The several Testimonies to the contrary of S. Ambrose S. Hierom John Patriarch of Constantiople S. Augustine Optatus c. particularly examined and all found short of proving that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church The several Answers of his Lordship to the Testimonies of S. Cyprian S. Hierom S. Greg. Nazianzen S. Cyril and Ruffinus about the Infallibility of the Church of Rome justified From all which it appears that the making the Roman Church to be the Catholick is a great Novelty and perfect Jesuitism p. 289. CHAP. II. Protestants no Schismaticks Schism a culpable Separation therefore the Question of Schism must be determined by enquiring into the causes of it The plea from the Church of Rome's being once a right Church considered No necessity of assigning the punctual time when errours crept into her An account why the originals of errours seem obscure By Stapletons Confession the Roman and Catholick Church were not the same The falsiâ—y of that assertion manifested that there could be no pure Church since the Apostles times if the Roman Church were corrupt No one particular Church free from corruptions yet no separation from the Catholick Church How far the Catholick Church may be said to erre Men may have distinct communion from any oâ—e particular Church yet not separate from the Catholick Church The Testimony of Petrus de Alliaco vindicated Bellarmin not mis cited Almain full to his Lordships purpose The Romanists guilty of the present Schism and not Protestants In what sense there can be no just cause of Schism and how far that concerns our case Protestants did not depart from the Church of Rome but were thrust out of it The Vindication of the Church of Rome from Schism at last depends upon the two false Principles of her Infallibility and being the Catholick Church The Testimonies of S. Bernard and S Austin not to the purpose The Catalogue of Fundamentals the Churches not erring c. referr'd back to their proper places p. 324. CHAP. III. Of keeping Faith with Hereticks The occasion of this Dispute The reason why this Doctrine is not commonly defended Yet all own such Principles from whence it necessarâ—ly follows The matter of fact as to the Council of Constance and John Hus opened Of the nature of the safe conduct granted him by the Emperour that it was not a general one salvâ justitiâ but particular jure speciali which is largely proved The particulars concerning Hierom of Prague Of the safe-conduct granted by the Council of Trent Of the distinction of Secular and Ecclesiastical Power and that from thence it follows that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks Simancha and several others fully assert this Doctrine Of the Invitation to the Council of Trent and the good Instructions there and of Publick Disputation p. 343. CHAP. IV. The Reformâ—tion of the Church of England justified The Church of Rome guilty of Schism by unjustly casting Protestants out of Communion The Communion of the Catholâ—ck and particular Churches distinguished No separation of Protestants from the Catholick Church The Devotions of the Church of England and Rome compared Particular Churches Power to reform themselves in case of general Corruption proved The Instance from the Church of Judah vindicated The Church of Rome paralleld with the ten Tribes General Corruptions make Reformation the more necessary Whether those things we condemn as errours were Catholick Tenets at the time of the Reformation The contrary shewed and the dâ—fference of the Church of Rome before and since the Reformation When things may be said to be received as Catholick Doctrines How far particular Churches Power to reform themselves extends His Lordships Instances for the Power of Provincial Councils in matters of Reformation vindicated The particular case of the Church of England discussed The proceedings in our Reformation defended The Church of England a true Church The National Synod 1562. a lawful Synod The Bâ—shops no intruders in Queen Elizabeth's time The justice and modâ—ration of the Church of England in her Reformation The Popes Power here a forcible and fraudulent Usurpation p. 356. CHAP. V. Of the Roman Churches Authority The Question concerning the Church of Rome's Authority entred upon How far our Church in reforming her self condemns the Church of Rome The Pope's equality with other Patriarchs asserted The Arabick Canons of the Nicene Council proved to be supposititious The Polity of the Ancient Church discovered from the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice The Rights of Primats and Metropolitans settled by it The suitableness of the Ecclesiastical to the Civil Government That the Bishop of Rome had then a limitted Jurisdiction within the suburbicary Churches as Primate of the Roman Diocese Of the Cyprian Priviledge that it was not peculiar but common to all Primats of Dioceses Of the Pope's Primacy according to the Canons how far pertinent to our dispute How far the Pope's Confirmation requisite to new elected Patriarchs Of the Synodical and Communicatory Letters The testimonies of Petrus de Marcâ concerning the Pope's Power of confirming and deposing Bishops The Instances brought for it considered The case of Athanasius being restored by Julius truly stated The proceedings of Constantine in the case of the Donatists cleared and the evidence thence against the Pope's Supremacy Of the Appeals of Bishops to Rome how far allowed by the Canons of the Church The great case of Appeals between the Roman and African Bishops discussed That the Appeals of Bishops were prohibited as well as those of the inferiour Clergy C's fraud in citing the Epistle of the African Bishops for acknowledging Appeals to Rome The contrary manifested from the same Epistle to Boniface and the other to Coelestine The exemption of the Ancient Britannick Church from any subjection to the See of Rome asserted The case of Wilfrids Appeal answered The Primacy of England not derived from Gregory's Grant to Augustine the Monk The Ancient Primacy of the Britannick Church not lost upon the Saxon Conversion Of the state of the African Churches after their denying Appeals to Rome The rise of the Pope's Greatness under Christian Emperours Of the Decree of the Sardican Synod in case of Appeals whether ever received by the Church No evidence thence of the Pope's Supremacy Zosimus his forgery in sending the Sardican Canons instead of the Nicene The weakness of the Pleas for it manifested p. 382. CHAP. VI. Of the Title of Universal Bishop In what sense the Title of Vniversal Bishop was taken in Antiquity A threefold acceptation of it as importing 1. A general care over the Christian Churches which is attributed to other Catholick Bishops by Antiquity besides the Bishop of Rome as is largely proved 2. A peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Roman Empire This accounted then Oecumenical thence the Bishops of the seat of the Empire called Oecumenical Bishops and sometimes of other Patriarchal Churches 3. Noting Vniversal Jurisdiction over the whole Church as Head of it so never given
and punctual then this testimony of Cyprian is to overthrow that sense of the Catholick Church which you contend for How farr were Cyprian and the African Bishops from making Rome the center of Ecclesiastical communion when they looked on appeals thither as very unjust and unreasonable What acknowledgement and dependence was there on the Church of Rome in those who looked on themselves as having a portion of Christs flock committed to them of which they were to give an account to God alone And I pray what excellent persons were those who undervalued the Authority of the African Bishops and ran to Rome St. Cyprian tells us they were pauci desperati perditi and translate these with as much advantage to your cause as you can So fatal hath it been to Rome even from its first foundation to be a receptacle for such persons And is not this a great credit to your cause that such persons who were ejected out of communion for their crimes at home did make their resort to Rome and the more pious and stout any Bishops were the more they defended their own priviledges in opposition to the encroachments of the Roman Sec. Which was apt to take advantage from such Renegado's as these were by degrees to get more power into her hands and lift up her head above her fellow-Churches But lest you should think that St. Cyprian only spake these things in an heat out of his opposition to these persons and his desire to crush them you shall see what his judgement was concerning the same things when he purposely discourseth of them For in his Book of the Vnity of the Church he useth that expression which destroyes all your subordinate union in the Church which is Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur They who consider and understand the importance of that speech will find nothing more destructive to your doctrine of the Catholick Church then that is For when he makes the Vniversal Government of the Church to be but one Episcopal office and that committed in the several parts of it with full power to particular Bishops can any be so senseless to imagine that he should ever think the Government of the Church in General to depend on any one particular Church as chief over the rest And that the former words do really import such a full power in particular Bishops over that part of the flock which is committed to them appears from the true importance of the phrase insolidum a phrase taken out of the Civil Law where great difference is made between an obligation in partem and in solidum and so proportionable between a tenure in partem and in solidum those things were held in solidum which were held in full right and power without payments and acknowledgements But where the usus-fructus belonged to another it was not held in solidum So that when St. Cyprian saith that every part belonging to each Bishop was held in solidum he therein imports that full right and power which every Bishop hath over his charge and in this speech he compares the Government of the Church to an estate held by several Freeholders in which every one hath a full right to that share which belongs to him Whereas according to your principles the Government of the Church is like a Mannor or Lordship in which the several inhabitants hold at the best but by Copy from the Lord and you would fain have it at the will of your Lord too But thus farr we see St. Cyprian was from your modern notion of the Catholick Church that he looks on the Vnity of it as depending on the consent of the Catholick Bishops and Churches under their full power and not deriving that Vnity from any particular Church as the head and fountain of it And therefore in the former Schism at Rome about Cornelius and Novatianus St. Cyprian imployed two of his colleagues thither Caldonius and Fortunatus that not only by the Letters they carried but by their presence and Counsel they should do their utmost endeavour to bring the members of that divided body to the unity of the Catholick Church Which is certainly a very different thing from the Catholick Churche's deriving its Vnity from the particular Church of Rome Many other instances of a like nature might be produced out of the Reports of St. Cyprians times but these are sufficient to evidence how far the Vnity of the Catholick Church was then from depending on the Church of Rome But lest we should seem to insist only on St. Cyprians testimony it were easie to multiply examples in this kind which I shall but touch at some of and proceed If the Church of Rome then had been looked on as the center of Ecclesiastical communion is it possible to conceive that the excommunications of the Church of Rome should be slighted as they were by Polycrates for which St. Hierome commends him as a man of courage that Stephen should be opposed as he was by Cyprian and Firmilian in a way so reflecting on the Authority of the Roman Church that appeals to Rome should be so severely prohibited by the African Bishops that causes should be determined by so many Canons to be heard in their proper Dioceses that when the right of appeals was challenged by the Bishops of Rome it was wholly upon the account of the imaginary Nicene Canons that when Julius undertook by his sole power to absolve Athanasius the Oriental Bishops opposed it as irregular on that account at the Council at Antioch that when afterwards Paulus Marcellus and Lucius repaired to Rome to Julius and he seeks to restore them the Eastern Bishops wonder at his offering to restore them who were excommunicated by themselves and that as when Novatus was excommunicated at Rome they opposed it not so neither ought he to oppose their proceedings against these persons What account can be given of these passages if the Vnity of the Catholick Church had depended on the particular Church of Rome Besides while the Church of Rome continued regular we find she looked on her self as much obliged to observe the excommunications made by other Churches as others were to observe hers As in the case of Marcion who being excommunicated by his Father the Bishop of Sinope in Pontus and by no means prevailing with his Father for his admission into the Church again resorts to Rome and with great earnestness begs admission there where he received this answer That they could not do it without the command of his Father for there is one Faith and one consent and we cannot contradict our worthy brother your Father This shews the Vnity of the Catholick Church to proceed upon other grounds than the causal influence of the Church of Rome when the consent of the Church did oblige the Church of Rome not to repeal the excommunication of a particular Bishop Upon which ground it was that Synesius
the lawfulness of his doing it because he was thereto appointed by the Emperour But when you say St. Austin gives this answer only per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of condescension to his adversaries way of speaking you would do well to prove elsewhere from St. Austin that when he lay's aside his Rhetorick he ever speaks otherwise but that it would have been an Vsurpation in the Pope to challenge to himself the hearing of those causes which had been determined by African Bishops But what St. Augustines judgement as well as the other African Fathers was in this point abundantly appears from the Controversies between them and the Bishop of Rome in the case of Appeals It sufficiently appears already That neither our Saviour nor the Canons of the Vniversal Church gave the Pope leave to hear and judge the causes of St. Athanasius and other Patriarchs and Bishops of the Church and therefore you were put to your shifts when you run thither for security But that which follows is notoriously false That when he did so interpose no man no not the persons themselves who were interessed and suffered by his judgement complained or accused him of usurpation when in the case of Athanasius it is so vehemently pleaded by the Eastern Bishops that the Pope had nothing at all to do in it but they might as well call in Question what was done at Rome as he what was done at Antioch Nay name us any one cause in that age of the Church where the Pope did offer to meddle in matters determined by other Bishops which he was not opposed in and the persons concern'd did not complain and accuse him of meddling with what he had no right to which are but other words for Vsurpation You say The Bishops whom the Emperour sent as Judges with the Pope were an inconsiderable number to sway the sentence It seems three to one are with you an inconsiderable number But say you The Pope to shew his authority added fifteen other Bishops of Italy to be his Colleagues and Assistants in the business Either these fifteen Bishops were properly Judges in the cause or only assistants for better management and speedier dispatch if they were Judges how prove you that Constantine did not appoint them if they were only assistants and suffragans to the Bishop of Rome as is most probable except Merocles Bishop of Milan what authority did the Pope shew in calling his Suffragans to his assistance in a matter of that nature which required so much examination of Witnesses But the Pope had more effectually shewn his authority if he had refused the Bishops whom Constantine sent and told him he medled with that which did not concern him to appoint any Judges at all in a matter of Ecclesiastical Cognisance and that it was an unsufferable presumption in him to offer to send three underling Bishops to sit with him in deciding Controversies as though he were not the Vniversal Pastour of the Church himself to whom alone by Divine right all such things did belong Such language as this would have become the Head of the Church and in that indeed he had shewn his authority But for him sneakingly to admit other Bishops as joynt-commissioners forsooth with him and that by the Emperours appointment too What did he else but betray the rights of his See and expose his Infallible Headship to great contempt Do you think that Pope Hildebrand or any of his Successours would have done this No they understood their power far better then so and the Emperour should have known his own for offering such an Affront to his Holiness And if his Bay-leaves did not secure him the Thunder-bolts of Excommunication might have lighted on him to his prejudice For shame then never say That Pope Miltiades shewed his authority but rather give him over among those good Bishops of Rome but bad Popes who knew better how to suffer Martyrdom then assert the Authority of the Roman See I pray imagine but Paul 5. or any other of our stout-spirited Popes in Miltiades his place Would they have taken such things at Constantines hands as poor Miltiades did and for all that we see was very well contented too and thought he did but his duty in doing what the Emperour bid him Would they have been contented to have had a cause once passed the Infallible judgement of the Roman See to be resumed again and handled in another Council as though there could be any suspicion that all things were not rightly carried there and that after all this too the Emperour should undertake to give the final decision to it would these things have been born with by any of our Infallible Heads of the Church But good Miltiades must be excused he went as far as his knowledge carried him and thought he might do good service to the Church in what he did and that was it he looked at more then the grandeur of his See The good Bishops then were just crept out of the Flames of persecution and they thought it a great matter that they had liberty themselves and did not much concern themselves about those Vsurpations which the Pride and Ease of the following ages gave occasion for They were sorry to see a Church that had survived the cruel Flames of Dioclesians persecution so suddenly to feel new ones in her own bowels that a Church whose constitution was so strong as to endure Martyrdomes should no sooner be at ease but she begins to putrifie and to be fly-blown with heats and divisions among her members and that her own Children should rake in those wounds which the violence of her professed enemies had caused in her and therefore these good Bishops used their care and industry to close them up and rather rejoyced they had so good an Emperour who would concern himself so much in healing the Churches breaches then dispute his Authority or disobey his Commands And if Constantine doth express himself unwilling to engage himself to meddle in a business concerning the Bishops of the Church it was out of his tender respect to those Bishops who had manifested their piety and sincerity so much in their late persecutions and not from any Question of his own Authority in it For that he after sufficiently asserted not only in his own actions but when the case of Felix of Aptung was thought not sufficiently scanned at Rome in appointing about four months after the judgement at Rome Aelianus the Proconsul of Africa to examine the case of Felix the Bishop of Aptung who had ordained Caecilian To this the Donatists pleaded That a Bishop ought not to be tryed by Proconsular judgement to which St. Austin Answers That it was not his own seeking but the Emperours appointing to whose care and charge that business did chiefly belong of which he must give an account to God And can it now enter into any head but yours that for all this the Emperour looked on the judgement
Nice For if this be taken care for as to the Inferiour Clergy and Laity How much more would it have it to be observed in Bishops that so they who are in their own Province suspended from communion be not hastily or unduly admitted by your Holiness Let your Holiness also reject the wicked refuges of Priests and Inferiour Clerks for no Canon of the Fathers hath taken that from the Church of Africk and the decrees of Nice hath subjected both the Inferiour Clergy and Bishops io their Metropolitans For they have most wisely and justly provided that every business be determined in the place where it begun and that the Grace of the Holy Spirit will not be wanting to every Province that so equity may be prudently discovered and constantly held by Christ's Priests Especially seeing that it is lawful to every one if he be offended to appeal to the Council of the Province or even to an Vniversal Council Vnless perhaps some body believe that God can inspire to every one of us the justice of examination of a cause and refuse it to a multitude of Bishops assembled in Council Or How can a judgement made beyond the Sea be valid to which the persons of necessary witnesses cannot be brought by reason of the infirmity of their sex and age or of many other intervening impediments For this sending of men to us from your Holiness we do not find commanded by any Synod of the Fathers And as for that which you did long since send to us by Faustinus our Fellow-Bishop as belonging to the Council of Nice we could not find it in the truest Copies of the Council sent by holy Cyril our Colleague Bishop of Alexandria and by the venerable Atticus Bishop of Constantinople which also we sent to your predecessor Boniface of happy memory by Innocent a Presbyter and Marcellus a Deacon Take heed also of sending to us any of your Clerks for executors to those who desire it lest we seem to bring the swelling pride of the world into the Church of Christ which beareth the light of simplicity and the brightness of humility before them that desire to see God And concerning our Brother Faustinus Apiarius being now for his wickedness cast out of the Church of Christ we are confident that our brotherly love continuing through the goodness and moderation of your Holiness Africa shall no more be troubled with him Thus I have at large produced this noble Monument of the prudence courage and simplicity of the African Fathers enough to put any reasonable man out of the fond conceit of an Vniversal Pastorship of the Bishop of Rome I wonder not that Baronius saith There are some hard things in this Epistle that Perron sweats and toils so much to so little purpose to enervate the force of it for as long as the records of it last we have an impregnable Bulwark against the Vsurpations of the Church of Rome And methinks you might blush for shame to produce those African Fathers as determining the Appeals of Bishops to Rome who with as much evidence and reason as courage and resolution did finally oppose it What can be said more convincingly against these Appeals than is here urged by them That they have neither authority from Councils nor any Foundation in Justice and Equity that God's presence was as well in Africk as Rome no doubt then they never imagined any Infallibility there that the proceedings of the Roman Bishop were so far from the simplicity and humility of the Gospel that they tended only to nourish swelling pride and secular ambition in the Church That the Pope had no authority to send Legats to hear causes and they hoped they should be no more troubled with such as Faustinus was All these things are so evident in this testimony that it were a disparagement to it to offer more at large to explain them I hope then this will make you sensible of the injury you have done the African Fathers by saying that they determined the causes of Bishops might be heard at Rome Your Answer to the place of S. Gregory which his Lordship produceth concerning Appeals viz. that the Patriarch is to put a final end to those causes which come before him by Appeal from Bishops and Arch-Bishops is the very same that it speaks only of the Inferiour Clergy and therefore is taken off already But you wonder his Lordship should expose to view the following words of S. Gregory where there is neither Metropolitan nor Patriarch of that Diocese there they are to have recourse to the See Apostolick as being the Head of all Churches Then surely it follows say you the Bishop of Rome 's Jurisdiction is not only over the Western and Southern Provinces but over the whole Church whither the Jurisdiction of Patriarchs and Metropolitans never extended See how well you make good the common saying That Ignorance is the cause of Admiration for Wherefore should you wonder at his Lordships producing these words if you had either understood or considered the abundant Answers which he gives to them 1. That if there be a Metropolitan or a Patriarch in those Churches his judgement is final and there ought to be no Appeal to Rome 2. It is as plain that in those ancient times of Church-Government Britain was never subject to the See of Rome of which afterwards 3. It will be hard for any man to prove that there were any Churches then in the world which were not under some either Patriarch or Metropolitan 4. If any such were 't is gratis dictum and impossible to be proved that all such Churches where-ever seated in the world were obliged to depend on Rome And Do you still wonder why his Lordship produces these words I may more justly wonder why you return no Answer to what his Lordship here sayes But still the Caput omnium Ecclesiarum sticks with you if his Lordship hath not particularly spoken to that it was because his whole discourse was sufficient to a man of ordinary capacity to let him see that no more could be meant by it but some preheminence of that Church above others in regard of order and dignity but no such thing as Vniversal Power and Jurisdiction was to be deduced from it And if Gregory understood more by it as his Lordship saith 'T is gratis dictum and Gregory himself was not a person to be believed in his own cause But now as you express it his Lordship takes a leap from the Church of Rome to the Church of England No neither his Lordship nor we take a leap from thence hither but you are the men who leap over the Alps from the Church of England to that of Rome We plead as his Lordship doth truly That in the ancient times of the Church Britain was never subject to the See of Rome but being one of the Western Dioceses of the Empire it had a Primate of its own This you say his Lordship should
