tyranny of an Usurper and therefore methinks the general Answer of the Housholder to his Servants asking him whence came the tares that an Enemy had Sown them might satisfie in this Anti-tipe of the Parable likewise especially since we find neither Master nor Servants any farther sollicitous in particular Enquiries about them even when they grew up and were consequently seen and discern'd for ill weeds to be sure grow fast enough And I shall only in this place desire the Gentlemen who are so ready to boast of the present Continuance of the discriminating Doctrines of the Church of Rome notwithstanding the Opposition they have met with to make this farther Remark with me upon the Parable of the Tares That they were suffer'd to grow up with the Wheat until the Harvest and let them recollect what became
and no alteration of the Will it self Who sees not at first sight the illusion of such an evasion But now because the Adviser counsels the Confuter to prove in his next That a diversity of Practice as he pleasantly calls the denial of the Cup is an alteration in Religion I 'le endeavour to do it for him in as few words as I can now that I am upon the spot and save him the labour For if the Sacrament of the Eucharist be a part of the Christian Religion and I hope 't will be granted to be a very considerable one and the Cup an essential part of that Sacrament then they who deprive the Laiety of the Cup the diversity of Practice here spoke of make thereby an alteration in Religion but c. And I 'le make good this Argumentation to him when he pleases The custom of administring the Cup with Water only instead of Wine was not I hope so great a diversity of Practice as not administring the Cup at all to the Laiety who were at that time partakers of the Cup such as it was and yet it were worth his while to read what stress St. Cyprian in his 63 Ep. to Caecilius lays upon the practice of our Lord in his Institution of this Sacrament And in a word so far is this defrauding the Laiety of the Cup from being no alteration in Religion that besides what has been said it opens wide the Door to the greatest alterations imaginable For if the Church nay what is worse the Church of Rome in particular can by her own transcendent Prerogative alter and act contrary to this positive Law and Institution of Christ she may by the same reason dispence with or formally abrogate any of the other at her pleasure As for his Quotations out of Luther and Melancthon I have not been able to find upon a pretty diligent search as much as the very Tract and Epistles from whence he cites them and therefore am apt to imagine that taking them up at second hand he or his Author made a mistake in them However it be it matters not much for his second Citation out of Luther appears at first sight so forreign to his purpose that by it we may guess at the rest But above all recommend me to the Skull which could Cite that place of Spalatensis l. 5. c. 6. for the refusal of the Cup or conclude that because private Persons upon extraordinary occasions as want of Wine antipathy to it or the like mentioned by this very Author may lawfully receive in one kind the Church may make an universal standing Law against the Laiety's receiving in both Give me leave but just to continue the words of Spalatensis where the Adviser leaves of and you will be sufficiently able to pronounce of either the judgment or ingenuity of this Author without any farther descant upon him After having told us then in the general in what cases the Sacrament may be lawfully received under the species of Bread alone he proceeds Though in such a case says he the Sacrament is not truly and properly whole Wine may either be wanting or the Person abstemious or it may be more convenient to recieve at home than in the Church upon a lawful cause in which case a man may carry the Bread along with him tho not so conveniently the Wine as old examples teach us a practice perhaps not altogether warrantable in the Church But the Church neither could nor can by an universal Law deprive the Laiety of the Cup whether they will or no upon no necessity at all for what Christ granted to all men is in vain denied by the Church and where the whole Sacrament may and ought to be exhibited it cannot be mutilated and halfed without the greatest injustice and this is expresly prohibited under an Anathema by Gelasius in a Canon of the Church In the next Paragraph the Adviser is all upon the ramble again and you scarce know where to have him I 'le pick up the sense tho' he has dropt here and there and digest it for him as well as I can First Then he is angry with the Confuter for dateing the rise of the Papal Authority he speaks of so far back as Pope Victor and his reason is because the Church of Rome is generally believ'd to have been in those days pure and uncorrupt Here wants nothing but a good consequence The Faith of the Church of Rome was then sound and Orthodox and therefore one of her Bishops could not be of a warm passionate or assuming temper as Africans generally are of which Country he was and by an unwarrantable action undesignedly perhaps lay the first Foundation of a future encroachment and usurpation This is the whole Logic of the Business But the practises the Confuter censures were own'd by the Christians of those days I wonder then he did not show the vanity of what the Confuter alledges concerning the reprimand that Celestine met with from the African Bishops upon his intrusion into their Affairs or to go farther back did the Adviser never hear of the bustle that Victor's excommunicating the Asiatic Bishops made in the Church Or was no Body ever so kind as to tell him how ill that action was resented by Bishops of the Latin Church it self as may appear from a fragment of a Letter of Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons to Victor upon this occasion see Euseb Hist l. 5. c. 24. But Secondly Pope Victor's practise could be no other than an Apostolical truth because he lived in the Second Century I thought we should have him upon the Argument of bare Antiquity for all his former indignation at the Confuter for telling him 't was Bellarmin's second Note of the Church and here again is nothing but the poor business of a little Logic and conclusiveness wanting For the argument proves too much and so proves nothing at all to his purpose being that which a fortiori will justifie the Treachery of Judas and all the Heretical Doctrines that were broach'd before Victor's time But I need not farther expose its absurdity the Confuter having done it so excellently well in his first particular His third appearance of reason is that the Popes the Confuter mentions as beginners of the present Innovation of the Papal Authority living before or in the time of the four first General Councils if what is pretended were true those Councils would have taken notice of it Now because he confines his observation to those Councils only so shall I do my answer which need be no other than this That the Innovation was then perfectly in its Infancy the Tares as yet according to his own distinction in the dark and under ground not grown up and overtopping the Corn as they did afterwards and therefore difficultly perceptible at least in their future fatal tendency and event and as such might consequently easily escape the severe and solemn Animadversion of a general Council But can the Adviser imagin that