their rights and liberties and thereupon gave present notice to Caelestine to forbear sending his Officers amongst them lest he should seem to induce the swelling pride of the World into the Church of Christ. And this is said to have amounted into a formal separation from the Church of Rome and to have continued for the space of somewhat more then one hundred years For which his Lordship produceth two publick instruments extant among the ancient Councils the one an Epistle from Boniface 2. in whose time the reconciliation to Rome is said to be made by Eulalius then Bishop of Carthage but the separation instigante Diabolo by the Temptation of the Devil The other is an exemplar precum or Copy of the Petition of the same Eulalius in which he damns and curses all those his Predecessours which went against the Church of Rome Now his Lordship urges from hence Either these Instruments are true or false If they be false then Boniface 2. and his Accomplices at Rome or some for them are notorious forgers and that of Records of great consequence to the Government and peace of the whole Church of Christ and to the perpetual Infamy of that See and all this foolishly and to no purpose On the other side if these instruments be true then 't is manifest that the Church of Africk separated from the Church of Rome which separation was either unjust or just if unjust then St. Austin Eugenius Fulgentius and all those Bishops and other Martyrs which suffered in the Vandalike persecution dyed in actual and unrepented Schism and out of the Church If it were just then is it far more lawful for the Church of England by a National Council to cast off the Popes Vsurpation as she did than it was for the African Church to separate because then the African Church excepted only against the Pride of Rome in case of Appeals and two other Canons less material but the Church of England excepts besides this grievance against many corruptions in Doctrine with which Rome at that time was not tainted And St. Austin and those other famous men durst not thus have separated from Rome had the Pope had that powerful Principality over the whole Church of Christ and that by Christs own Ordinance and Institution as A. C. pretends he had This is the substance of his Lordships discourse to which we must consider what Answer you return Which in short is That you dare not assert the credit of those two Instruments but are very willing to think them forgeries but you say the Schismatical separation of the African Church from the Roman is inconsistent with the truth of story and confuted by many pregnant and undeniable instances which prove that the Africans notwithstanding the context in the sixth Council of Carthage touching matter of Appeals were alwayes in true Catholick Communion with the Roman Church even during the term of this pretended separation For which you produce the Testimony of Pope Caelestine concerning St. Austin the proceeding of Pope Leo in the case of Lupicinus the Testimonies of Eugenius Fulgentius Gregory and the presence of some African Bishops at Rome To all which I Answer that either the African Fathers did persist in the decree of the Council of Carthage or they did not if they did persist in it and no separation followed then the casting off the Vsurpations of the Roman See cannot incur the guilt of Schism for these African Bishops did that and it seems continued still in the Roman Communion by which it is evident that the Roman Church was not so far degenerated then as afterwards or that the Authority of those persons was so great in the Church that the Roman Bishops durst not openly break with them which is a sufficient account of what Caelestine saith concerning St. Austin that he lived and dyed in the Communion of the Roman Church If you say the reason why they were in Communion with the Roman Church was because they did not persist you must prove it by better instances then you have here brought for some of them are sufficient proofs of the contrary As appears by the case of Lupicinus an African Bishop appealing to Leo who indeed was willing enough to receive him but what of that Did not the African Bishops of Mauritania Caesariensis excommunicate him notwithstanding that appeal and ordained another in his place and therefore the Pope very fairly sends him back to be tryed by the Bishops of his Province Which instance as it argues the Popes willingness to have brought up Appeals among them so it shews the continuance of their stoutness in opposing them And even Pope Gregory so long after though in his time the business of Appeals was much promoted at Rome yet he dares not challenge them from the Bishops of Africa but yields to them the enjoyment of those priviledges which they said they had enjoyed from the Apostles times And the testimonies of Eugenius and Fulgentius imply nothing of subjection to Rome but a Praeeminence which that Church had above all others which it might have without the other as London may I hope be the Head-City of England and yet all other Cities not express subjection to it But if after that Council of Carthage the Bishops of Rome did by degrees encroach upon the liberties of the African Churches there is this sufficient account to be given of it that as the Roman Bishops were alwayes watchful to take advantages to inhance their power and that especially when other Churches were in a suffering condition so a fit opportunity fell out for them to do it in Africa For not long after that Council of Carthage fell out that dismal persecution of the African Churches by the irruption of the Vandals in which all the Catholick Bishops were banished out of Africa or lived under great sufferings and by a strict edict of Gensericus no new Bishops were suffered to be ordained in the places of the former This now was a fair opportunity for the Bishop of Rome to advance his Authority among the suffering Bishops St. Peters pretended Successour loving to fish in troubled waters and it being fatal to Rome from the first Foundation of it to advance her self by the ruins of other places But we are call'd off from the ruins of other Churches to observe the methods whereby the Popes grew great under the Emperours which his Lordship gives an account of from Constantines time to Charles the Great about five hundred years which begins thus So soon as the Emperours became Christian the Church began to be put in better order For the calling and Authority of Bishops over the Inferiour Clergy that was a thing of known use and benefit for preservation of Vnity and Peace in the Church Which was confessed by St. Hierom himself and so settled in mens minds from the very Infancy of the Church that it had not been to that time contradicted by any The only difficulty then
from him and the other Patriarchs on this occasion As for your instance of the Popes restoring Athanasius I have sufficiently answered it already and if the Popes letter were never so Mandatory as it was not yet we see it took no effect among the Eastern Bishops and therefore they were of his Lordships mind That the Government of the Church was not Monarchical but Aristocratical I did expect here to have met with the pretended Epistle of Atticus of Constantinople about the manner of making formed letters wherein one Î is said to be for the honour of St. Peter but since you pass it over on this occasion I hope you are convinced of the Forgery of it In the beginning of your next Chapter which because of the coherence of the matter I handle with this you find great fault with his Lordship for a Marginal citation out of Gerson because he supposeth that Gersons judgement was that the Church might continue without a Monarchical head because he writ a Tract de Auferibilitate Papae whereas you say Gersons drift is only to shew how many several waies the Pope may be taken away that is deprived of his office and cease to be Pope as to his own person so that the Church pro tempore till another be chosen shall be without her visible Head But although the truth of what his Lordship proves doth not at all depend upon this Testimony of Gerson which was only a Marginal citation yet since you so boldly accuse him for a false allegation we must further examine how pertinent this Testimony is to that which his Lordship brought it for The sentence to which this Citation of Gerson refers is this For they are no mean ones who think our Saviour Christ left the Church-militant in the hands of the Apostles and their Successours in an Aristocratical or rather a mixt Government and that the Church is not Monarchical otherwise than the Triumphant and Militant make one body under Christ the Head Over against these words that Tract of Gerson de Auferibilitate Papae is cited If therefore so much be contained in that Book as makes good this which his Lordship sayes he is not so much guilty of false alledging Gerson as you are of falsly accusing him To make this clear we must consider what Gersons design was in writing that Book and what his opinion therein is concerning the Churches Government It is well known that his Book was written upon the occasion of the Council of Constance in the time of the great Schism between the three Popes and that the design of it is to make it appear that it was in the power of the Council to depose the Popes and suspend them from all Jurisdiction in the Church Therefore he saith That the Pope may not only lose his office by voluntary cession but that in many cases he may be deprived by the Church or by a General Council representing the Church whether he consent to it or no Nay in the next consideration he saith That he may be deprived by a General Council which is celebrated without his consent or against his will And in the following consideration adds That this may be done not only declaratively but juridically the Question now comes to this Whether a person who asserts these things doth believe the Government of the Militant Church to be Monarchical and not rather Aristocratical and mixt Government And I dare appeal to any mans reason whether that may be accounted a Monarchical Government where he that is Supream may be deposed and deprived of his office in a Juridical manner by a Senate that hath Authority to do these things For it is apparent the Supream power lyes in the Senate and not the Prince and that the Prince is only a Ministerial Head under them And this is plainly Gersons opinion as to the Church although therefore he may allow the supream Ministerial Authority to be in the Pope which is all your Citations prove yet the radical and intrinsecal power lyes in the Church which being represented in a General Council may depose the Pope from his Authority in the Church And the truth is this opinion of Gerson makes the Fundamental power of the Church to be Democratical and that the Supream exercise is by Representatives in a General Council and that the Pope at the highest is but a Ministerial and accountable Head And therefore Spalatensis truly observes That this opinion of Gerson which is the same with that of the Paris Divines of which he speaks doth only in words attribute supream Ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the Pope but in reality it takes it quite away from him And this is the same Doctrine which then prevailed in the Council of Constance and afterwards at Basil as may be seen at large in their Synodical Epistle defended by Richerius Vigorius and others Now let any man of reason judge whether notwithstanding your charge of false citation from some expressions intimating only a Ministerial Headship his Lordship did not very pertinently cite this Tract of Gersons to prove that no mean persons did think the Church Militant not to be Governed by a Monarchical but by an Aristocratical or mixt Government But no sooner is this marginal citation cleared but the charge is renewed about another viz. St. Hierom yet here you dare not charge his Lordship with a false allegation but you are put to your shifts to get off this Testimony as well as you can For St. Hierom saying expresly in his Epistle to Evagrius Vbicunque fuerit Episcopus sive Romae sive Eugubii sive Constantinopoli sive Rhegii c. ejusdem meriti est ejusdem est sacerdotii his Lordship might well inferr That doubtless he thought not of the Roman Bishops Monarchy For what Bishop saith he is of the same merit or the same degree in the Priesthood with the Pope as things are now carried at Rome To this you Answer That he speaks not of the Pope as he is Pope or in respect of that eminent Authority which belongs to him as St. Peters Successour but only compares him with another private Bishop in respect of meer character or power of a Bishop as Bishop only But though this be all which any of your party ever since the Reformation have been able to Answer to this place yet nothing looks more like a meer shift than this doth For had St. Hierom only compared these Bishops together in regard of their order was not Sacerdotium enough to express that by if St. Hierom had said only that all Bishops are ejusdem sacerdotii there might have been some plausible pretence for this distinction but when he adds ejusdem meriti too he wholly precludes the possibility of your evading that way For What doth merit here stand for as distinct from Priesthood if it imports not something besides what belongs to Bishops as Bishops What can merit here signifie but some greater Power
Authority and Jurisdiction given by Christ to one Bishop above another St. Hierom was not so sensless as not to see that the Bishops of Rome Constantinople and Alexandria had greater Authority and larger Jurisdiction in the Church then the petty Bishops of Eugubium Rhegium and Tanis but all this he knew well enough came by the custom of the Church that one Bishop should have larger power in the Church then another But saith he if you come to urge us with what ought to be practised in the Church then saith he Orbis major est urbe it is no one City as that of Rome which he particularly instanceth in which can prescribe to the whole world For saith he all Bishops are of equal merit and the same Priesthood wheresoever they are whether at Rome or elsewhere So that it is plain to all but such as wilfully blind themselves that St. Hierom speaks not of that which you call the Character of Bishops but of the Authority of them for that very word he useth immediately before Si authoritas quaeritur orbis major est urbe And where do you ever find merit applyed to the Bishops Character They who say It is understood of the merit of good life make St. Hierom speak non-sense For are all Bishops of the same merit of good life But we need not go out of Rome for the proper importance of merit here For in the third Roman Synod under Symmachus that very word is used concerning Authority and Principality in the Church ejus sedi primum Petri Apostoli meritum sive principatus deinde Conciliorum venerandorum authoritas c. where Binius confesseth an account is given of the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome the first ground of which St. Peters merit or principality apply now but this sense to S. Hierom and he may be very easily understood All Bishops are ejusdem meriti sive principatus of the same merit Dignity or Authority in the Church But you say he speaks not of the Pope as he is Pope good reason for it for St. Hierom knew no such Supremacy in the Pope as he now challengeth And can you think if St. Hierom had believed such an authority in the Pope as you do he would ever have used such words as these are to compare him with the poor Bishop of Agobio in Merit and Priesthood I cannot perswade my self you can think so only something must be said for the cause you have undertaken to defend And since Bellarmine and such great men had gone before you you could not believe there were any absurdity in saying as they did Still you say He doth not speak of that Authority which belongs to the Bishop of Rome as S. Peter 's Successor But if you would but read a little further you might see that S. Hierom speaks of all Bishops whether at Rome or Eugubium c. as equally the Apostles Successors For it is neither saith he riches or poverty which makes Bishops higher or lower Caeterùm omnes Apostolorum successores sunt but they are all the Apostles Successors therefore he speaks of them with relation to that Authority which they derived from the Apostles And never had there been greater necessity for him to speak of the Popes succeeding S. Peter in the Supremacy over the Church than here if he had known any such thing but he must be excused he was ignorant of it No that he could not be say you again for he speaks of it elsewhere and therefore he must be so understood there as that he neither contradict nor condemn himself But if the Epistle to Damasus be all your evidence for it a sufficient account hath been given of that already therefore you add more and bid us go find them out to see Whether they make for the purpose or no. I am sure your first doth not out of his Commentary on the 13. Psalm because it only speaks of S. Peters being Head of the Church and not of the the Popes and that may import only dignity and preheminence without authority and jurisdiction besides that Commentary on the Psalms is rejected as spurious by Erasmus Sixtus Senensis and many others among your selves Your second ad Demetriadem Virginem is much less to your purpose for that only speaks of Innocentius coming after Anastasius at Rome qui Apostolicae Cathedrae supradicti viri successor filius est Who succeeded him in the Apostolical Chair But Do you not know that there were many Apostolical Chairs besides that of Rome and had every one of them supreme authority over the Church of God What that should be on the 16. of S. Matthew I cannot imagine unless it be that S. Peter is called Princeps Apostolorum which honour we deny him not or that he saith Aedificabo Ecâ—lesiam meam super te But how these things concern the Popes Authority unless you had further enlightened us I cannot understand That ep 54. ad Marcellam is of the same nature with the last for the words which I suppose you mean are Petrus super quem Dominus fundaâ—it Ecclesiam and if you see what Erasmus saith upon that place you will have little cause to boast much of it Your last place is l. 1. Cont. Lucifer which I suppose to be that commonly cited thence Ecclesiae salus in summi Sacerdotis dignitate pendet but there even Marianus Victorius will tell you it is understood of every ordinary Bishop Thus I have taken the pains to search those places you nakedly refer us to in S. Hierom and find him far enough from the least danger of contradicting or condemning himself as to any thing which is here spoken by him So that we see S. Hierom remains a sufficient testimony against the Popes Monarchical Government of the Church His Lordship further argues against this Monarchy in the Church from the great and undoubted Rule given by Optatus that wheresoever there is a Church there the Church is in the Common-wealth and not the Common-wealth in the Church And so also the Church was in the Roman Empire Now from this ground saith his Lordship I argue thus If the Church be within the Empire or other Kingdom 't is impossible the Government of the Church should be Monarchical For no Emperour or King will endure another King within his Dominion that shall be greater than himself since the very enduring it makes him that endures it upon the matter no Monarch Your answer to this is That these two Kingdoms are of different natures the one spiritual the other temporal the one exercised only in such things as concern the worship of God and the Eternal Salvation of souls the other in affairs that concern this world only Surely you would perswade us we had never heard of much less read Bellarmin's first Book de Pontifice about the Popes Temporal Power which was fain to get license for the other four to pass at Rome and although he minces
Roman Church And from what hath been hitherto said I am so far from suspecting his Lordships candor as you do that I much rather suspect your judgement and that you are not much used to attend to the Consequences of things or else you would not have deserted Bellarmin in defence of so necessary and pertinent a point as the Infallibility of the particular Church of Rome Secondly You answer to his Lordships Discourse concerning Bellarmin's Authorities That you cannot hold your self obliged to take notice of his pretended Solutions till you find them brought to evacuate the Infallibility of the Catholick or the Roman Church in its full latitude as Catholicks ever mean it save when they say the particular Church of Rome But taking it in as full a Latitude as you please I doubt not but to make it appear that the Roman Church is the Roman Church still that is a particular Church as distinct from the Communion of others and therefore neither Catholick nor Infallible which I must refer to the place where you insist upon it which I shall do without the imitation of your Vanity in telling your Reader as far as eighthly and lastly what fine exploits you intend to do there But usually those who brag most of their Valour before-hand shew least in the Combat and thus it will be found with you I shall let you therefore enjoy your self in the pleasant thoughts of your noble intendments till we come to the tryal of them and so come to the present Controversie concerning the Greek Church The Defence of the Greek Church It is none of the least of those Arts which you make use of for the perplexing the Christian Faith to put men upon enquiring after an Infallible Church when yet you have no way to discern which is so much as a true Church but by examining the doctrine of it So that of necessity the rule of Faith and Doctrine must be certainly known before ever any one can with safety depend upon the judgement of any Church For having already proved that there can be no other meaning of the Question concerning the Church as here stated but with relation to some particular Church to whose Communion the party enquiring might joyn and whose judgement might be relyed on we see it presently follows in the debate Which was that Church and it seems as is said already a Friend of the Ladies undertook to defend that the Greek Church was right To which Mr. Fisher answers That the Greek Church had plainly changed and taught false in a point of Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost and after repeats it that it had erred Before I come to examine how you make good the charge you draw up against the poor Greek Church in making it erre fundamentally it is worth our while to consider upon what account this dispute comes in The Inquiry was concerning the True Church on whose judgement one might safely depend in Religion It seems two were propounded to consideration the Greek and the Roman the Greek was rejected because it had erred From whence it follows that the dispute concerning the Truth of Doctrine must necessarily precede that of the Church For by Mr. Fishers confession and your own A Church which hath erred cannot be relyed on therefore men must be satisfied whether a Church hath erred or no before they can judge whether she may be relyed on or no. Which being granted all the whole Fabrick of your Book falls to the ground for then 1. Men must be Infallibly certain of the grounds of Faith antecedently to the testimony of the Church for if they be to judge of a Church by the Doctrine they must in order to such a judgement be certain what that Doctrine is which they must judge of the Church by 2. No Church can be known to be Infallible unless it appear to be so by that Doctrine which they are to examine the truth of the Church by and therefore no Church can be known to be Infallible by the motives of credibility 3. No Church ought to be relyed on as Infallible which may be found guilty of any errour by comparing it with the Doctrine which we are to try it by Therefore you must first prove your Church not to have erred in any particular for if she hath it is impossible she should be Infallible and not think to prove that she hath not erred because she cannot that being the thing in question and must by your dealing with the Greek Church be judged by particulars 4. There must be a certain rule of Faith supposed to have sufficient Authority to decide Controversies without any dependence upon the Church For the matter to be judged is the Church and if the Scripture may and must decide that Why may it not as well all the rest 5. Every mans reason proceeding according to this rule of Faith must be left his Judge in matters of Religion And whatever inconveniencies you can imagine to attend upon this they immediately and necessarily follow from your proceeding with the Greek Church by excluding her because she hath erred which while we are in pursuit of a Church can be determined by nothing but every ones particular reason 6. Then Fundamentals do not depend upon the Churches declaration For you assert the Greek Church to erre fundamentally and that this may be made appear to one who is seeking after a Church Suppose then I inquire as the Lady did after a Church whose judgement I must absolutely depend on and some mention the Greek and others the Roman Church You tell me It cannot be the Greek for that hath erred fundamentally I inquire how you know supposing her to erre that it is a fundamental errour will you answer me because the true Church hath declared it to be a fundamental errour but that was it I was seeking for Which that Church is which may declare what errours are fundamental and what not If you tell me It is yours I may soon tell you You seem to have a greater kindness for your Church then your self and venture to speak any thing for the sake of it Thus we see how finely you have betrayed your whole Cause in your first onset by so rude an attempt upon the Greek Church And truly it was much your concernment to load her as much as you can For though she now wants one of the great marks of your Church which yet you know not how long your Church may enjoy viz. outward splendor and bravery yet you cannot deny but that Church was planted by the Apostles enjoyed a continual Succession from them flourished with a number of the Fathers exceeding that of yours had more of the Councils of greatest credit in it and which is a commendation still to it it retains more purity under its persecutions then your Church with all its external splendour But she hath erred concerning the Holy Ghost and therefore hath lost it A severe censure which his
places did live in the exercise of their Religion without them But what is there in all this to inferr that not the Scriptures but the Infallibility of the Church is the foundation of Faith Doth St. Augustine suppose that men may have Faith Hope and Charity without believing or that men may believe without the Scriptures when in the precedent Chapter he hath this remarkable expression concerning Faith That it will soon stumble if the Authority of the sacred Scriptures be weakned and doth not this imply that Faith stands on the Authority of the Scriptures as its proper foundation But this were pardonable if the very design of all that Treatise did not so evidently refute all your pretensions as nothing can do it more effectually For can you possibly perswade any reasonable man to think that St. Augustine dreamt of any such thing as the Infallible Testimony of the present Church to be the ground of Faith who when he purposely discourseth concerning the Christian Doctrine the principles of it and the best means to understand it never so much as mentions any such thing but on the contrary directs to no other but those you call Moral and Fallible means For understanding the principles of Christian Doctrine he shews us the several natures of things some to be enjoyed some to be used and others both that the main thing we are to enjoy is God and therefore begins with him as our last end in whom our happiness lies and then shews the means to come to this enjoyment of God by explaining the principles of Faith and the efficacy of it In his second Book he shews how we may come to the sense of Scripture and first discovers the nature of signs which represent things and of letters which are signs of words and since there are diversities of tongues how necessary the translation of Scripture is into them a good citation for you to justifie your Bibles and Prayers in an unknown language with and then shews what great reason there was why there should be some doubtful and obscure places left in Scripture to conquer our pride by industry and to keep the understanding from nauseating which commonly slights things that are easily understood Then shews what preparation and disposition of soul is requisite for Divine wisdome and so comes to the understanding the Scriptures for which first is requisite a serious and diligent reading of them in order to which he must carefully distinguish such as are Canonical from such as are not and for judging of these he never so much as mentions much less sends us to the Infallible Testimony of the Roman Church but bids us follow the Authority of the most Catholick Churches among which those are which are worthy to be call'd Apostolical See's and had Epistles sent to them What Authority then had the Church of Rome to judge of Canonical Scriptures more then Ephesus Philippi Thessalonica c. To be sure then St. Augustin was not of our Discourser's mind as to the judgement of Canonical Books and why should he send men to those Churches which received the Epistles but that there they were like to meet with greater satisfaction as to the authenticalness of the Copies of those Epistles After this he gives directions for understanding hard places First by diligent reading and remembring the plainest places for in them saith he are found all those things which contain matters of Faith and Practice An excellent citation for you for several purposes especially when you would prove the obscurity of Scripture the necessity of an Infallible Judge or your Doctrine of Fundamentals out of St. Augustin And then bids them compare obscure and easie places together to understand the proprieties of words to get knowledge in the Tongues to compare Versions Antecedents and Consequents to be skil'd in all humane Arts and Sciences these and several other instructions to the same purpose are the scope of his following Books Would any one now but T. C. have ventured so unluckily upon this Treatise of St. Augustin above all others to prove the Infallibility of the Churches Testimony as necessary to Faith by Could any Protestant have delivered his mind more punctually and plainly than he doth And can you or any one else that doth but look into that Book imagine that St. Augustin ever imagined that any such thing should ever be thought of in the world as that the Testimony of the Church of Rome must be owned as the Infallible foundation of Faith and the Infallible Interpreter of Scripture But this it is to converse with the Fathers only by retail as they are delivered out in parcels to you with directions upon them what use they are for by Bellarmin and such Artists as himself This is instead of quoting the Fathers to challenge them and you see they are not afraid to appear though to your shame and confusion But for all this you have a Reserve in St. Augustin still let us see what quotation that is which lies so in Ambuscado behind the hedges and is so loath to come out There is good reason for so much reservedness for when we come to search we find only bushes instead of Souldiers I have throughly examined the place you referr us to and cannot meet any thing the least pertinent to your purpose unless the question of the Lawfulness of Hereticks Baptism prove your Churches Testimony to be Infallible But it may be it is but a venial mistake of a Chapter or two forward or backward and there we may find it Which when I look into I cannot but suspect that some Protestant had trepanned you into this Book and place of St. Augustine there being scarce any Book or place in him more begirt with Arguments against you than this is I was at first fearful you had quoted Fathers at a peradventure but upon my further considering the place I soon rectified that mistake I will therefore reckon you up some of the most probable Citations out of St. Augustins Books of Baptism against the Donatists and choose which of them you please to prove the necessity of an Infallible Testimony of the present Church as a foundation of Faith by I suppose that you intended is in the Chapter but one following where St. Augustine Cites that passage of Cyprian That we ought to recurre to the fountain i. e. to Apostolical Tradition and thence derive the channel into our own times this saith St. Augustin is the best and without doubt to be done No doubt you think you owe me great thanks for finding out so apposite a place for you so near that you intended but before we have done with it you will see what little reason you have to thank me for it The place you see is cited by St. Augustin out of Cyprian in whose Epistle it is to Pompeius against Stephanus Bishop of Rome we therefore consider that it was Stephen who pleaded custom and tradition to
Doctrine the Pope could not be Infallible there for you restrain his Infallibility to a General Council and do not assert that it belongs to the particular Church of Rome As well then may any other Provincial Synod determine matters of Faith as that of Rome since that hath no more Infallibility belonging to it as such then any other particular Church hath and the Pope himself you say may erre when he doth not define matters of Faith in a General Council To his Lordships second instance of the Council of Gangra about the same time condemning Eustathius for his condemning marriage as unlawful you answer to the same purpose That Osius was there Pope Sylvester's Legat but what then if the Pope had been there himself he had not been Infallible much less certainly his Legat who could have only a Second-hand Infallibility To the third of the Council of Carthage condemning rebaptization about 348. you grant That it was assembled by Gratus Bishop of Carthage but that no new Article was defined in it but only the perpetual tradition of the Church was confirmed therein Neither do we plead for any power in Provincial Councils to define any new Articles of Faith but only to revive the old and to confirm them in opposition to any Innovations in point of Doctrine and as to this we profess to be guided by the sense of Scripture as interpreted by the unanimous consent of the Fathers and the four first General Councils To the fourth of the Council of Aquileia A. D. 381. condemning Palladius and Secundinus for embracing the Arrian Heresie St. Ambrose being present you answer That they only condemned those who had been condemned already by the Nicene Council and St. Ambrose and other Bishops of Italy being present Who can doubt but every thing was done there by the Popes authority and consent But if they only enforced the decrees of the Council of Nice What need of the Pope's authority to do that And do you think that there were no Provincial Councils in that part of Italy which was particularly distinguished from the suburbicarian Churches under the Bishop of Rome wherein the Pope was not present either by himself or Legats If you think so your thoughts have more of your will then understanding in them But if this Council proceeded according to that of Nice Will it not be as lawful for other Provincial Councils to reform particular Churches as long as they keep to the Decrees not barely of Nice but of the four General Councils which the Church of England looks on as her duty to do In the two following Instances of the second Council of Carthage declaring in behalf of the Trinity and the Milevitan Council about the Pelagian Heresie you say The Bishops of Rome were consulted But what then Were they consulted as the Heads of the Church or only as eminent members of it in regard of their Faith and Piety Prove the former when you are able and as to the latter it depends upon the continuance of that Faith and Piety in them and when once the reason is taken away there can be no necessity of continuing the same resort The same answer will serve for what you say concerning the second Council of Aurange determining the Controversies about Grace and Free-will supposing we grant it assembled by the means of Felix 4. Bishop of Rome as likewise to the third of Toledo We come therefore to that which you call his Lordships reserve and Master-allegation the fourth Council of Toledo which saith he did not only handle matters of Faith for the reformation of that people but even added also something to the Creed which were not expresly delivered in former Creeds Nay the Bishops did not only practise this to condemn Heresies in National and Provincial Synods and so to reform those several places and the Church it self by parts but they did openly challenge this as their right and due and that without any leave asked of the See of Rome For in this fourth Council of Toledo they decree that If there happen a cause of Faith to be setled a general that is a National Synod of all Spain and Gallicia shall be held thereon And this in the year 643. where you see it was then Catholick Doctrine in all Spain that a National Synod might be a competent Judge in a cause of Faith But here still we meet with the same Answer That all this might be done with a due subordination to the See Apostolick but that it doth not hence follow that any thing may be done in Provincial Councils against the authority of it Neither do we plead that any thing may be done against the just authority of the Bishop of Rome or any other Bishop but then you must prove that he had a just authority over the Church of England and that he exercised no power here at the Reformation but what did of right belong to him But the fuller debate of these things must be left to that place where you designedly assert and vindicate the Pope's Authority These things being thus in the general cleared we come to the particular application of them to the case of the Church of England As to which his Lordship say's And if this were practised so often and in so many places Why may not a National Council of the Church of England do the like As she did For she cast off the Pope's usurpation and as much as in her lay restored the King to his right That appears by a Book subscribed by the Bishops in Henry the eighths time And by the Records in the Archbishops office orderly kept and to be seen In the Reformation which came after our Princes had their parts and the Clergy theirs And to these two principally the power and direction for Reformation belongs That our Princes had their parts is manifest by their calling together of the Bishops and others of the Clergy to consider of that which might seem worthy Reformation And the Clergy did their part for being thus call'd together by Regal power they met in the National Synod of sixty two And the Articles there agreed on were afterwards confirmed by acts of State and the Royal assent In this Synod the Positive truths which are delivered are more then the Polemicks So that a meer calumny it is that we profess only a Negative Religion True it is and we must thank Rome for it our Confession must needs contain some Negatives For we cannot but deny that Images are to be adored Nor can we admit maimed Sacraments Nor grant Prayers in an unknown tongue And in a corrupt time or place 't is as necessary in Religion to deny falshood as to assert and vindicate Truth Indeed this latter can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by the former an Affirmative verity being ever included in the Negative to a falshood As for any errour which might fall into this as any other Reformation if
or fifteen Bishops then living in England For the Sees of Salisbury and Oxford fell vacant A. 1557. and were not supplied in the time of Queen Mary Hereford Bristow Bangor were vacant by the death of the several Bishops some weeks before Queen Mary Canterbury by the death of Cardinal Pool the same day with the Queen Norwich and Gloucester a few weeks after her and so likewise Rochester Worcester and S. Asaph became vacant by the voluntary exile of Pates and Goldwell the Bishops thereof so that but fifteen Bishops were then living and remaining in England And Were all those who supplied these vacant Sees Intruders A strange kind of Intrusion into dead mens places So then this circumstance is notoriously false That they All by force intruded themselves into the Sees of other lawful Bishops But let us see Whether the other are more justly charged with a forcible Intrusion into the Sees of the other Bishops For which we must consider what the proceedings were in reference to them It appears then that in the first year of the Queen the Oath of Supremacy formed and enjoyned in the time of Henry 8. was in the first Parliament of Queen Elizabeth revived for the better securing the Queen of the Fidelity of her subjects but yet it was so revived that several considerable passages in the Act concerning it were upon mature deliberation mitigated both as to the Queens title which was not Supreme Head but Supreme Governour a title which Queen Mary had used before as appears by an Act passed in the third Session of Parliament in her time and likewise as to the penalty for whereas the Stat. 28. Hen. 8. c. 10. was so very severe That whosoever did extol the authority of the Bishop of Rome was for the first offence within the compass of a Praemunire and for refusing to take the Oath was guilty of Treason it passed now in Elizabeth's time only with this penalty That such who refused it should be excluded such places of honour and profit as they held in the Church or Common-wealth and that such as should maintain or defend the authority preheminence power or jurisdiction Spiritual or Ecclesiastical of any forein Prince Prelate Person State or Potentate whatsoever should be three times convicted before he suffered the pains of death Upon the expiring of the Parliament Commissioners were appointed to require the Bishops to take the Oath of Supremacy according to the Law made to that purpose which being tendred to them they all Kitchin of Landaffe only excepted unanimously refused it although they had taken it before as Priests or Bishops in the Reign of Henry 8. or Edward 6. But whether by some secret intimations from Rome or their own obstinacy they were resolved rather to undergo the penalty of the Law than to take it now and accordingly before the end of that year they were deprived of their Bishopricks So that the Question about the Intrusion of those Bishops who came into their Sees depends upon the legality of the deprivation of these And certainly whosoever considers their former carriage towards the Queen in refusing to assist at her Coronation and some of them threatning to excommunicate her instead of disputing at Westminster as they had solemnly engaged to do joyned with this contumacy in refusing the Oath will find that these persons did not unjustly suffer this deprivation For which I need not run out into the Princes power over Ecclesiastical persons for you have given a sufficient reason for it your self in that acknowledgement of yours That the Bishops and the King too meaning King Henry left the Pope in possession of all he could rightly challenge If this be true that notwithstanding the Stat. 28. Hen. 8. notwithstanding the Oath of Supremacy then taken the Pope might injoy all that belonged to him of Divine Right he might then do the same notwithstanding this Oath in Elizabeth's time which was only reviving the former with some mitigation and what could it be then else but obstinacy and contumacy in them to refuse it And therefore the plea which you make for those whom you call the henry-Henry-Bishops will sufficiently condemn these present Bishops whom we now speak of For if those Bishops only renounced the Popes Canonical and acquired Jurisdiction here in England as you say i. e. that Authority and Jurisdiction in Ecclesiastical matters which the Pope exercised here by virtue of the Canons Prescription and other titles of humane right and gave it to the King yet they never renounced or deprived him of that part of his authority which is far more intrinsecal to his office and of Divine Right they never denied the Popes Soveraign Power to teach the Vniversal Church and determine all Controversies of Faith whatsoever in a General Council If these things I say be true which you confidently assert the more inexcusable were these Bishops for refusing that Oath of Supremacy which they had not only taken in Henry's time but which by your own confession takes away nothing of the Pope's Authority in relation to the whole Catholick Church And by this means their obstinacy appeared so great as might justly deserve a deprivation It being certainly in the Power of the King and Bishops to assert their own rights in opposition to any Canons or Prescriptions whatsoever of meerly humane right So that by your own confession the more excusable the Henry-Bishops were as you call them the less excusable the Mary-Bishops were as to follow you we must call them in refusing the Oath of Supremacy when tendred to them Was it lawful then in Henry's time to take this Oath or not If not then King Henry's Bishops are infinitely to blame for taking it and you for defending them If it was lawful then why not in Elizabeth's time Had she not as much reason to impose it as her Father Had she not as much power to do it When one of the chief refusers Heath Arch-Bishop of York and then L. Chancellour of England did upon the first notice of the death of Queen Mary declare to the House of Commons That the succession of the Crown did of right belong to the Princess Elizabeth whose title they conceived to be free from all legal Questions this could be then no plea at all for them So that if any persons through the greatest obstinacy might be deprived by a Prince of their Ecclesiastical preferments these might and when you can prove that in no case a Prince hath power to deprive Ecclesiastical persons you will say more to your purpose than yet you have done But till you have done that it remains clear that these Bishops were justly deprived and if so What was to be done with their vacant Sees Must they be kept vacant still or such be put into them who were guilty of the same fault with themselves in refusing the Oath when tendred to them If not such then it was necessary that other fit persons should be legally
by others by very many instances of the writers about that Age that Authoritas was no more then Rescriptum as particularly appears by many passages in Leo's Epistles in which sense no more is expressed by this than that by the Pope's Answer to the Council drawn out of the Authority of Scripture the Pelagians might more probably be suppressed But what is this to an Vniversal Pastorship given by Christ to him any otherwise then to those who sat in any other Apostolical Sees But your great quarrel is against his Lordship for making all the Patriarchs even and equal as to Principality of power and when he saith Equal as the Apostles were you say that is aequivocal for though the Apostles had equal jurisdiction over the whole Church yet St. Peter alone had jurisdiction over the Apostles but this is neither proved from John 21. nor is it at all clear in Antiquity as will appear when we come to that Subject But this assertion of the equality of Protestants is so destructive to your pretensions in behalf of the Church of Rome that you set your self more particularly to disprove it which you offer to do by two things 1. By a Canon of the Nicene Council 2. By the practise of the ancient Church You begin with the first of them and tell us That 't is contrary to the Council of Nice In the third Canon whereof which concerns the jurisdiction of Patriarchs the Authority or Principality if you will of the Bishop of Rome is made the Pattern and Model of that Authority and Jurisdiction which Patriarchs were to exercise over the Provincial Bishops The words of the Canon are these Sicque praeest Patriarcha iis omnibus qui sub ejus potestate sunt sicut ille qui tenet sedem Romae caput est princeps omnium Patriarcharum The Patriarch say they is in the same manner over all those that are under his Authority as he who holds the See of Rome is head and Prince of the Patriarchs And in the same Canon the Pope is afterwards styled Petro similis Authoritate par resembling St. Peter and his equal in Authority These are big words indeed and to your purpose if ever any such thing had been decreed by the Council of Nice but I shall evidently prove that this Canon is supposititious and a notorious piece of Forgery Which forgery is much increased by you when you tell us these words are contained in the third Canon of the Council of Nice Which in the Greek Editions of the Canons by du Tillet and the Codex Canonum by Justellus and all other extant in the Latin versions of Dionysius Exiguus and Isidore Mercator is wholly against the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. such kind of women which Clergy men took into their houses neither as wives or Concubines but under a pretext of piety In the Arabick Edition of the Nicene Canons set out by Alphonsus Pisanus the third Canon is against the ordination either of Neophyti or criminal persons and so likewise in that of Turrianus So that in no Edition whether Arabick or other is this the third Canon of the Council of Nice and therefore you were guilty either of great ignorance and negligence in saying so or of notorious fraud and imposture if you knew it to be otherwise and yet said it that the unwary reader might believe this Canon to be within the 20. which are the only genuine Canons of the Council of Nice Indeed such a Canon there is in these Arabick Editions but it is so far from being the third that in the Editions both of Pisanus and Turrianus it is the thirty ninth and in it I grant those words are but yet you will have little reason to rejoyce in them when I have proved as I doubt not to do that this whole farrago of Arabick Canons is a meer forgery and that I shall prove both from the true number of the Nicene Canons and the incongruity of many things in the Arabick Canons with the State and Polity of the Church at that time In those Editions set out by Pisanus and Turrianus from the Copy which they say was brought by Baptista Romanus from the Patriarch of Alexandria there are no fewer then eighty Canons whereas the Nicene Council never passed above 20. Which if it appear true that will sufficiently discover the Forgery and Supposititiousness of these Arabick Canons Now that there were no more then twenty genuine Canons of the Council of Nice I thus prove First from Theodoret who after he had given an account of the proceedings in the Council against the Arrians he saith That the Fathers met in Council again and passed twenty Canons relating to the Churches Polity and Gelasius Gricenus whom Alphonsus Pisanus set forth with his Latin version recounts no more then twenty Canons the same number is asserted by Nicephorus Callistus and we need not trouble our selves with reciting the testimonies of more Greek Authors since Binius himself confesseth that all the Greeks say there were no more then twenty Canons then determined But although certainly the Greeks were the most competent Judges in this case yet the Latins themselves did not allow of more For although Ruffinus makes twenty two yet that is not by the addition of any more Canons but by splitting two into four And if we believe Pope Stephen in Gratian the Roman Church did allow of no more then twenty And in that Epitome of the Canons which Pope Hadrian sent to Charles the Great for the Government of the Western Churches A.D. 773. the same number of the Nicene Canons appears still And in a M S. of Hincmarus Rhemensis against Hincmarus Laudunensis this is not only asserted but at large contended for that there were no more Canons determined at Nice then those twenty which we now have from the testimonies of the Tripartite history Ruffinus the Carthaginian Council the Epistles of Cyril of Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople and the twelfth action of the Council of Chalcedon So that if both Greeks and Latins say true there could be no more then twenty genuine Canons of the Council of Nice which may be yet further proved by two things viz. the proceedings of the African Fathers in the case of Zosimus about the Nicene Canons and the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Vniversae both which yield an abundant testimony to our purpose If ever there was a just occasion given for an early and exact search into the authentick Canons of the Council of Nice it was certainly in that grand Debate between the African Fathers and the Roman Bishops in the case of Appeals For Zosimus challenging not only a right of Appeals to himself but a power of dispatching Legats unto the African Churches to hear causes there and all this by vertue of a Canon in the Nicene Council and this being delivered to them in Council by Faustinus Philippus and Asellus whom
you say The Pope's Confirmation was required to all new elected Patriarchs To that I shall return the full and satisfactory Answer of the late renowned Arch-Bishop of Paris Petrus de Marcâ where he propounds this as an Objection out of Baronius and thus solves it That the confirmation of Patriarchs by the Bishop of Rome was no token of Jurisdiction but only of receiving into Communion and a testimony of his consent to the consecration already performed And this was no more than was done by other Bishops in reference to the Bishop of Rome himself for S. Cyprian writing to Antonianus about the election of Cornelius saith That he was not only chosen by the suffrage of the people and testimony of the Clergy but that his election was confirmed by all their consent May not you then as well say That the Bishop of Carthage had power over the Bishop of Rome because his ordination was confirmed by him and other African Bishops But any one who had understood better than you seem to do the proceedings of the Church in those ages would never have made this an argument of the Pope's Authority over other Patriarchs since as the same Petrus de Marcâ observes It was the custom in those times that not only the Patriarchs but the Roman Bishop himself upon their election were wont to send abroad Letters testifying their ordination to which was added a profession of Faith contained in their Synodical Epistles Upon the receipt of which Communicatory Letters were sent to the person newly ordained to testifie their Communion with him in case there were no just impediment produced So that this was only a matter of Fraternal Communion and importing nothing at all of Jurisdiction but the Bishops of Rome who were ready to make use of all occasions to advance their own Grandeur did in time make use of this for quite other ends than it was primarily intended for in case of any suspicions and jealousies of any thing that might tend to the dis-service of their See they would then deny their Communicatory Letters as Simplicius did in the case of the Patriarch of Alexandria And in that Confirmation of Anatolius by Leo 1. which Baronius so much insists on Leo himself gives a sufficient account of it viz. to manifest that there was but one entire Communion among them throughout the world So that if the Pope's own judgement may be taken this Confirmation of new elected Patriarchs imported nothing of Jurisdiction But in case the Popes did deny their Communicatory Letters that did not presently hinder them from the execution of their office as appears by the instance of Flavianus the Patriarch of Antioch for although three Roman Bishops successively opposed him Damasus Syricius and Anastasius and used great importunity with the Emperour that he might not continue in his place yet because the Churches of the Orient Asia Pontus and Thracia did approve of him and communicate with him he opposed their consent against the Bishops of Rome Upon which and the Emperour 's severe checking them for their pride and contention they at last promised the Emperour that they would lay aside their enmity and acknowledge him So that notwithstanding whatever the Roman Bishops could do against him he was acknowledged for a true Patriarch and at last their consent was given only by renewing Communion with him which certainly is far from being an instance of the Pope's power over the other Patriarchs Whereby we also see What little power he had in deposing them although you tell us That it belonged likewise to him to depose unworthy ones restore the unjustly deposed by others But that the power of deposing Bishops was anciently in Provincial Councils appears sufficiently by the fifth Canon of the Nicene Council and by the practice of the Church both before and after it and it is acknowledged by Petrus de Marcâ that the sole power of deposing Bishops was not in the hands of the Bishop of Rome till about eight hundred years since and refutes the Cardinal Perron for saying otherwise and afterwards largely proves that the Supreme authority of deposing Bishops was still in Provincial Councils and that the Pope had nothing to do in it till the decree of the Sardican Synod in the case of Athanasius which yet he saith did not as is commonly said decree Appeals to be made to Rome but only gave the Bishop of Rome power to Review their actions but still reserving to Provincial Councils that Authority which the Nicene Council had established them in All the power which he then had was only this that he might decree that the matters might be handled over again but not that he had the power himself of deposing or restoring Bishops Which is proved with that clearness and evidence by that excellent Author that I shall refer you to him for it and consider the instances produced by you to the contrary We read say you of no less than eight several Patriarchs of Constantinople deposed by the Bishop of Rome Surely if you had read this your self you would have quoted the place with more care and accuracy than you do for you give us only a blind citation of an Epistle of Pope Nicolaus to the Emperour Michael neither citing the words nor telling us which it is when there are several and those no very short ones neither But however it is well chosen to have a Pope's testimony in his own cause and that such a Pope who was then in contest with the Patriarch of Constantinople and that too so long after the encroachments of the Bishops of Rome it being in the ninth Century and yet for all this this Pope doth not say those words which you would fasten upon him that which he saith is That none of the Bishops of Constantinople or scarce any of them were ejected without the consent of the Bishop of Rome And then instanceth in Maximus Nestorius Accacius Anthimus Sergius Pyrrhus Paulus Petrus but his design in this is only to shew that Ignatius the Patriarch ought not to have been deposed without his consent But what is all this to the Pope's sole power of deposing when even at that time the Pope did not challenge it But supposing the Popes had done it before it doth not follow that it was in their power to do it and that the Canons had given them right to do it but least of all certainly that they had a Divine right for it which never was in the least acknowledged by the Church as to a deposition of Patriarchs which you contend for But besides this you say Sixtus the third deposed Polychronius Bishop of Hierusalem Whereas Sixtus only sent eight persons from a Synod at Rome to Hierusalem who when they came there did not offer to depose Polychronius by vertue of the Popes power but a Synod of seventy or more neighbour Bishops were call'd by whom he was deposed and yet after all
this Binius himself condemns those Acts which report this story for spurious there being a manifest repugnancy in the time of them and no such person as Polychronius ever mentioned by the Ecclesiastical Historians of that time and other fabulous Narrations inserted in them Yet these are your goodly proofs of the Popes power to depose Patriarchs But we must see whether you have any better success in proving his power to restore such as were deposed for which you only instance in Athanasius and Paulus restored by Julius whose case must be further examined which in short is this Athanasius being condemned by the Synods of Tyre and Antioch goes to Rome where he and Paulus are received into Communion by Julius who would not accept of the Decree of the Eastern Bishops which was sent after him to Rome For Pope Julius did not formally offer to restore Athanasius to his Church but only owned and received him into Communion as Bishop of Alexandria and that because he looked on the proceedings as unjust in his condemnation And all that Julius himself pleads for is not a power to depose or restore Patriarchs himself but only that such things ought not to have been done without communicating those proceedings to him which the Vnity of the Church might require And therefore Petrus de Marca saith that Baronius Bellarmin and Perron are all strangely out in this story when they would infer That the causes of the Eastern Bishops upon appeal were to be judged by the Bishop of Rome whereas all that Julius pleads for is that such things should not be done by the Eastern Bishops alone which concerned the deposition of so great a person in the Church as the Patriarch of Alexandria but that there ought to be a Council both of the Eastern and Western Bishops on which account afterwards the Sardican Synod was call'd But when we consider with what heat and stomack this was received by the Eastern Bishops how they absolutely deny that the Western Bishops had any more to do with their proceedings then they had with theirs when they say that the Pope by this usurpation was the cause of all the mischief that followed we see what an excellent instance you have made choice of to prove the Popes power of restoring Bishops by Divine right and that this was acknowledged by the whole Church The next thing to be considered is that speech of St. Augustine That in the Church of Rome there did alwayes flourish the Principality of an Apostolick chair As to which his Lordship saith That neither was the word Principatus so great nor the Bishops of those times so little as that Principes and Principatus are not commonly given them both by the Greek and Latin Fathers of this great and learnedst age of the Church made up of the fourth and fift hundred years alwayes understanding Principatus of their spiritual power and within the limits of their several jurisdictions which perhaps now and then they did occasionally exceed And there is not one word in St. Augustine that this Principality of the Apostolick chair in the Church of Rome was then or ought to be now exercised over the whole Church of Christ as Bellarmin insinuates there and as A. C. would have it here To all this you say nothing to purpose but only tell us That the Bishop by this makes way to some other pretty perversions as you call them of the same Father For we must know say you that he is entering upon that main Question concerning the Donatists of Africk and he is so indeed and that not only for clearing the meaning of St. Augustine in the present Epistle but of the whole Controversie to which a great light will be given by a true account of those proceedings Thus then his Lordship goes on And to prove that St. Augustine did not intend by Principatus here to give the Roman Bishop any power out of his own limits which God knows were far short of the whole Church I shall make it most manifest out of the same Epistle For afterwards saith St. Augustine when the pertinacy of the Donatists could not be restrained by the African Bishops only they gave them leave to be heard by forraign Bishops And after that he hath these words And yet peradventure Melciades the Bishop of the Roman Church with his Colleagues the transmarine Bishops non debuit ought not to usurp to himself this judgement which was determin'd by seventy African Bishops Tigisitanus sitting Primate And what will you say if he did not usurp this power for the Emperour being desired sent Bishops Judges which should sit with him and determine what was just upon the whole cause In which passage saith his Lordship there are very many things observable As first That the Roman Prelate came not in till there was leave for them to go to Transmarine Bishops Secondly That if the Pope had come in without this leave it had been an Vsurpation Thirdly That when he did thus come in not by his own Authority but by Leave there were other Bishops made Judges with him Fourthly That these other Bishops were appointed and sent by the Emperour and his power that which the Pope least of all will endure Lastly Lest the Pope and his Adherents should say this was an Vsurpation in the Emperour St. Austin tells us a little before in the same Epistle still that this doth chiefly belong ad curam ejus to the Emperours care and charge and that he is to give an account to God for it And Melciades did sit and judge the business with all Christian Prudence and Moderation So at this time the Roman Prelate was not received as Pastour of the whole Church say A. C. what he please nor had he Supremacy over the other Patriarchs In order to the better shaping your Answer to this Discourse you pretend to give us a true Narrative of the Donatists proceedings by the same figure that Lucians Book is inscribed De vera historia There are several things therefore to be taken notice of in your Narrative before we come to your particular Answers whose strength depends upon the matters of fact First You give no satisfactory account at all Why if the Popes Vniversal Pastourship had been then owned the first appeal on both sides was not made to the Bishop of Rome for in so great a Schism as that was between the different parties of Caecilian and Majorinus To whom should they have directly gone but to Melchiades then Bishop of Rome How comes it to pass that there is no mention at all of his judgement by either party till Constantine had appointed him to be one of the Judges St. Austin indeed pleads in behalf of Caecilian why he would not be judged by the African Synod of LXX Bishops that there were thousands of his Colleagues on the other side the Sea whom he might be tryed by But why not by the Bishop
declaimed against as monstrous and blasphemous if not Antichristian Where by the way either these two Popes Pelagius and S. Gregory erred in this weighty business about an Vniversal Bishop over the whole Church Or if they did not erre Boniface and the rest which after him took it upon them were in their very predecessors judgement Antichristian Before you come to a particular Answer you think it necessary to make a way for it by premising two things 1. That the Title of Vniversal Bishop was anciently attributed to the Bishops of Rome but they never made use of it 2. That the ancient Bishops of Constantinople never intended by this usurped Title to deny the Popes Vniversal Authority even over themselves These two things I shall therefore consider because they tend much to the clearing the main Controversie I begin therefore with the Title of Vniversal Bishop attributed to the Bishop of Rome and before I answer your particular allegations we must more fully consider in what sense that title of Vniversal Bishops was taken in Antiquity and in what manner it was attributed to him For when titles have different senses and those senses evidently made use of by the ancient Writers it is a most unreasonable thing meerly from the title to inferr one determinate sense which is the most contrary to the current of Antiquity The title then of Vniversal Bishop may be conceived to import one of these three things 1. A general care and solicitude over all the Churches of the Christian world 2. A peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Empire 3. Vniversal Jurisdiction over all Churches so that all exercise of it in the Church is derivative from him as Vniversal Pastor and Head of the Church This last is that which you attribute to the Pope and though you find the name of Vniversal Bishop a hundred times over in the records of the Church yet if it be taken in either of the two former senses it makes nothing at all to your purpose Our business is therefore now to shew that this title was used in the Church in the two former senses and that nothing from hence can be inferred for that Oecumenical Pastorship which you say doth of Divine Right belong to the Bishop of Rome I begin with the first as this Title may import a general care and solicitude over all the Christian Churches and I deny not but in this sense this title might be attributed in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome but then I assert that nothing peculiar to him can be inferred from hence because expressions importing the same care are attributed to other Bishops especially such who were placed in the greater Sees or were active in promoting the Churches interest For which we must consider that power and authority in the Bishops of the Church is given with an immediate respect to the good of the whole Church so that if it were possible that every particular Bishop could take care of the whole Church they have authority enough by their Function to do it But it not only being impossible that every Bishop should do it but it being inconsistent with peace and order that all should undertake it therefore it was necessary that there should be some restraints and bounds set for the more convenient management of that authority which they had From hence came the Original of particular Dioceses that within such a compass they might better exercise that power which they enjoyed As if many lights be placed in a great Room though the intention of every one of these is to give light to the whole Room yet that this might the better be done these lights are conveniently placed in the several parts of it And this is that which S. Cyprian means in that famous expression of his That there is but one Bishoprick in the whole world a part of which is held by every Bishop For the Church in common is designed as the Diocese of all Bishops which is set out into several appartiments for the more advantagious governing of it As a flock of many thousand sheep being committed to the care of many Shepherds these all have an eye to the good of the whole Flock but do not therefore sit altogether in one place to over-see it but every one hath his share to look after for the benefit of the Whole But yet so that upon occasion one of them may extend his care beyond his own division and may be very useful for the whole by counsel and direction Thus we shall find it was in the Primitive Church though every Bishop had his particular Charge yet still they regarded the common good of the whole Church and upon occasion did extend their counsel and advice far beyond their particular Churches and exercised their Functions in other places besides those which the Churches convenience had allotted to them Hence it was that dissentions arising between the Asian and Roman Churches Polycarp comes to Rome and there as Eusebius from Irenaeus tells us He exercised with Anicetus his consent his Episcopal Function For as Valesius observes it cannot be understood as Franciscus Florens would have it of his receiving the Eucharist from Anicetus but something of honour is implied in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas there was nothing but what was common in the other Hence the several Epistles of Ignatius Polycarp Irenaeus and others for the advising confirming and settling Churches Hence Irenaeus concerned himself so much in the business between Victor and the Asian Churches either to prevent or repeal his sentence of Excommunication against them Hence S. Cyprian writes into Spain about the deposing Basilides and Martialis two Apostatizing Bishops and checks Stephen Bishop of Rome for his inconsiderate restoring them Hence Faustus Bishop of Lyons writes to S. Cyprian in the case of Martianus of Arles and he writes to Stephen as being nearer and more concerned in the business of Novatianism for the honour of his predecessors in order to his Deposition yet so as he looks on it as a common cause belonging to them all cui rei nostrum est consulere subvenire frater charissime in which they were all bound to advise and help Hence S. Cyprian writes to the Bishop of Rome as his Brother and Colleague without the least intimation of deriving any Jurisdiction from him but often expressing that charge which was committed to every Bishop which he must look to as mindful of the account he must give to God Hence Nazianzen saith of S. Cyprian That he not only governed the Churches of Carthage and Africa but all the Western parts and even almost all the Eastern Southern and Northern too as far as his fame went Hence Arsenius writes to Athanasius We embrace Peace and Vnity with the Catholick Church over which thou through the Grace of God dost preside Hence Gregory Nazianzen saith of Athanasius That he made Laws for the whole earth Hence
and Gregory yield shrewd matter of suspicion what the main ground of their quarrel against the Patriarchs of Constantinople was For before the Emperours stood up for the honour of Constantinople as being the seat of their Empire and Rome began to sink the Empire decaying there but now there was a fit time to do something for the honour of the Roman See Cyriacus was in disgrace with the Tyrant Phocas and no such time as now to fall in with him and caresse him and we see Gregory did it prety well for a Saint but he lived not to enjoy the benefit of it but Boniface did however After the Patriarchate of Constantinople was erected the Popes had a double game to play to advance themselves and depress that which it was very hard for them to do because all the Eastern Bishops as well as the Emperour favoured it But after equal priviledges were decreed to the Patriarch of Constantinople with the Bishop of Rome by the Council of Constantinople they could no longer dissemble their choler but had no such occasion ministred to them to express it as after the Canon of the Council of Chalcedon wherein were present 630 Bishops which confirmed the former For then Leo fumes and frets and writes to Martianus and Pulcheria to Anatolius and the Bishops of the East but still pretends that he stood up for the priviledges of the other Patriarchs and the Nicene Canons and what not but one might easily discern what it was that pinched him viz. the equalling the Patriarch of Constantinople with himself Which it is apparent he suspected before by the instructions he gave his Legats Paschasinus and Lucentius to be sure to oppose whatever was proposed in the Council concerning the Primacy of that See And accordingly they did and complained that the Canon was surreptitiously made Which they were hugely overseen in doing while the Council sat for upon this the whole matter is reviewed the Judges scan the business the Bishops protest there were no practises used that they all voluntarily consented to it and all this in the presence of the Roman Legats How comes it then to pass that this should not be a regular and Conciliar action Were not the Bishops at age to understand their own priviledges Did not the Bishop of Antioch know his own interest as well as Pope Leo Must he be supposed more able to understand the Nicene Canons then these 630 Bishops Why then was not this Canon as regular as any other Why forsooth The Pope did not consent to it So true is that sharp censure of Ludovicus Vives that those are accounted lawful Canons and Councils which make for their interest but others are no more esteemed then a company of tattling Gossips But what made the Pope so angry at this Canon of the Council of Chalcedon He pretends the honour of the Nicene Canons the preserving the priviledges of other Patriarchs But Binius hath told us the true reason of it because they say that the Primacy of Rome came by its being the seat of the Empire and therefore not by Divine right and since Constantinople was become the seat of the Empire too therefore the Patriarch there should enjoy equal priviledges with the Bishop of Rome If Rome had continued still the sole seat of the Empire this reason would not have been quarrelled at but now Rome sinking and Constantinople rising this must not be endured but all the arts and devices possible must be used to keep it under And this is the true account of the pique which the Bishops of Rome had to the Patriarchs of Constantinople From whence we may easily guess how probable it is that this Council of Chalcedon did acknowledge the Pope Oecumenical Bishop in any other sense then they contended the Patriarch of Constantinople was so too And the same answer will serve for all your following Instances For as you pretend that the Council of Constantinople sub Menna did call Pope Agapetus Oecumenical Patriarch so it is most certain that it call'd Mennas the Patriarch of Constantinople so too And which is more Adrian 1. in his Epistle to Tharasius of Constantinople in the second Nicene Council calls him Vniversal Bishop If therefore the Greek Emperours and Balsamon call the Pope so they import nothing peculiar to him in it because it is most evident they call'd their own Patriarch so likewise So that you find little advantage to your cause from this first thing which you premise viz. that the Pope was anciently call'd Vniversal Bishop But you say further 2. That the Bishops of Constantinople never intended to deny by this usurped title the Popes Vniversal Authority even over themselves This is ambiguous unless it be further explained what you mean by Vniversal Authority for it may either note some kind of prae-eminence and dignity which the Bishop of Rome had as the chief Patriarch and who on that account had great Authority in the Church and this your instances prove that the Patriarchs of Constantinople did acknowledge to belong to the Pope but if by Vniversal Authority be meant Vniversal Jurisdiction over the Church as appointed the head of it by Christ then not one of your instances comes near the shadow of a proof for it Thus having considered what you premise we come to your Answer it self For which you tell us We are to take notice that the term Vniversal Bishop is capable of two senses the one Grammatical the other Metaphorical In the Grammatical sense it signifies Bishop of the Vniversal Church and of all Churches in particular even to the exclusion of all others from being properly Bishops and consequently displaceable at his pleasure as being only his not Christs officers and receiving authority from him and not from Christ. In the Metaphorical sense it signifies only so high and eminent a dignity above all other Bishops throughout the whole Church that though he who is stiled Vniversal Bishop hath a true and real Superintendency Jurisdiction and Authority over all other Bishops yet that they be as truly and properly Bishops in their respective Provinces and Dioceses as he himself This being clear'd say you 't is evident that St. Gregory when he inveighs against the title of Vniversal Bishop takes it in the literal and Grammatical sense which you very faintly endeavour to prove out of him as I shall make it presently appear This being then the substance of that Answer which you say hath been given a hundred times over must now once for all pass a strict and severe examination Which it shall receive in these two Enquiries 1. Whether it be possible to conceive that St. Gregory should take Vniversal Bishop in the literal and Grammatical sense 2. Whether all the Arguments which he useth against that title do not hold against that Vniversal Jurisdiction which you attribute to the Pope as Head of the Church 1. Whether it be possible to conceive that St. Gregory
should take Vniversal Bishop in the literal and Grammatical sense which you give of it And he which can think so must have some other way of understanding his meaning then by his words and arguments which I confess I do not pretend to But if we examine them we shall find how impossible it is that St. Gregory should ever think that John pretended to be the sole Bishop of this world 1. Because Gregory saith That same title which John had usurped was offered to the Roman Bishops by the Council of Chalcedon but none of them would ever use it because it seemed to diminish the honour of other Bishops Now I pray think with your self whether ever 630 Bishops would consent together to give away all their power and Authority in the Church For you say The literal sense of Vniversal Bishop doth suppose him to be Bishop of all particular Churches to the exclusion of all others from being properly Bishops and are displaceable at his pleasure Can it now enter into your mind that Gregory should ever think that these Bishops should all make themselves the Popes Vassals of their own free choice We see even under the great Vsurpations of the Bishop of Rome since though they pretend for all that I can see to be Oecumenical Bishops in a higher sense then ever John pretended to that yet the Bishops of the Roman Communion are not willing to submit their office wholly to the Papal Jurisdiction witness the stout and eager contests of the Spanish Bishops in the Council of Trent about the Divine Institution of the Episcopal office against the pretences of the Italian Party And shall we then think when the Pope was far from that power which he hath since Usurped that such multitude of grave and resolute Bishops should throw their Miters down at the Popes feet and offer him in your literal sense to be sole Bishop of the World That they would relinquish their power which they made no question they had from Christ and take it up again at the Popes hands But whether you can imagine this of so many Bishops or no Can you conceive that Gregory should think so of them and he must do it if he took the title of Vniversal Bishop in your literal sense and yet this Gregory saith Hoc Vniversitatis nomen oblatum est That very name of Vniversal Bishop was offered to the Pope by the Council of Chalcedon Sed nullus unquam Decessorum meorum hoc tam prophano Vocabulo uti consensit Nothing then can be more plain then that John took that which the Pope refused And he that can believe that this title should ever be offered in this literal sense I despair without the help of Physick to make him believe any thing 2. This very title was not usurped wholly by John himself but was given him in a Council at Constantinople This Gregory confesseth in his Epistle to Eulogius and Anastasius the Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria that about eight years before in the time of Pelagius his predecessor John called a Council at Constantinople in which he endeavours to be called Vniversal Bishop so Gregory but he confesseth elsewhere that he effected it And it appears by the Epistle of Pelagius himself writ on that occasion that it was more then a meer endeavour and that they did consent to it else Why doth Pelagius say Quicquid in vestro conventiculo statuistis Whatever they had determin'd in their Conventicle as on this account Pelagius calls it because it wanted his approbation And it is evident from Gregories zealous writing to the other Patriarchs about it that they did not â—ook on themselves as so much concerned about it Now in this Council which met at Constantinople which was called together in the case of Gregory the Patriarch of Antioch all the Patriarchs either by themselves or substitutes were present as Evagrius tells us and not only they but several Metropolitans too now if they had taken this in the literal sense Can you think they would have yielded to it Were not they much more concerned about it then either Pelagius or Gregory were for they were near him and were sure to live under this usurped power of his and to smart by it if it were so great as you suppose it to be But it is apparent by their yielding to it they looked on it to be sure not in the Literal sense and it may be as no more than the Honorary Title of Oecumenical Patriarch 3. How comes it to pass that none of the successors of John and Cyriacus did ever challenge this Title in the Literal sense of it For we do not see that they quitted it for all Phocas gave it to Pope Boniface since by your own confession in the Greek Canon-Law Sisinnius German Constantine Alexius and others are called Oecumenical Patriarchs And it appears by the Epistles of Pelagius and Gregory that was the Title which John had then given him Si summus Patriarcha Vniversalis dicitur Patriarcharum nomen caeteris denegatur saith Pelagius Si enim hoc dici licentèr permittitur honor Patriarcharum omnium negatur saith Gregory From which words I think it most probable that the main ambition of the Patriarchs of Constantinople was not meerly that they would be called Oecumenical Patriarchs but that Title should properly belong to them as excluding others from it which was it that touched the Bishops of Rome to the quick because then Constantinople flourished as much as Rome decayed by the oppressions of the Lombards and Gregory complained of this to Constantia the Empress that for seven and twenty years together they had lived in Rome inter Longobardorum gladios among the swords of the Lombards and this made them so jealous that the honour of the Roman See was then sinking and therefore they stickle so much against this Title and draw all the invididious consequences from it possible the better to set the other Patriarchs against it and because that would not extend far beyond the Patriarchs themselves they pretend likewise that this was to make himself Vniversal Bishop But not certainly in your Literal sense for then Gregory would have objected some actions consequent upon this Title in depriving Bishops of their Jurisdiction and displacing some and putting in others at his pleasure which you say is the natural effect of this Literal sense of Vniversal Bishop But we read of nothing of this nature done either by John or Cyriacus they acted no more than they did only enjoyed a higher Title And this is proved further 4. By the carriage of the Emperour Mauricius in this business Gregory writes a pitiful moaning Letter to him about it and uses all the Rhetorick he had to perswade the Emperour that he would either flectere or coercere incline or force him to lay aside that arrogant Title But for all this it appears by Gregory's Letter to the Empress That the
But all this proceeds from want of understanding the Discipline of the Church at that time for excommunication did not imply any such authoritative act of throwing men out of the Communion of the whole Church but only a declaring that they would not admit such persons to communion with themselves And therefore might be done by equals to equals and sometimes by Inferiours to Superiours In equals it is apparent by Johannes Antiochenus in the Ephesine Council excommunicating Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria and I suppose you will not acknowledge it may be done by Inferiours if we can produce any examples of Popes being excommunicated and what say you then to the African Bishops excommunicating Pope Vigilius as Victor Tununensis an African Bishop himself relates it Will you say now that Victors excommunicating the Asian Churches argued his authority over them when another Victor tells us that the African Bishops solemnly excommunicated the Pope himself And I hope you will not deny but the Bishop of Rochester might as well excommunicate the Archbishop of York as these Africans excommunicate the Bishop of Rome What say you to the expunging the name of Felix Bishop of Rome out of the Diptychs of the Church by Acacius the Patriarch of Constantinople What say you to Hilary's Anathema against Pope Liberius If these excommunications did not argue just power and authority over the persons excommunicated neither could Pope Victors do it For it is apparent by the practise of the Church that excommunication argued no such superiority in the persons who did it but all the force of it lay in the sense of the Church for by whomsoever the sentence was pronounced if all other Churches observed it as most commonly they did while the Vnity of the Church continued then they were out of the Communion of the Catholick Church if not then it was only the particular declaration of those persons or Churches who did it And in this case the validity of the Popes excommunication of the Asian Bishops depended upon the acceptance of it by other Churches which most consenting to it he could not throw them out of the communion of the whole Church but only declare that if they came to Rome he would not admit them to communion with him And therefore Ruffinus well renders that place in Eusebius out of Irenaeus his Epistle to Victor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by these words Nunquam tamen ob hoc repulsi sunt ab Ecclesiae societate aut venientes ab illis partibus non sunt suscepti so that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may as well signifie not to receive as to cast out for the Churches not receiving is her casting out Thus I hope it is evident that his Lordship hath received no injury by these lighter skirmishes We now follow you into hotter service For you say he ventures at last to grapple with the Authority it self alleadged by A. C. out of St. Irenaeus where in the first place you wink and strike and let your blows fall besides him for fear he should return them or some one for him You quarrel with his translation of the Authority cited by him but that the ground of this quarrel may be understood we must first enquire what his Lordship hath to say for himself The place of Irenaeus is To this Church he speaks of Rome propter potentiorem principalitatem for the more powerful Principality of it 't is necessary that every Church that is the faithful undique round about should have recourse Now for this his Lordship saith there was very great reason in Irenaeus his time that upon any difference arising in the faith Omnes undique Fideles all the faithful or if you will all the Churches round about should have recourse that is resort to Rome being the Imperial City and so a Church of more powerful Principality then any other at that time in those parts of the world But this his Lordship saith will not exalt Rome to be Head of the Church Vniversal Here your blood rises and you begin a most furious encounter with his Lordship for translating undique round about as if say you St. Irenaeus spake only of those neighbouring Churches round about Rome and not the Churches throughout the world whereas undique as naturally signifies every where and from all parts witness Thomas Thomasius where the word undique is thus Englished From all parts places and corners every where Can you blame me now if I seek for a retreat into some strong-hold or if you will some more powerful Principality when I see so dreadful a Charge begun with Thomas Thomasius in the Front You had routed us once before with Rider and other English Lexicons but it seems Rider had done service enough that time now that venerable person Thomas Thomasius must be upon duty and do his share for the Catholick Cause You somewhere complain how much Catholicks are straitned for want of Books Would any one believe you that find you so well stored with Thomas Thomasius Rider and other English Lexicons You would sure give us some cause of suspition that there is some Jesuits School taught in England and that you are the learned Master of it by your being so conversant in these worthy Authours But although the Authority of Th. Thomasius signifie very little with us yet that of the Greek Lexicons might do much more if we had the original Greek of Irenaeus instead of his barbarous Latin Interpreter For now it is uncertain what word Irenaeus used and so it is but a very uncertain conjecture which can be drawn from the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless we knew which of them was the genuine word in the Greek of Irenaeus But you say all of them undeniably signifie from all parts Vniversally and that because they are rendred by the word undique So that this will make an excellent proof undique must signifie from all parts because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do signifie so in Greek and that these do undeniably signifie so much appears because they are rendred by undique And I grant they are so for in the old Glossary which goes under the name of Cyril undique is rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and â—ully than whom we cannot possibly desire a better Authour in this case renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by undique For in his Book de Finibus he translates that of Epicurus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by undique complerentur voluptatibus and so he renders that passage in Plato's Timaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by undique aequabilem although as Hen. Stephanus notes that be rather the signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but still there is some difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek Authours notes ex omni parte terrae but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only ex quâvis parte so that
to the Catholick Church which had been most proper for him if Head of the Church but only to the dispersed Jews in some particular Provinces Can any one then imagine he should be Monarch of the Church and no act of his as such recorded at all of him but carrying himself with all humility not fixing himself as Head of the Church in any Chair but going up and down from one place to another as the rest of the Apostles for promoting the Gospel of Christ To conclude all Is it possible to conceive there should be a Monarch appointed by Christ in the Church and yet the Apostle when he reckons up those offices which Christ had set in the Church speak not one word of him he mentions Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastours and Teachers but the chief of all is omitted and he to whom the care of all the rest is committed and in whose Authority the welfare peace and unity of the Church is secured These things to me seem so incredible that till you have satisfied my mind in these Questions I must needs judge this pretended Monarchy in the Church to be one of the greatest Figments ever were in the Christian world And thus I have at large considered your Argument from Reason Why there should be such a Monarchy in the Church which I have the rather done because it is one of the great things in dispute between us and because the most plausible Argument brought for it is The necessity of it in order to the Churches peace which Monarchy being the best of Governments would the most tend to promote To return now to his Lordship He brings an evidence out of Antiquity against the acknowledgement of any such Monarchy in the Church from the literae communicatoriae which certified from one great Patriarch to another Who were fit or unfit to be admitted to their Communion upon any occasion of repairing from one See to another And these were sent mutually and as freely in the same manner from Rome to the other Patriarchs as from them to it Out of which saith his Lordship I think this will follow most directly that the Church-Government then was Aristocratical For had the Bishop of Rome been then accounted sole Monarch of the Church and been put into the definition of the Church as he is now by Bellarmin all these communicatory Letters should have been directed from him to the rest as whose admittance ought to be a rule for all to communicate but not from others to him at least not in that even equal brotherly way as now they appear to be written For it is no way probable the Bishops of Rome which even then sought their own greatness too much would have submitted to the other Patriarchs voluntarily had not the very course of the Church put it upon them To this you Answer That these literae communicatoriae do rather prove our assertion being ordained by Sixtus 1 in favour of such Bishops as were called to Rome or otherwise forced to repair thither to the end they might without scruple be received into their own Diocese at their return having also decreed that without such letters communicatory none in such case should be admitted But that these letters should be sent from other Bishops to Rome in such an even equal and brotherly way you say is one of his Lordships Chimaera's But this difference or inequality you pretend to be in them that those to the Pope were meerly Testimonial those from him were Mandatory witness say you the case of St. Athanasius and other Bishops restored by the Popes communicatory letters But supposing them equal you say it only shewed the Popes humility and ought to be no prejudice to his just authority and his right and power to do otherwise if he saw cause But all this depends upon a meer fiction viz. That these communicatory letters were ordained by Sixtus 1 in favour of such Bishops as were called to Rome than which nothing can be more improbable But I do not say that this is a Chimaera of your own Brains for you follow Baronius in it for which he produceth no other evidence but the Authour of the lives of the Popes but Binius adds that which seems to have been the first ground of it which is the second decretal Epistle of Sixtus 1 in which that Decree is extant But whosoever considers the notorious forgery of those decretal Epistles as will be more manifested where you contend for them on which account they are slighted by Card. Perron and in many places by Baronius himself will find little cause to triumph in this Epistle of Sixtus 1. And whoever reflects on the state of those times in which Sixtus lived will find it improbable enough that the Pope should take to himself so much Authority to summon Bishops to him and to order that none should be admitted without Communicatory letters from him It is not here a place to enquire into the several sorts of those letters which passed among the Bishops of the Primitive Church whether the Canonical Pacifical Ecclesiastical and Communicatory were all one and what difference there was between the Communicatory letters granted to Travellers in order to their Communion with forrain Churches and those letters which were sent from one Patriarch to another But this is sufficiently evident that those letters which were the tessera hospitalitatis as Tertullian calls it the Pass-port for Communion in forrain Churches had no more respect to the Bishop of Rome than to any other Catholick Bishop Therefore the Council of Antioch passeth two Canons concerning them one That no Traveller should be received without them another That none but Bishops should give them And that all Bishops did equally grant them to all places appears by that passage in St. Austin in his Epistle to Eusebius and the other Donatists relating the conference he had with Fortunius a Bishop of that party wherein St. Austin asked him Whether he could give communicatory letters whither he pleased for by that means it might be easily determined whether he had communion with the whole Catholick Church or no. From whence it follows that any Catholick Bishop might without any respect to the Bishop of Rome grant Communicatory letters to all forrain Churches And the enjoying of that Communion which was consequent upon these letters is all that Optatus means in that known saying of his that they had Communion with Siricius at Rome commercio formatarum by the use of these communicatory letters But besides these there were other letters which every Patriarch sent to the rest upon his first installment which were call'd their Synodical Epistles and these contained the profession of their Faith and the answers to them did denote their Communion with them Since therefore these were sent to all the Patriarchs indifferently and not barely to the Bishop of Rome there appears no difference at all in the letters sent to or
all his Councils there are these express words Jura honores privilegia authoritatem Romanae Ecclesiae Domini nostri Papae successorum praedictorum conservare defendere augere promovere curabo I will take care to preserve defend increase and promote the rights honours priviledges and authority of the Roman Church and of our Lord the Pope and his Successours aforesaid but lest this should not be full enough there follows another clause Nec ero in Concilio in facto seu tractatu in quibus contra Dominum nostrum vel Romanam Ecclesiam aliqua sinistra sive praejudicialia personarum juris honoris statûs potestatis eorum machinentur Et si talia à quibusdam tractari cognovero aut procurari impediam hoc pro posse quantocyus potero commodè significabo eidem Domino nostro vel alteri per quem ad ipsius notitiam possit pervenire I will not be in any Council action or debate in which they shall plot or contrive any thing to the prejudice of our Lord the Pope or the Roman Church or of any persons right honour state or power belonging to them Was not this now a fit Oath to send Bishops to a free Council with where the main thing to have been debated had been the usurped power of the Pope and Church of Rome He that can believe a Council made up of such persons who judge this Oath lawful to be Free may think those men free to rebell against their Soveraign who had but just taken an Oath of Allegiance to him Not that the Pope had any right or power to impose it or that the Oath is in it self lawful but that those who judged both these things true could not possibly be more obliged not to act in any measure against the Pope then they were And therefore the Pope knew what he did when he utterly denied to absolve the Bishops of this Oath which the States of the Empire pressed him to as necessary in order to the Freedom of the Council No said he I do not mean to have my hands bound up so He knew well enough how much his Interest lay at stake if the Bishops were released of this Oath and therefore he was resolved to hold them fast enough to himself by it What restrictions or limitations can you now find out in this Oath whereby these Bishops might freely debate the power and authority of the Bishop of Rome They that swear not to be in any Council or debate against the Pope are not like to make any Free Council about the matters then in dispute And Do you think now the Protestants had no cause to except against this Council where all the Bishops were swore before-hand to maintain and defend that which they most complained of And Were there nothing else but this Oath so unheard of a thing in all ancient Councils so contrary to the ends of a Free Council this were enough to keep them from ever submitting to the judgement of such a Council as that of Trent was And yet this is not all neither for his Lordship adds That the Pope himself to shew his charity had declared and pronounced the appellants Hereticks before they were condemned by the Council I hope saith he an Assembly of enemies are no lawful Council and I think that the Decrees of such a one are omni jure nulla and carry their nullity with them through all Law All the Answer you give to this is That the Pope did nothing therein but in pursuance of the Canons of the Church which required him so to do and of the Decrees of General Councils which had already condemned their Opinions for Heresie You mend the matter well for it seems the Pope not only did so but was bound to do so For shame then never talk of a Free and General Council to debate those things which you say were already condemned for Heresies by General Councils One may now see What the Safe-conduct had been for the Protestants if they had come to Trent for it seems they were condemned for Hereticks before they came there and nothing then was wanting but execution But if the Protestants Opinions were condemned for Heresies before by General Councils Why was the Council of Trent at all summoned Why was the world so deceived with the promises of a Free and General Council Why did they proceed to make new Decrees in these matters In what ancient General Councils will you shew us the Popes Supremacy the Infallibility of the Church of Rome decreed that those who held the contrary should be accounted Hereticks Speak them out that we may find our selves therein condemned Give us a Catalogue of the rest of your Tridentine Articles and name us the General Councils in which they were decreed as they are there But this is not a work for you to meddle in However What folly and madness would it be to account that a Free Council in which the things to be debated are looked on as condemned Heresies already and no liberty allowed to any persons to debate them The last Exception you say of his Lordship is against the small number of Bishops present at the Tridentine Council and in the first place he mentions the Greeks whom he takes say you to have been unjustly excluded To this you say 1. The Pope called all who had right to come you should say all whom he would judge to have right to come 2. The Greeks by reason of their notorious Schism had excluded themselves And Might not the Greeks if they were in condition every whit as well hold a General Council among themselves and say The Latins had excluded themselves by their notorious Schism You say It is confessed that no known Heretick or Schismatick hath right to sit in Council but still you make your own selves Judges Who are Orthodox and who Hereticks and Schismaticks and Might not the Greeks again say the very same of you and for all that I know with much more truth and reason It was then very like to be a Genegeneral Council when the Pope and his party must sit as Judges Who were to be admitted and who not Might not the Donatists in Africa have call'd their Council of seventy Bishops an Oecumenical Council upon the same grounds because they accounted none to belong to the Church but such as were of their own party And if they did not belong to the Church they could have no right to sit in Council It seems the more uncharitable you are the freer your Councils are For the Pope may by pronouncing men Hereticks and Schismaticks keep them from coming to Councils and appearing against him there and the Council be never the less General for all that If the Greeks be not called to the Council they may thank themselves they are notorious Schismaticks and if we believe you Hereticks too If the Protestants be not admitted it is their own fault they are condemned
Hereticks if none appear from any other more remote Churches still the same plea will serve to exclude them all For my part I much approve the saying of Eugenius in the Council of Florence when they spake of the paucity of Bishops for a General Council That where he and the Emperour and the Patriarch of Constantinople were present there was a General Council though there were no more And Pope Pius the fourth might have saved a great deal of mony in his purse with which he maintained his Bishops Errant at that Council had he been of the same mind But the scene of things was altered in Europe there were such clamours made for a General Council that something must be done to satisfie the world and as long as the Pope knew how to manage the business there would be nothing could breed so great danger in it He therefore barely summons a Council without acquainting any of the Eastern Patriarchs with it as was the custom in the ancient General Councils among whom it was debated after the Emperours indicting of it these summoned by the Emperours order their Metropolitans the Metropolitans the Bishops the Bishops they agreed among themselves who should go to the Council who on that account might be said to represent those Churches from whence they came What was there like this in the Council of Trent What messages were there sent to the Eastern Patriarchs of Constantinople Antioch and Alexanandria What Metropolitans came thence What Bishops by the consent of those Churches And if there were nothing of all this What boldness is it to call this a General Council Just by the same figure that your Church is called the Catholick Church which is by an insufferable Catachresis And must six fugitive Greek-Bishops give vote here for all the Eastern Churches and two fugitive English-Bishops for all the Church of England I do not then at all wonder How easily this might be a General Council though there were so very few persons in most of the Sessions of it But you say There was no need of any particular sending from the Greeks as the case then stood and still continues 't is sufficient they were called by the Pope Sufficient indeed for your purpose but not at all for a General Council For if the Greek Churches had been in condition to have sent an equal number of Eastern to Western Bishops the Popes would rather have lost all than stood to the judgement of such a Council And this you know well enough for all your saying That the Greek Church condemns the Protestants You dread the Greek Churches meeting you in a Free General Council and therefore to prevent that they must be called Schismaticks and excluded as such though you would never permit the debate of the Schism in a Free Council As the case then stood and still continues there was no need of sending And Why so Is it because those Churches were then under persecutions and are still and therefore there is no hopes that the Bishops should come to a General Council But all that thence follows is that as things stood then and do still there can be no truly General Council and that is a just inference but I suppose you rather mean because those Churches were then in Schism and are still which still discovers what a wonderful good opinion you have of your selves and how uncharitable you are to all others And so great is the excellency of your Bishops that one of them may represent a whole Nation and so about fifty will be more than sufficient for the whole world And therefore I rather wonder there were so many Bishops at Trent for if the Pope pleased as he made Patriarchs Primats and Arch-Bishops of such places where they never durst go which he knew well enough it had been but appointing such to stand for such a Nation and such for another and a small number might have served turn without putting any to the trouble of coming from any forein Countries at all For otherwise if we go about to examine the numbers of Bishops by their proportions to the Churches they come from as it ought to be in General Councils we shall find a most pitiful account in the Council of Trent For as his Lordship saith Is it to be accounted a General Council that in many Sessions had scarce ten Arch-Bishops or forty or fifty Bishops present In all the Sessions under Paul 3. but two Frenchmen and sometimes none as in the sixth under Julius 3. when Henry 2. of France protested against that Council And from England but one or two by your own confession and those not sent by Authority And the French he saith held off till the Cardinal of Lorrain was got to Rome As for the Spaniards they laboured for many things upon good grounds but were most unworthily over-born Now to this you have a double Answer ready 1. That mission or deputation is not of absolute necessity but only of Canonical provision when time or state of the Countries whence Bishops are sent will permit in other cases it sufficeth they be called by the Pope 2. For those who were absent the impediment was not on the Councils part and in the latter Sessions wherein all that had been formerly desined by the Council was de Novo confirmed and ratified by the unanimous consent of all the Prelates 't is manifest the Council was so full that in the number of Bishops it exceeded some of the first four General Councils I begin with your first Answer which necessarily implies that a General Council is not so called by representation of the whole Church but by relation to the Popes Summons So that if the Pope make a General Summons that must be called a General Council though none be present but such whom the Pope shall think fit to call thither But Where do you find any such account of a General Council in all Antiquity I have given you instances already of General Councils in which the Popes had nothing at all to do with the summoning of them nay all the four General Councils were called by the Emperour and not by the Pope as any one may see that doth not wilfully blind himself The Pope sometimes did beseech and intreat the Emperour to call a Council but never presumed to do it himself in those daies And this is evident not only from the Historians but from the authentick Acts of the Councils themselves and Perron's distinction of the temporal and spiritual call of Councils is as ill grounded as the Popes temporal and spiritual power there being no foundation at all in Anquity nor any reason in the thing for two such several Calls the one by the Emperour and the other by the Pope But this is a meer evasion the evidence being so clear as to the Emperours calling those Councils the Nicene by Constantine the Constantinopolitan by Theodosius the Ephesine by the Junior Theodosius the Chalcedonian
in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome The ground of the Contest about this Title between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople Of the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon about the Popes Supremacy Of the Grammatical and Metaphorical sense of this Title Many arguments to prove it impossible that S. Gregory should understand it in the Grammatical sense The great absurdities consequent upon it S. Gregory's Reasons proved to hold against that sense of it which is admitted in the Church of Rome Of Irenaeus his opposition to Victor Victor's excommunicating the Asian Bishops argues no authority he had over them What the more powerful principality in Irenaeus is Ruffinus his Interpretation of the 6. Nicene Canon vindicated The Suburbicary Churches cannot be understood of all the Churches in the Roman Empire The Pope no Infallible Successour of S. Peter nor so acknowledged to be by Epiphanius S. Peter had no Supremacy of Power over the Apostles p. 422. CHAP. VII The Popes Authority not proved from Scripture or Reason The insufficiency of the proofs from Scripture acknowledged by Romanists themselves The impertinency of Luke 22.32 to that purpose No proofs offered for it but the suspected testimonies of Popes in their own cause That no Infallibility can thence come to the Pope as S. Peters Successour confessed and proved by Vigorius and Mr. White The weakness of the evasion of the Popes erring as a private Doctor but not as Pope acknowledged by them Joh. 21.15 proves nothing towards the Popes Supremacy How far the Popes Authority is owned by the Romanists over Kings C's beggings of the Question and tedious repetitions past over The Argument from the necessity of a living Judge considered The Government of the Church not Monarchical but Aristocratical The inconveniencies of Monarchical Government in the Church manifested from reason No evidence that Christ intended to institute such Government in his Church but much against it The Communicatory letters in the primitive Church argued an Aristocracy Gersons testimony from his Book de Auferibilitate Papae explained and vindicated S. Hieroms testimony full against a Monarchy in the Church The inconsistency of the Popes Monarchy with that of temporal Princes The Supremacy of Princes in Ecclesiastical matters asserted by the Scripture and Antiquity as well as the Church of England p. 451. CHAP. VIII Of the Council of Trent The Illegality of it manifested first from the insufficiency of the Rule it proceeded by different from that of the first General Councils and from the Popes Presidency in it The matter of Right concerning it discussed In what cases Superiours may be excepted against as Barties The Pope justly excepted against as a Party and therefore ought not to be Judge The Necessity of a Reformation in the Court of Rome acknowledged by Roman Catholicks The matter of fact enquired into as to the Popes Presidency in General Councils Hosius did not preside in the Nicene Council as the Popes Legat. The Pope had nothing to do in the second General Council Two Councils held at Constantinople within two years these strangely confounded The mistake made evident S. Cyril not President in the third General Council as the Popes Legat. No sufficient evidence of the Popes Presidency in following Councils The justness of the Exception against the place manifested and against the freedom of the Council from the Oath taken by the Bishops to the Pope The form of that Oath in the time of the Council of Trent Protestants not condemned by General Councils The Greeks and others unjustly excluded as Schismaticks The Exception from the small number of Bishops cleared and vindicated A General Council in Antiquiâ—y not so called from the Popes General Summons In what sense a General Council represents the whole Church The vast difference between the proceedings in the Council of Nice and that at Trent The Exception from the number of Italian Bishops justified How far the Greek Church and the Patriarch Hieremias may be said to condemn Protestants with an account of the proceedings between them p. 475. PART III. Of Particular Controversies CHAP. I. Of the Infallibility of General Councils HOw far this tends to the ending Controversies Two distinct Questions concerning the Infallibility and Authority of General Councils The first entred upon with the state of the Question That there can be no certainty of faith that General Councils are Infallible nor that the particular decrees of any of them are so which are largely proved Pighius his Arguments against the Divine Institution of General Councils The places of Scripture considered which are brought for the Churches Infallibility and that these cannot prove that General Councils are so Matth. 18.20 Act. 15.28 particularly answered The sense of the Fathers in their high expressions of the Decrees of Councils No consent of the Church as to their Infallibility The place of St. Austin about the amendment of former General Councils by latter at large vindicated No other place in St. Austin prove them Infallible but many to the contrary General Councils cannot be Infallible in the conclusion if not in the use of the means No such Infallibility without as immediate a Revelation as the Prophets and Apostles had taking Infallibility not for an absolute unerring Power but such as comes by a promise of Divine Assistance preserving from errour No obligation to internal assent but from immediate Divine Authority Of the consistency of Faith and Reason in things propounded to be believed The suitableness of the contrary Doctrine to the Romanists principles p. 505. CHAP. II. Of the Use and Authority of General Councils The denying the Infallibility of General Councils takes not away their Vse and Authority Of the submission due to them by all particular persons How far external obedience is required in case they erre No violent opposition to he made against them Rare Inconveniencies hinder not the effect of a just power It cannot rationally be supposed that such General Councils as are here meant should often or dangerously erre The true notion of a General Council explained The Freedom requisite in the proceedings of it The Rule it must judge by Great Difference between external obedience and internal assent to the Decrees of Councils This latter unites men in errour not the former As great uncertainties supposing General Councils Infallible as not Not so great certainty requisite for submission as Faith Whether the Romanists Doctrine of the Infallibility of Councils or ours tend more to the Churches peace St. Austin explained The Keyes according to him given to the Church No unremediable inconvenience supposing a General Council erre But errours in Faith are so supposing them Infallible when they are not The Church hath power to reverse the Decrees of General Councils The power of Councils not by Divine Institution The unreasonableness of making the Infallibility of Councils depend on the Popes Confirmation No consent among the Romanists about the subject of Infallibility whether in Pope or Councils No evidence from
by either of you That the Greeks might be excused by Ignorance before such Declaration of your Church concerning the Filioque and not be excused after through greater ignorance of any such Power in your Church to declare such things to be matters of Faith is an assertion not easie to be swallowed by such as have any strength of Logick or one drachm of Theological Reason Or else it is a very strange thing you should think it sufficient for the Greeks to know what your Church had declared without an antecedent knowledge that your Church had power to declare How much you answer at random appears by your answering Aquinas his testimony instead of that of Jodocus Clictoveus as is plain enough in his Lordships Margin and you might have been easily satisfied that it was so if you had taken the pains to look into either of them But the art of it was Aquinas his testimony might be easily answered because he speaks only by hear-say concerning the opinion of some certain Greeks but Clictoveus his was close to the purpose who plainly confesseth that the difference of the Ancient Greeks was more in words and the manner of explaining the Procession then in the thing it self This therefore you thought fit to slide by and answer Aquinas for him Your answer to Scotus depends on the former distinction of Ancient and Modern Greeks and therefore falls with it Bellarmin's answer concerning Damascen and your own after Bonaventure of his non dicimus hath been sufficiently disproved already What Tolet holds or the Lutherans deny the words of neither being of either side produced deserve no further consideration You tell us his Lordships Argument depends upon this That the Holy Ghost may be equal and consubstantial with the Son though he proceed not from it which you say is a matter too deep for his Lordship to wade into But any indifferent Reader would think it had been your concernment to have shewn the contrary that thereby you might seem to make good so heavy a charge as that of Heresie against the whole Greek Church For if the Holy Ghost cannot be equal and consubstantial with the Son if it proceeds not from the Son then it follows that they who deny this Procession must deny that Equality and Consubstantiality of the Spirit with the Son which you ought to prove to make good your charge of Heresie But on the other side if the Spirit may be proved to be God by such Arguments as do not at all infer his Procession from the Son then his equality and consubstantiality doth not depend upon that Procession for I suppose you grant that it is the Vnity of Essence in the Persons which make them equal and consubstantial but we may sufficiently prove the Spirit to be God by such Arguments as do not infer the Procession from the Son as I might easily make appear by all the Arguments insisted on to that purpose but I only mention that which the second General Council thought most cogent to that purpose which is the Spirit 's eternal Procession from the Father if that proves the Spirit to be God then its equality with the Son is proved without his Procession from the Son for I hope you will not say that the proving his Procession from the Father doth imply Procession from the Son too because the Procession cannot be supposed to be from the essence for then the Spirit would proceed from it self but from the Hypostasis and therefore one cannot imply the concurrence of the other And since you pretend so much to understand these depths before you renew a charge of Heresie against the Greek Church in this particular make use of your Theological reason in giving an Intelligible Answer to these Questions 1. Why the Spirit may not be equal and consubstantial to the other Persons in the Trinity supposing his Procession to be only from the Father as the Son to be equal and consubstantial with them when his Generation is only from the Father 2. If the Procession from the Son be necessary to make the Spirit consubstantial with the Son why is not Generation of the Son by the Spirit necessary to make the Son consubstantial with the Spirit 3. If the Spirit doth proceed from Father and Son as distinct Hypostases how he can proceed from these Hypostases as one principle by one common Spiration without confounding their Personalties or else shew how two distinct Hypostases alwayes remaining so can concur in the same numerical action ad intra 4. If there be such a necessity of believing this as an Article of Faith why hath not God thought fit to reveal to us the distinct emanations of the Son and Spirit and wherein the eternal Generation of the Son may be conceived as distinct from the Procession of the Spirit when both equally agree in the same essence and neither of them express the personality of the Father Either I say undertake intelligibly to resolve these things or else surcease your charge of Heresie against the Greek Church and upbraid not his Lordship for not entering into these depths Methinks their being confessed to be Depths on both sides might teach you a little more modesty in handling them and much more charity to men who differ about them For you may see the Greeks want not great plausibleness of reason on their side as well as Authority of Scripture and Fathers plain for them but not so against them As long therefore as the Greek Church confesseth the Divinity Consubstantiality Eternal Procession of the Spirit and acknowledgeth it to be the Spirit of the Son there must be something more in it then the bare denyal of the Procession from the Son which must make you so eager in your charge of Heresie against her The truth is there is something else in the matter by this Article of Filioque the Authority of the Church of Rome in matters of Faith is struck at and therefore if this be an Heresie it must be on the account of denying the plenitude of her power in matters of Faith as Anselm and Bonaventure ingenuously confess it and plead it on that account And therefore wise men are not apt to believe but that if the Church of Rome had not been particularly concerned in this addition to the Creed if the Greeks would have submitted in all other things to the Church of Rome this charge of Heresie would soon be taken off the File But as things stand if she be not found guilty of Heresie she may be found as Catholick as Rome and more too and therefore there is a necessity for it she must be contented to bear it for it is not consistent with the Interest of the Church of Rome that she should be free from Heresie Schism c. But if she hath no stronger Adversaries to make good the charge then you she may satisfie her self that though the blows be rude yet they are given her by feeble hands For
But the Greeks say this answer is unsatisfactory on these accounts 1. Because there is no reason to say that Decree doth not forbid the inserting Declarations into the Creed 2. That if it did not forbid that yet there is as little reason to say this was a meer Declaration 1. Because there is no reason to say that the Council did not forbid the inserting Declarations into the Creed For as Bessarion well observes it never was lawful to add new and distinct Articles of Faith from those which are contained in Scripture but the Church only undertook the explication and declaration of the things therein contained and this was only lawful Therefore the Ancient Fathers had full liberty of explaining Articles of Faith and using those explications as they judged most expedient and to place them where they thought good so it were not in Scripture thence they might insert them into the Creed or elsewhere But afterwards i. e. after this decree of the Ephesine Council this liberty was partly taken away and partly continued For it never was or will be unlawful to explain or declare Articles of Faith but to insert those explications into the Creed is now unlawful because forbidden by the decree of a General Council For saith he the Fathers of the third Council observing what great inconveniencies had followed in the Church upon the inlargement of Creeds and that no injury could at all come by the prohibition of any further Additions to be inserted for by that means they should only be bound to believe no more than what those Holy Fathers believed and who dare charge their Faith with imperfection and they did therefore wisely forbid all other expositions of Faith to be inserted into the Creed as he there at large proves And in the progress of that discourse takes off that which Bellarmin looked on as the only satisfactory answer viz. That the prohibition concerned only private persons For saith he It cannot be conceived that the Council should take care about the Declarations of the Creed made by particular persons whereas it alwaies was and is lawful for such to declare their Faith more particularly as appears by the Creed of Charisius received in this Council but this they looked after that the Creed which was commonly received in the Christian Churches and into which men are baptized should receive no alteration at all And to shew what their meaning was though their Council was purposely assembled against Nestorius yet they would not insert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Creed And the same decree was observed in the 4 5 6 7. Councils which by their actions did declare this to be the meaning of the Ephesine Council that no Declarations whatsoever should hereafter be inserted into the Creed For if they were meer Declarations there was much less necessity of inferting them into the Creed which was supposed to be a Systeme of the necessary Articles of Faith 2. There was as little reason to say that this Article was a meer Declaration For the Latins pretended that the Article of Filioque was only a further explication of that ex Patre For if so then whosoever doth believe the Procession from the Father doth believe all that is necessary to be believed And therefore certainly it can be no Heresie not to believe the Procession from the Son because that is only supposed to be a Declaration of that from the Father And since you are so ready to charge the Greek Church with Heresie I pray tell us whether this Article be a Declaration or not If not then the Latins were all deceived who pleaded the lawfulness of inserting Filioque on that account and consequently it must be a prohibited Addition If it be then shew us what Heresie lyes in not acknowledging a meer explication when all that is supposed necessary is believed in the substance of the Article Moreover Bessarion rightly distinguisheth between an explication 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore grants that the Filioque might be said to be an explication of something contained in the Creed but not out of any thing contained in the Creed and therefore the Medium being extrinsecal it could not be said to be a meer Declaration For there can be no necessary Argument drawn from the Procession from the Father to inferr the Procession from the Son but it must be proved from some extrinsecal distinct Argument 2. Suppose this to be no prohibited Addition yet what right had the Pope and his Council without the consent of the Eastern Churches to make this Addition to the Creed For the Greeks said whatever authority the Church of Rome had it received by the Canons and its authority was therefore less then that of an Oecumenical Council wherefore it could not justly repeal or act contrary to the decree of a General Council as it did apparently in this case By which means the Latins were driven off from those which they looked on as slighter velitations and took Sanctuary in the Plenitude of the Pope's Power that therefore no Council could prescribe to him there could be no necessity of his calling the Eastern Churches to debate this Addition for he could do it of himself by virtue of his own authority in and over the Church Here Anselm and Bonaventure think to secure themselves and hither they are all driven at last So that we plainly see whatever else is pretended the Pope's usurped Power was that which truly gave occasion to the Schism For it was not the Latins believing the Procession from the Son which made the separation between the Eastern and Western Churches but the Pope's pretending a Power to impose an Article of Faith in the Creed against the decree of a former and without the consent of a present Oecumenical Council If you pretend that there hath been since an Oecumenical Council at Florence which hath declared it by that very answer you justifie the Greeks before that Council and so lay the guilt of the Schism wholly on the Pope who did insert and impose this Article before an Oecumenical Council Thus still it appears the cause of the Schism began at Rome and by the same Argument with which you charge them with Heresie viz. the Council at Florence you vindicate the Greek Church from Schism in all the actions of it before that Council And this might suffice to shew that it was not the levity vanity or ambition of the Greeks which gave the great occasion of the Schism but the Pride Incroachments and Vsurpations of the Church of Rome as might largely be manifested from the history of those times when the Schism began The rise of which ought to be derived from the times of the Constantinopolitan and Chalcedon Councils the second and fourth Oecumenical For the Canons of those Councils decreeing equal Priviledges to Constantinople with those of Rome made the Popes have a continual jealousie upon the Greek Church and watch
What a case then were we in if the Pope were Christ's Vicar in Heaven as he pretends to be on Earth but it is our comfort he is neither so nor so Thus we see what repugnancy there is both to Scirpture and Reason in this strange Doctrine of your Churches Definitions making things necessary to Salvation which were not so before I should now proceed to shew how repugnant this Doctrine is to the unanimous consent of Antiquity but I find my self prevented in that by the late Writings of one of your own Communion and if you will believe him in his Epistle Dedicatory which I much question the present Popes most humble Servant our Countryman Mr. Thomas White Whose whole Book call'd his Tabulae Suffragiales is purposely designed against this fond and absurd Opinion nay he goes so high as to assert the Opinion of the Pope's Personal Infallibility not only to be Heretical but Archi-heretical and that the propagating of this Doctrine is in its kind a most grievous sin It cannot but much rejoyce us to see that men of wit and parts begin to discover the intolerable arrogance of such pretences and that such men as D. Holden and Mr. White are in many things come so near the Protestant Principles and that since they quit the Plea of Infallibility and relye on Vniversal Tradition we are in hopes that the same reason and ingenuity which carried these persons thus far will carry others who go on the same principles so much farther as to see how impossible it is to make good the points in Controversie between us upon the Principle of Vniversal Tradition Which the Bigots of your Church are sufficiently sensible of and therefore like the Man at Athens when your Hands are cut off you are resolved to hold this Infallibility with your Teeth and so that Gentleman finds by the proceedings of the Court of Rome against him for that and his other pieces But this should not have been taken notice of lest we should seem to see as who doth not that is not stark blind what growing Divisions and Animosities there are among your selves both at home and in foreign parts and yet all this while the poor silly people must be told that there is nothing but Division out of your Church and nothing but Harmony and Musick in it but such as is made of Discords And that about this present Controversie for the forenamed Gentleman in his Epistle to the present Pope tells him plainly That it is found true by frequent Experience That there is no defending the Catholick Faith against the subtilties of his Heretical Countrymen without the principles of that Book which was condemned at Rome And what those principles are we may easily see by this Book which is writ in defence of the former Wherein he largely proves that the Church hath no power to make New Articles of Faith which he proves both from Scripture Reason and Authority this last is that I shall referr the Reader to him for for in his second Table as he calls it he proves from the testimonies of Origen Basil Chrysostom Cyril Irenaeus Tertullian Pope Stephen Hierom Theophylact Augustine Vincentius Lerinensis and several others nay the testimonies he sayes to this purpose are so many that whole Libraries must be transcribed to produce them all And afterwards more largely proves That the Faith of the Church lyes in a continued succession from the Apostles both from Scripture and Reason and abundance of church-Church-Authorities in his 4 5 and 6. Tables and through the rest of his Book disproves the Infallibility of Councils and Pope And can you think all this is answered by an Index Expurgatorius or by publishing a false-Latin Order of the inquisition at Rome whereby his Books are prohibited and his Opinions condemned as heretical erronious in Faith rash scandalous seditious and what not It seems then it is grown at last de fide that the Pope is infallible and never more like to do so than in this age for the same person gives us this character of it in his Purgation of himself to the Cardinals of the Inquisition saying That their Eminencies by the unhappiness of the present Age in which Knowledge is banished out of the Schools and the Doctrines of Faith and Theological Truths are judged by most voices fell it seems upon some ignorant and arrogant Consultors who hand over head condemn those Propositions which upon their oaths they could not tell whether they were true or false If these be your proceedings at Rome happy we that have nothing to do with such Infallible Ignorance This is the Age your Religion were like to thrive in if Ignorance were as predominant elsewhere as it seems it is at Rome But I leave this and return 3. The last thing is Whether the Church hath Power by any Proposition or Definition to make any thing become necessary to Salvation and to be believed as such which was not so before But this is already answered by the foregoing Discourse for if the necessity of the things to be believed must be supposed antecedently to the Churches Being if that which was not before necessary cannot by any act whatsoever afterwards become necessary then it unavoidably follows That the Church neither hath nor can have any such power Other things which relate to this we shall have occasion to discuss in following your steps which having thus far cleared this important Controversie I betake my self to And we are highly obliged to you for the rare Divertisements you give us in your excellent way of managing Controversies Had my Lord of Canterbury been living What an excellent entertainment would your Confutation of his Book have afforded him But since so pleasant a Province is fallen to my share I must learn to command my self in the management of it and therefore where you present us with any thing which deserves a serious Answer for truth and the causes sake you shall be sure to have it In the first place you charge his Lordship with a Fallacy and that is because when he was to speak of Fundamentals he did not speak of that which was not Fundamental But say you He turns the difficulty which only proceeded upon a Fundamentality or Necessity derived from the formal Object that is from the Divine Authority revealing that Point to the Material Object that is to the importance of the Matter contained in the Point revealed which is a plain Fallacy in passing à sensu formali ad materialem Men seldom suspect those faults in others which they find not strong inclinations to in themselves had you not been conscious of a notorious Fallacy in this distinction of Formal and Material Object as here applyed by you you would never have suspected any such Sophistry in his Lordship's Discourse I pray consider what kind of Fundamentals those are which the Question proceeds on viz. such as are necessary to be owned as such by
were proved to be so Of the Motives of Credibility and how far they belong to the Church The difference between Science and Faith considered and the new art of mens believing with their wills The Churches testimony must be according to their principles the formal object of Faith Of their esteem of Fathers Scripture and Councils The rare distinctions concerning the Churches infallibility discussed How the Church can be Infallible by the assistance of the Holy Ghost yet not divinely Infallible but in a manner and after a sort T. C. applauded for his excellent faculty in contradicting himself HE that hath a mind to betray an excellent Cause may more advantagiously do it by bringing weak and insufficient Evidences for it then by the greatest heat and vigour of Opposition against it For there cannot possibly be any greater prejudice done to a weighty and important truth then to perswade men to believe it on such grounds which are if not absolutely false yet much more disputable then the thing it self For hereby the minds of men are taken off from the native evidence which the truth enquired after offers to them and build their assent upon the certainty of the medium's suggested as the only grounds to establish a firm assent upon By which means when upon severe enquiry the falsity and insufficiency of those grounds is discovered the person so discovering lyes under a dangerous temptation of calling into question the truth of that which he finds he assented to upon grounds apparently weak and insufficient And the more refined and subtle the speculations are the more sublime and mysterious the matters believed the greater still the danger of Scepticism is upon a discovery of the unsoundness of those principles which such things were believed upon Especially if the more confident and Magisterial party of those who profess the belief of such things do with the greatest heat decry all other wayes as uncertain and obtrude these principles upon the world as the only sure foundation for the belief of them It was anciently a great question among the Philosophers whether there were any certainty in the principles of knowledge or supposing certainty in things whether there were any undoubted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rules to obtain this certainty of knowledge by If then any one Sect of Philosophers should have undertaken to prove the certainty that was in knowledge upon this account because whatever their Sect or Party delivered was infallibly true they had not only shamefully beg'd the thing in dispute but made it much more lyable to question then before Because every errour discovered in that Sect would not only prove the fondness and arrogance of their pretence of being Infallible but would to all such as believed the certainty of things on the authority of their Sect be an argument to disprove all certainty of knowledge when they once discovered the errours of those whose authority they relyed upon Just such is the case of the Church of Rome in this present Controversie concerning the Resolution of Faith The question is What the certain grounds of our assent are to the principles and rule of Christian Religion the Romanists pretend that there can be no ground of True and Divine Faith at all but the Infallible testimony of Their Church let then any rational man judge whether this be not the most compendious way to overthrow the belief of Christianity in the world For our assent must be wholly suspended upon that supposed Infallibility which when once it falls as it unavoidably doth upon the discovery of the least errour in the doctrine of that Church what becomes then of the belief of Christianity which was built upon that as it s only sure foundation So that it is hardly imaginable there could be any design more really destructive to Christianity or that hath a greater tendency to Atheism then the modern pretence of Infallibility and the Jesuits way of resolving Faith Which was the reason why his Lordship was so unwilling to engage in that Controversie How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God not out of any distrust he had of solving it upon Protestant Principles as you vainly suggest nor out of any fears of being left himself in that Labyrinth which after all your endeavours you have lost your self and your cause in as appears by your attempting this way and that way to get out and at last standing in the very middle of that circle you thought your self out of If his Lordship thought this more a question of curiosity then necessity it was because out of his great Charity he supposed them to be Christians he had to deal with But if his charity were therein deceived you shall see how able we are to make good the grounds of our Religion against all Adversaries whether Papists or others And so far is the answering of this question from making the weakness of our cause appear that I doubt not but to make it evident that our cause stands upon the same grounds which our common Christianity doth and that we are Protestants by the same reason that we are Christians And on the other side that you are so far from giving any true grounds of Christian Faith that nothing will more advance the highest Scepticism and Irreligion then such Principles as you insist on for resolving Faith The true reason then why the Archbishop declared any unwillingness to enter upon this dispute was not the least apprehension how insuperably hard the resolution of this question was as you pretend but because of the great mischief your Party had done in starting such questions you could not resolve with any satisfaction to the common reason of mankind and that you run your selves into such a Circle in which you conjure up more Spirits then ever you are able to lay by giving those advantages to Infidelity which all your Sophistry can never answer on those principles you go upon That this was the true ground of his Lordship's seeming averseness from this Controversie appears by his plain words where he tells you at first of the danger of mens being disputed into infidelity by the Circle between Scripture and Tradition and by his expressing his sense of the great harm you have done by the starting of that question among Christians How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God But although in this respect he might be said to be drawn into it yet lest you should think his averseness argued any consciousness of his own inability to answer it you may see how closely he follows it with what care and accuracy he handles it with what strength of reason and evidence he hath discovered the weakness of your way which he hath done with that success that he hath put you to miserable shifts to avoid the force of his arguments as will appear afterwards I am therefore fully of his mind that it is a matter of such consequence it deserves to be
sifted were it for no other end but to lay open the juglings and impostures of your way of resolving Faith Which we now come more closely to the discovery of for as you tell us The Bishop propounding diverse wayes of resolving the Question first falls to the attaquing your way who prove it by Tradition and authority of the Church And his first onset is so successful that it makes you visibly recoyle and withdraw your self into so untenable a Shelter as exposeth you to all the attempts which any adversary would desire to make upon you For whereas you are charged by his Lordship with running into the most absurd kind of argumentation viz. by proving the Scriptures infallible by Tradition and that Tradition infallible by Scripture you think to escape that Circle by telling us That you prove not the Churches Infallibility by the Scripture but by the motives of credibility belonging to the Church This then being your main principle which your following discourse is built upon and in your judgement the only probable way to avoid the Circle that you may not think I am afraid of encountering you in your greatest strength I dare put the issue of the cause upon this Promise that besides the weak proofs you bring for the thing it self which shall after be considered if this way of yours be not chargeable with all the absurdities such an attempt is capable of I will be content to acknowledge what you say to be true which is That your way of resolving Faith hath no difficulty at all and that ours is insuperably hard which I think are as hard terms as can be imposed upon me Now there are two grand Absurdities which any vindication of an Opinion are subject to first If it be manifestly unreasonable and 2. If supposing it true it doth not effect what it was intended for now these two I undertake to make good against this way of your resolving Faith that it is guilty of the highest unreasonableness and that supposing it true you are in a circle as much as before 1. First I begin with the unreasonableness of it which is so great that I know not whether I may abstain from calling it ridiculous but that I may not seem to follow you in asserting confidently and proving weakly it will be necessary throughly to examine the grounds on which your opinion stands and then raise our batteries against it Three grand principles your discourse relyes upon which are your postulata in order to the resolving Faith 1. That it is necessary to the believing the Scriptures to be the Word of God with a Divine Faith that it be built on the infallible testimony of the Church 2. That your Church is that Catholick Church whose testimony is Infallible 3. That this Infallibility is to be known and assented to upon the motives of credibility These three I suppose if your confused discourse were reduced to method would be freely acknowledged by your self to be the Principles on which your resolution of Faith depends And although I am sufficiently assured of the falseness of your two first Principles as will appear in the sequel of this discourse yet that which I have now particularly undertaken is the unreasonableness of resolving Faith upon these Principles taken together viz. That the Infallible Testimony of your Church is the only Foundation for Divine Faith and that this Infallibility can be known only by the Motives of Credibility If then in this way of resolving Faith you require Assent beyond all proportion of evidence if you run into the same Absurdities you would seem to avoid if you leave men more uncertain in their Religion than you found them you cannot certainly excuse this way from unreasonableness and each of these I undertake to make good against this way of yours whereby you would assure men of the Truth and Divinity of the Scriptures 1. An Assent is hereby required beyond all proportion or degree of evidence for you require an Infallible Assent only upon Probable grounds which is as much as requiring Infallibility in the conclusion where the premises are only probable Now that you require an Assent Infallible to the nature of Faith appears by the whole series of your Discourse for to this very end you require Infallibility in the Testimony of your Church because otherwise you say Our Faith would be uncertain it is plain then you require an Infallible Assent in Faith and it is as plain that this Assent according to you can be built only upon probable grounds for you acknowledge the motives of Credibility to be no more than such yet those are all the grounds you give why the Church should be believed Infallible If you say That which makes the Assent Infallible is that Infallibility which is in the Churches Testimony I reply That this is a most unreasonable thing to go about to establish an Infallible Assent meerly because the Testimony is supposed to be in it self Infallible For Assent is not according to the Objective Certitude of things but the evidence of them to our Vnderstandings For is it possible to assent to the truth of a Demonstration in a demonstrative manner because any Mathematician tells one The thing is demonstrable for in that case the Assent is not according to the Evidence of the thing but according to the opinion such a person hath of him who tells him It is demonstrable Nay supposing that person infallible in saying so yet if the other hath no means to be infallibly assured that he is so such a ones Assent is as doubtful as if he were not infallible Therefore supposing the Testimony of your Church to be really infallible yet since the Means of believing it are but probable and prudential the Assent cannot be according to the nature of the Testimony considered in it self but according to the reasons which induce me to believe such a Testimony infallible And in all such cases where I believe one thing for the sake of another my Assent to the Object believed is according to my Assent to the Medium on which I believe it for by the means of that the other is conveyed to our minds As our sight is not according to the light in the body of the Sun but that which presseth upon our Organs of sense So that supposing your Churches Testimony to be in it self infallible if one may be deceived in judging whether your Church be infallible or no one may be deceived in such things which he believes upon that supposed Infallibility It being an impossibility that the Assent to the matters of Faith should rise higher or stand firmer than the Assent to the Testimony is upon which those things are believed Now that one may be deceived according to your own principles in judging whether the Church be Infallible appears by this That you have no other means to prove the Infallibility of your Church but only probable and prudential Motives For I desire to know
produced is That a Tradition may be known to be such by the Light it hath in it self in which you say you find not one word of Tradition being known by its own Light But who are so blind as those who will not see I pray what difference is there between a Tradition being known to be such by its own Light and a Tradition being known by its own Light Yes say you known to be such implies that is to be God's unwritten Word but are not doctrinal Traditions and an unwritten Word with you the same thing Can therefore a Tradition be known to be an unwritten Word by its own Light and not be known to be a Tradition by its own Light Nay How can it possibly be known to be an unwritten Word unless it first appears to be a Tradition for Tradition containing under it both those that are unwritten Words and those that are not it must in order of nature be known to be a Tradition before it can be known to be the other As I must first know you to be a living Creature before I can know you to be a reasonable Creature and I may much sooner know the one than the other You do therefore very well when you have given us such occasion for sport to give us leave to laugh at it as you do in your next words But before you leave this point you have some graver matter to take notice of which is that you desire the reader to consider what the Relator grants viz. That the Church now admits of St. James and St. Judes Epistles and the Apocalypse which were not received for diverse years after the rest of the New Testament From which you wisely inferr That if some Books are now to be admitted for Canonical which were not alwayes acknowledged to be such then upon the same authority some Books may now be received into the Canon which were not so in Ruffinus his time And therefore the Bishop doth elsewhere unjustly charge the Church of Rome that it had erred in receiving more Books into the Canon then were received in Ruffinus his time To which I Answer 1. By your own confession then the Church of Rome doth now receive into the Canon more Books then she did in Ruffinus his time from whence I enquire whether the present Church of Rome were Infallible in Ruffinus his time in determining the Canon of the Scripture If not then the present Church is no Infallible propounder of the Word of God and then all your discourse comes to nothing If she were Infallible then she cannot be now for now she determins otherwise as to a main point of Faith than she did then unless you will say your Church can be Infallible in determining both parts of a contradiction to be true 2. Is the integrity of the Canon of Scripture an Apostolical tradition or no I doubt not but you will say It is if so Whether were these Books which you admit now and were not admitted then known to be of the Canon by this Apostolical tradition If not by what right come they now to be of the Canon if so then was not your Church in Ruffinus's time much to seek for her Infallibility in defining what was Apostolical tradition and what not 3. Your main principle on which the lawfulness of adding more books to the Canon of the Scripture is built is That it is in the power of your Church judicially and authoritatively to determine what books belong to the Canon of the Scripture and what not which I utterly deny For it is impossible that your Church or any in the world can by any definition make that Book to be Divine which was not so before such a definition For the Divinity of the Book doth meerly arise from Divine revelation Can your Church then make that to be a Divine revelation which was not so All that any Church in the world can do in this case is not to constitute any new Canon which were to make Books Divine which were not so but to use its utmost diligence and care in searching into the authenticalness of those Copy's which have any pretence to be of the Canon and whether they did originally proceed from such persons as we have reason to believe had an immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost and according to the evidence they find the Church may declare and give in her verdict For the Church in this case is but a Jury of grand Inquest to search into matters of Fact and not a Judge upon the Bench to determine in point of Law And that is the true reason why the Books of the New Testament were gradually received into the Canon and some a great while after others as St. James St. Jude the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse because at first the Copyes being not so publickly dispersed there was not that occasion ministred to the Church for examination of them upon which when by degrees they came to be more publick it caused scruples in many concerning them because they appeared no sooner especially if any passages in them seemed to gratifie any of the Sects then appearing as the Epistle to the Hebrews the Novatians and the Apocalypse the Millenary's But when upon a through search and examination of all circumstances it did appear that these Copyes were authentical and did originally proceed from Divine Persons then they came to be admitted and owned for such by the Vniversal Church which we call being admitted into the Canon of the Scripture Which I take to be the only true and just account of that which is called the constituting the Canon of Scripture not as though either the Apostles met to do it or St. John intended any such thing by those words in the end of the Apocalypse for that Book being as much lyable to question as any how could that seal the Canon for all the rest much less that it was in the power of any Church or Council and least of all of the Pope to determine what was Canonical and what not but only that the Church upon examination and enquiry did by her Universal reception of these Books declare it self satisfied with the evidence which was produced that those were true and authentick Copyes which were abroad under such names or titles and that there was great reason to believe by a continued tradition from the age and time these Books were written in that they were written by such persons who were not only free from any design of imposture but gave the greatest Rational evidence that they had a more special and immediate assistance of Gods Spirit You see then to how little advantage to your Cause you made this digression As to the third way propounded for resolving the Question How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God viz. by the testimony of the Holy Ghost three things you object against the Bishops discourse about it First that his discourse
report of such men whom I can make it appear could have no interest in deceiving you A. I can see no reason to the contrary Will you then believe such men who lost their lives to make it appear that their Testimony was true A. Yes Will you believe such things wherein persons of several Ages Professions Nations Religions Interests are all agreed that they were so A. Yes if it be only to believe a matter of fact on their Testimony I can see no ground to question it That is all I desire of you and therefore you must believe that there was in the world such a person as Jesus Christ who dyed and rose again and while he lived wrought great miracles to confirm his Doctrine with and that he sent out Apostles to preach this Doctrine in the world who likewise did work many miracles and that some of these persons the better to preserve and convey this Doctrine did write the substance of all that Christ either did or spake and withall penned several Epistles to those Churches which were planted by them These are all matters of fact and therefore on your former Principle you are to believe them There are then but two Scruples left Supposing all this true yet this doth not prove the Doctrine Divine nor the Scriptures which convey it to be infallible To which I answer 1. Can you question Whether that Doctrine be Divine when the person who declared it to the world was so divine and extraordinary a person not only in his conversation but in those frequent and unparalleld Miracles which he wrought in the sight and face of his enemies who after his death did rise again and converse with his Disciples who gave evidence of their fidelity in the Testimony they gave of it by laying down their lives to attest the Truth of it Again Can you question the Divinity of that Doctrine which tended so apparently to the destruction of sin and wickedness and the power of the evil Spirit in the world For we cannot think he would quit his possession willingly out of the bodies and souls of men that therefore which threw him out of both must be not only a Doctrine directly contrary to his interest but infinitely exceeding him in power And that can be no less than Divine But still you will say Is it not besides all this necessary to believe these very Books you call the Scripture to be divinely inspired and how should I know that To that I answer 1. That which God chiefly requires from you is the belief of the Truth and Divinity of the Doctrine for that is the Faith which will bring you to obedience which is the thing God aims at 2. If you believe the Doctrine to be True and Divine you cannot reasonably question the Infallibility of the Scriptures For in that you read that not only Christ did miracles but his Apostles too and therefore their Testimony whether writing or speaking was equally infallible all that you want evidence for is that such persons writ these Books and that being a matter of fact was sufficiently proved and acknowledged before Thus you see if we take a right method and not jumble things confusedly together as you do what a satisfactory account may be given to any inquisitive person first of the Reasonableness next of the Truth and lastly of the Divinity both of the Doctrine and the Books containing it which we call the Scripture Let us now again see How you make the Bishop and Heathen dispute The substance of which is That you make your Heathen desire no less than infallible evidence that the Bible is God's VVord by conviction of natural reason whereas his Lordship attempts only to make the Authority of Scriptures appear by such Arguments as unbelievers themselves could not but think reasonable if they weighed them with indifferency For though saith he this Truth That Scripture is the VVord of God is not so demonstratively evident à priori as to inforce assent yet it is strengthened so abundantly with probable Arguments both from the Light of Nature it self and Humane Testimony that he must be very wilful and self-conceited that shall dare to suspect it And sure any reasonable man in the world would think it sufficient to deal with an adversary upon such terms But saies your Heathen A man cannot be infallibly certain of what is strengthened with but probable Arguments since that which is but probably true may also be said to be but probably false Which being a thing so often objected against us by your party must be somewhat further explained How far Infallibility may be admitted in our belief may partly be perceived by what hath been said already and what shall be said more afterwards That there is and ought to be the highest degree of actual Certainty I assert as much as you But say you The very Arguments being but probable destroy it To which I answer by explaining the meaning of probable Arguments in this case whereby are not understood such kind of Probabilities which cannot raise a firm Assent in which sense we say That which is probable to be is probable not to be but by Probabilities are only meant such kind of rational Evidence which may yield a sufficient foundation for a firm Assent but yet notwithstanding which an obstinate person may deny Assent As for Instance if you were to dispute with an Atheist concerning the Existence of a Deity which he denies and should proceed with you just as your Heathen doth with the Bishop Sir All that Religion you talk of is built only upon the belief of a God but I cannot be infallibly convinced by natural reason that there is such a one You presently tell him that there is so much evidence for a Deity from the works of nature the consent of all people c. that he can have no reason to question it But still he replies None of these are demonstrations for notwithstanding I have considered these I believe the contrary but demonstrations would make me infallibly certain these then are no more but probable Arguments and therefore since it is but probably true it may be probably false How then will you satisfie such a person Can you do it any otherwise than by saying that we have as great Evidence as the nature of the thing will bear and it is unreasonable to require more Unless you will tell him it is to no purpose to believe a God unless he believe it infallibly and there being no infallible Arguments in nature he must believe it on the Infallibility of your Church And do you not think this were an excellent way to confute Atheists But when we speak of probable Arguments we mean not such as are apt to leave the mind in suspence whether the thing be true or no but only such as are not proper and rigid demonstrations or infallible Testimony but the highest Evidence which the nature of the thing will bear
obtruded without possibility of amendment of them excuse your Church from Imposture if you can for my part I cannot nor any one else who throughly considers it For the second it will follow indeed that the Testimony of your Church is as much as nothing as to any infallible Foundation of Faith but yet it may be of great use for conveying Vniversal Tradition to us and so by that delivering the Scripture into our hands as the infallible Rule of Faith To the third it by no means follows that there is nothing but the sole Letter of Scripture left to convince us of the Divine Authority of Scripture I hope the working Miracles fulfilling Prophecies the nature and reasonableness of the Doctrine of Scriptures are all left besides the bare letter of Scripture and these we say are sufficient to make us believe that the Scripture contains the infallible Word of God Now your profound Christian begins to reflect on the Bishops way which is say you That the Testimony of the Church is humane and fallible and that the belief of the Scripture rests upon the Scripture it self But it will be more to our purpose to hear the Bishop deliver his own mind than to hear you so lamely deliver it which in short he summs up thus A man is probably led by the Authority of the present Church as by the first informing inducing perswading means to believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But when he hath studied considered and compared this Word with its self and with other writings with the help of ordinary grace and a mind morally induced and reasonably perswaded by the voice of the Church the Scripture then gives greater and higher Reasons of Credibility to it self than Tradition alone could give And then he that believes resolves his last and full Assent that Scripture is of Divine Authority into internal Arguments found in the Letter it self though found by the help of Tradition without and Grace within This is the substance of his Lordship's Opinion against which we shall now consider what your Discourser hath to object 1. The first is from the case of ignorant and illiterate persons such who either through want of learning could not read the Scripture and examine or else made little use of it because they supposed they might have infallible Faith without it What then becomes of millions of such souls both in former and present times To that I answer Although the Ignorance and carelesness of men in a matter of so great consequence be so great in all ages as is not to be justified because all men ought to endeavour after the highest waies of satisfaction in a matter so nearly concerning them and it is none of the least things to be blamed in your Church that she doth so much countenance this ignorance and neglect of the Scripture yet for such persons who either morally or invincibly are hindered from this capacity of examining Scripture there may be sufficient means for their Faith to be built upon For although such illiterate persons cannot themselves see and read the Scripture yet as many as do believe do receive the Doctrine of it by that sense by which Faith is conveyed that is Hearing and by that means they have so great certainty as excludes all doubting that such Doctrines and such matters of fact are contained in these Books by which they come to the understanding of the nature of this Doctrine and are capable of judging concerning the Divinity of it For the Light spoken of in Scripture is not a Light to the eye but to the mind now the mind is capable of this Light as well by the ear as by the eyes The case then of such honest illiterate persons as are not capable of reading Scripture but diligently and devoutly hear it read to them is much of the same nature with those who heard the Apostles preach this Doctrine before it was writ For whatever was an Argument to such to believe the Apostles in what they spake becomes an Argument to such who hear the same things which are certainly conveyed to us by an unquestionable Tradition So that nothing hinders but such illiterate persons may resolve their Faith into the same Doctrine and Motives which others do only those are conveyed to them by the ear which are conveyed to others by the eyes But if you suppose persons so rude and illiterate as not to understand any thing but that they are to believe as the Church believes do you if you can resolve their Faith for them for my part I cannot and am so far from it that I have no reason to believe they can have any 2. The second thing objected by your discourser is That if the Churches judgement be fallible then much more ones own judgement is fallible And therefore if notwithstanding all the care and pains taken by the Doctors of the Church their perswasion was only humane and fallible What reason hath any particular person to say That he is divinely and infallibly certain by his reading the Scripture that it is Divine Truth But 1. Is there no difference between the Churches Perswasion and the Churches Tradition Doth the Bishop deny but the perswasion of the Doctors of the Church is as infallible as that of any particular person But this he denies that they can derive that Infallibility of the grounds of their Perswasion into their Tradition so as those who are to receive it on their Testimony may be competent Judges of it May we not then suppose their Tradition to be humane and fallible whose perswasion of what they deliver is established on infallible grounds As a Mathematician is demonstratively convinced himself of the Truth of any particular Problem but if he bids another believe it on his Testimony the other thereby hath no demonstrative evidence of the Truth of it but only so great moral evidence as the Testimony of that person carries along with it The case is the same here Suppose those persons in the Church in every Age of it have to themselves infallible evidence of the Divinity of the Scripture yet when they are to deliver this to be believed by others unless their Testimony hath infallible evidence in it men can never have more than humane or moral certainty of it 2. It doth not at all follow that if the Testimony of the Church be fallible no particular person can be infallibly assured of the Divinity of the Scripture unless this assurance did wholly depend upon that Testimony indeed if it did so the Argument would hold but otherwise it doth not at all Now you know the Bishop denies that the Faith of any particular person doth rest upon the judgement of the Church only he saith This may be a Motive and Inducement to men to consider further but that which they rely upon is that rational evidence which appears in the Scripture it self 3. He goes on and argues against this use of
could not at so small a distance of time prove any corruption by any Copies which were extant For saith he if they should say They would not embrace their writings because they were written by such who were not careful of writing Truth their evasion would be more sâ—y and their errour more pardonable But thus it seems they did by the Acts of the Apostles utterly denying them to contain matter of Truth in them and the reason was very obvious for it because that Book gives so clear an account of the sending the Spirit upon the Apostles which the Manichees pretended was to be only accomplished in the person of Manichaeus And both before and after S. Austin mentions it as their common speech That before the time of Manichaeus there had been corrupters of the sacred Books who had mixed several things of their own with what was written by the Apostles And this they laid upon the Judaizing Christians because their great pique was against the Old Testament and probably some further reason might be from the Nazarene Gospel wherein many things were inserted by such as did Judaize The same thing St. Austin chargeth them with when he gives an account of their Heresie And this likewise appears by the management of the dispute between S. Austin and Faustus who was much the subtillest man among them Faustus acknowledged no more to be Gospel than what contained the Doctrine delivered by our Saviour and therefore denied the Genealogies to be any part of the Gospel and afterwards disputes against it both in S. Matthew and S. Luke And after this S. Austin notes it as their usual custom when they could not avoid a Testimony of Scripture to deny it Thus we see what kind of persons these were and what their pretences were which S. Austin disputes against They embraced so much of Scripture as pleased them and no more To this therefore S. Austin returns these very substantial Answers That if such proceedings might be admitted the Divine Authority of any Books could signifie nothing at all for the convincing of errours That it was much more reasonable either with the Pagans to deny the whole Bible or with the Jews to deny the New Testament than thus to acknowledge in general the Books Divine and to quarrel with such particular passages as pinched them most that if there were any suspicion of corruption they ought to produce more true Copies and more ancient Books than theirs or else be judged by the Original Languages with many other things to the same purpose To apply this now to the present place in dispute S. Austin in that Book against the Epistle of Manichaeus begins with the Preface to it which is made in imitation of the Apostles strain and begins thus Manichaeus Apostolus Jesu Christi providentià Dei Patris c. To this S. Austin saith he believes no such thing as that Manichaeus was an Apostle of Jesus Christ and hopes they will not be angry with him for it for he had learned of them not to believe without reason And therefore desires them to prove it It may be saith he one of you may read me the Gospel and thence perswade me to believe it But what if you should meet with one who when you read the Gospel should say to you I do not believe it But I should not believe the Gospel if the Authority of the Church did not move me Whom therefore I obey in saying Believe the Gospel should I not obey in saying Believe not Manichaeus The Question we see is concerning the proving the Apostleship of Manichaeus which cannot in it self be proved but from some Records which must specifie such an Apostleship of his and to any one who should question the authenticalness of those Records it can only be proved by the testimony and consent of the Catholick Church without which S. Austin professeth he should never have believed the Gospel i. e. that these were the only true and undoubted Records which are left us of the Doctrine and actions of Christ. And he had very good reason to say so for otherwise the authority of those Books should be questioned every time any one such as Manichaeus should pretend himself an Apostle which Controversies there can be no other way of deciding but by the Testimony of the Church which hath received and embraced these Copies from the time of their first publishing And that this was S. Austin's meaning will appear by several parallel places in his disputes against the Manichees For in the same chapter speaking concerning the Acts of the Apostles Which Book saith he I must believe as well as the Gospel because the same Catholick Authority commends both i. e. The same Testimony of the Vniversal Church which delivers the Gospel as the authentick writings of the Evangelists doth likewise deliver the Acts of the Apostles for an authentick writing of one of the same Evangelists So that there can be no reason to believe the one and not the other So when he disputes against Faustus who denied the truth of some things in S. Paul's Epistles he bids him shew a truer Copy than that the Catholick Church received which Copy if he should produce he desires to know how he would prove it to be truer to one that should deny it What would you do saith he Whither would you turn your self What Original of your Book could you shew What Antiquity what Testimony of a succession of persons from the time of the writing of it But on the contrary What huge advantage the Catholicks have who by a constant succession of Bishops in the Apostolical Sees and by the consent of so many people have the Authority of the Church confirmed to them for the clearing the validity of its Testimony concerning the Records of Scripture And after laies down Rules for the trying of Copies where there appears any difference between them viz. by comparing them with the Copies of other Countries from whence the Doctrine originally came and if those Copies vary too the more Copies should be preferred before the fewer the ancienter before the latter If yet any uncertainty remains the original Language must be consulted This is in case a Question ariseth among the acknowledged authentical Copies of the Catholick Church in which case we see he never sends men to the infallible Testimony of the Church for certainty as to the Truth of the Copies but if the Question be Whether any writing it self be authentical or no then it stands to the greatest reason that the Testimony of the Catholick Church should be relyed on which by reason of its large spread and continual Succession from the very time of those writings cannot but give the most indubitable Testimony concerning the authenticalness of the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists And were it not for this Testimony S. Austin might justly say He should not believe the Gospel i. e. Suppose those writings which
to belief But the belief it self that Scripture is the Word of God rests upon Scripture when a man finds it to answer and exceed that which the Church gave in Testimony For this his Lordship cites Origen who though much nearer the prime Tradition than we are yet being to prove that the Scriptures were inspired from God he saith De hoc assignabimus ex ipsis Scripturis Divinis quae nos competentèr moverint c. We will mention those things out of the sacred Scriptures which have perswaded us c. To this you answer Though Origen prove by the Scriptures themselves that they were inspired from God yet doth he never avow that this could be proved out of them unless they were received by the infallible Authority of the Church Which Answer is very unreasonable For 1. It might be justly expected that his Lordship had produced an express Testimony to his purpose out of Origen you should have brought some other as clear for his believing Scripture on the Churches Infallibility which you are so far from that you would put us to prove a Negative But if you will deal fairly and as you ought to do produce your Testimonies out of him and the rest of the Fathers concerning your Churches Infallibility Till then excuse us if we take their express words and leave you to gather Infallibility out of their latent meanings 2. What doth your Infallibility conduce to the believing Scriptures for themselves For you say The Scriptures cannot be proved by themselves to be Gods Word unless they were received by the infallible Authority of the Church it seems then if they be so received they may be proved by themselves to be Gods Word Are those proofs by themselves sufficient for Faith or no If not they are very slender proofs if they be What need your Churches Infallibility Unless you will suppose no man can discern those proofs without your Churches Testimony and then they are not proofs by themselves but from your Churches Infallibility which may serve for one accession more to the heap of your Contradictions His Lordship asserting the last resolution of Faith to be into simply Divine Authority cites that speech of Henr. à Gandavo That in the Primitive Church when the Apostles themselves spake they did believe principally for the sake of God and not the Apostles from whence he inferrs If where the Apostles themselves spake the last resolution of Faith was into God and not into themselves on their own account much more shall it now be into God and not the present Church and into the writings of the Apostles than into the words of their successors made up into Tradition All that you answer is That this argument must be solved by the Bishop as well as you because he hath granted the authority of the Apostles was Divine as well as you Was there ever a more senseless Answer Doth Gandavo deny the Apostles authority to have been Divine Nay Doth he not imply it when he saith Men did not believe for the Apostles sakes but for Gods who spake by them As S. Paul said You received our word not as the word of men but as it is indeed the Word of God How the Bishop should be concerned to answer this is beyond my skill to imagine If Origen speaks to such as believed the Scriptures to be the Word of God so doth the Bishop too viz. on the account of Tradition and Education If Origen endeavoured by those proofs to confirm and settle their Faith that is all the Bishop aims at that a Faith taken up on the Churches Tradition may be settled and confirmed by the internal arguments of Scripture But how you should from this discourse assert That the Authority of the Church must be infallible in delivering the Scripture is again beyond my reach neither can I possibly think what should bear the face of Premises to such a Conclusion Unless it be if Origen assert That the Scriptures may be believed for themselves if Gandavo saith That the resolution of Faith must be into God himself then the Churches Authority must be infallible but it appears already that the premises are true and what then remains but therefore c. which may indeed be listed among your rare argumentations for Infallibility 2. That Scripture cannot manifest it self to be an infallible Light the proof of which is the design of your following discourse Wherein you first quarrel with the Bishop for his arguing from the Scriptures being a Light for thence you say it will only follow that the Scripture manifests it self to be a Light which you grant but that it should manifest it self to be an infallible Light you deny for say you unless he could shew that there are no other Lights save the Word of God and such as are infallible he can never make good his consequence For in Seneca Plutarch Aristotle you read many Lights and those manifest themselves to be Lights but they do not therefore manifest themselves to be infallible Lights The substance of your argument lyes in this The Scripture discovers the Being of God so doth the Talmud and Alcoran as well as it the Scripture delivers abundance of moral instructions but these may be found in multitudes of other Books both of Christians and Jews and Heathens and as we do not thence inferr that these Books are infallible so neither can we that the Scriptures are This is the utmost of sense or reason which I can extract out of your discourse which reduced into Form will come to this If the Scriptures contain nothing in them but what may be found in other Books that are not infallible then the Scriptures cannot shew themselves to be infallible but the antecedent is true and therefore the consequent I could wish you would have taken a little more pains in proving that which must be your assumption viz. That Scripture contains nothing in it but what may be seen in Seneca Plutarch Aristotle the Talmud Alcoran and other Books of Jews and Heathens These are rare things to assert among Christians without offering at any more proof of them than you do which lyes in this Syllogism If Scripture contain some things which may be seen in these Books then it contains nothing but what may be seen in these Books but the Scripture contains some things which may be seen in other Books viz. the existence of God and moral instructions therefore it contains nothing but what is in them And Do you really think that you have now proved that there is nothing in Scripture that can shew it self to be infallible because some things are common to other writings Would you not take it very ill that any should say that you had no more brains than a Horse or a creature of a like nature because they have sense and motion as well as you Yet this is the very same argument whereby you would prove that the Scriptures cannot shew
representing his meaning For where he doth most fully and largely express himself he useth these words which for clearing his meaning must be fully produced Scripture teacheth all supernaturally revealed truth without the knowledge whereof salvation cannot be attained The main principle whereon the belief of all things therein contained dependeth is that the Scriptures are the Oracles of God himself This in it self we cannot say is evident For then all men that hear it would acknowledge it in heart as they do when they hear that every whole is more than any part of that whole because this in it self is evident The other we know that all do not acknowledge it when they hear it There must be therefore some former knowledge presupposed which doth herein assure the hearts of all believers Scripture teacheth us that saving truth which God hath discovered to the world by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it self is Divine and Sacred The question then being by what means we are taught this some answer That to learn it we have no other way then only Tradition As namely that so we believe because both we from our predecessours and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denyed And by experience we all know that the first Motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the Authority of Gods Church For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it even at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labour in reading or hearing the mysteries thereof the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our receiv'd opinion concerning it So that the former inducement prevailing somewhat with us before doth now much more prevail when the very thing hath ministred farther reason Can any thing be more plain if mens meaning may be gathered from their words especially when purposely they treat of a subject than that Hooker makes the Authority of the Church the primary inducement to Faith and that rational evidence which discovers it self in the Doctrine revealed to be that which it is finally resolved into For as his Lordship saith on this very place of Hooker The resolution of Faith ever settles upon the farthest reason it can not upon the first inducement By this place then where this worthy Authour most clearly and fully delivers his judgement we ought in reason to interpret all other occasional and incidental passages on the same subject So in that other place For whatsoever we believe concerning salvation by Christ although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief yet the authority of man is if we mark it the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scriptures I will not dispute whether here he speaks concerning the knowledge of Scripture to be Scripture or concerning the natural sense and meaning of Scripture suppose I should grant you the latter it would make little for your purpose for when he adds The Scripture doth not teach us the things that are of God unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signifie those things You need not here bid us stay a while For his sense is plain and obvious viz. that men cannot come to the natural sense and importance of the words used in Scripture unless they rely on the authority of men for the signification of those words He speaks not here then at all concerning Church-Tradition properly taken but meerly of the authority of man which he contends must in many cases be relyed on particularly in that of the sense and meaning of the words which occurr in Scripture Therefore with his Lordships leave and yours too I do not think that in this place Hooker by the authority of man doth understand Church-Tradition but if I may so call it Humane-Tradition viz. that which acquainteth us with the force and signification of words in use When therefore you prove that it is Tradition only which is all the ground he puts of believing Scripture to be the Word of God from those words of his That utterly to infringe the force and strength of mans testimony were to shake the very Fortress of Gods truth Now say you How can that Fortress the Scripture be shaken were not that authority esteemed by him the ground of that Fortress That may very easily be shewn viz. by calling in question the truth of humane testimony in general for he plainly speaks of such a kind of humane testimony as that is whereby we know there is such a City as Rome that such and such were Popes of Rome wherein the ground of our perswasion can be nothing else but humane testimony now take away the credit and validity of this testimony the very Fortress of truth must needs be shaken for we could never be certain that there were such persons as Moses the Prophets Christ and his Apostles in the world we could never be certain of the meaning of any thing written by them But how farr is this from the final resolution of Faith into Church-Tradition But the place you lay the greatest force on is that which you first cite out of him Finally we all believe that the Scriptures of God are sacred and that they have proceeded from God our selves we assure that we do right well in so believing We have for this a demonstration sound and Infallible But it is not the Word of God which doth or can possibly assure us that we do well to think it his Word From hence you inferr That either he must settle no Infallible ground at all or must say that the Tradition of the Church is that ground No Infallible ground in your sense I grant it but well enough in his own for all the difficulty lies in understanding what he means by Infallible which he takes not in your sense for a supernatural but only for a rational Infallibility not such a one as excludes possibility of deception but all reasonable doubting In which sense he saith of such things as are capable only of moral certainty That the Testimony of man will stand as a ground of Infallible assurance and presently instanceth in these That there is such a City of Rome that Pius 5. was Pope there c. So afterwards he saith That the mind of man desireth evermore to know the truth according to the most Infallible certainty which the nature of things can yield by which it is plain that the utmost certainty which things are capable of is with him Infallible certainty and so a sound and Infallible ground of Faith is a certain ground which we all assert may be had without your Churches Infallible Testimony Whether therefore Brierely and you are not guilty if
Catholick Church may be easily discerned which it is plain from the proceedings in it were as in all such emergent cases what should be determined and agreed on by the consent of the Catholick Church i. e. of those Churches which all consented in the same Catholick Faith and therefore made up one Catholick Church Now if the Church of Rome had been the center of Ecclesiastical communion and had infused Catholick unity into the Church at this time what way or possibility had there been for restoring the Churches unity Neither was the appeal made to forraign Churches meerly because Rome it self was divided and so the Controversie could not be ended there but it appears from the whole story of the proceedings that this was looked on as the proper means for preserving the unity of the Catholick Church at that time when the Faith and communion of the Apostolical Churches were so fully known and distinguished from all others These things will more fully appear from St. Cyprians Epistle to Antonianus upon the occasion of this Schism Who it seems at first adhered to Cornelius and with him to the Catholick Church not as though his joyning with Cornelius was the cause of his being with the Catholick Church but because in joyning with him he joyned with the Catholick Church which declared for him but it seems afterwards by some Letters of Novatianus he began to stagger and desires Cyprian to give him an account what Heresie Novatianus broached and what the reason was why Cornelius communicated with the lapsed persons As to which particulars he endeavours to satisfie him and withall to give an account why they joyned with Cornelius in opposition to Novatianus and what the practise of the Church was as to lapsed persons and on what reasons it was built wherein he tells him That though some of their own Bishops had formerly denyed communion to lapsed persons yet they did not recede from the Vnity of the Catholick Church or communion of their Fellowships because by them they were admitted For saith he the bond of concord remaining and the communion of the Catholick Church continuing every Bishop orders and disposeth his own actions as one that must give an account of his design to God Doth St. Cyprian here speak like one that believed the Church of Rome to be the center of Ecclesiastical communion or that the unity of the Church lay in acknowledging the Pope to be Christs Vicar or in dependence on the Church of Rome when every Bishop is left to himself and God in all such things which he may do and yet hold communion with the Catholick Church And therefore afterwards he tells us That there is one Church divided into many members throughout the world and one Episcopal office spread abroad by the consenting multitude of many Bishops If this Church be one in this sense and the whole Government of the Church but as one Bishoprick as all the Bishops unanimously consent in the management of it then here is not the least foundation for the Catholick Churches taking its denomination causally from the Roman Church and much less for the Bishops having dependence on her or relation to her Since the care and government of the Church by these words of Cyprian appears to be equally committed to all the Bishops of the Catholick Church And from thence it was that in this Epistle we read that St. Cyprian writ to the Church of Rome after the death of Fabianus to advise them what to do in the case of lapsed persons which letters of his were sent through the world which Rigaltius well observes did arise from that unity of Ecclesiastical discipline whereby Cyprian not doubting but the care of all Churches was upon him dispatched these letters to the Clergy at Rome from whence they were sent through the Catholick Church as an evidence that there was but one Episcopal office in the whole Church part of which was committed in full power to every Bishop Thus we see a quite different account given of the unity of the Catholick Church than what you from Cardinal Perron would perswade us of It being an easie matter for men of wit and parts especially such as that great Cardinal was master of to coyn distinctions to make the most absurd things seem plausible but yet when they come to be examined they are found to have no other bottom but the invention of that person who coined them And that it is so as to this distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church will be further evident from another case which happened in St. Cyprians time which was this Felicissimus and Fortunatus being cast out of communion by a Synod of African Bishops when they saw they could do little good in Africa run over to Rome and bring letters to Cornelius the Bishop there misrepresenting the whole business of their being ejected out of the Church on purpose to perswade Cornelius to admit them into communion Who at first being unwilling to hearken to them was at last by their threats and menaces brought to receive their letters Upon which St. Cyprian writes an Epistle to Cornelius wherein he tells him That if the threats of such profligate persons should relax the Churches discipline all the power and strength of it would be soon taken away that the ground of all Schism and Heresie arises from disobedience to the Bishop Certainly he doth not mean the Bishop of Rome but every Bishop in the Catholick Church for it was not Cornelius but Cyprian and the African Bishops who were disobeyed upon which he falls upon the matter of their appeal to a forraign Church and after some fair commendations of the Church of Rome the meaning of which will be afterwards examined he very sharply condemns these appeals to forraign Churches as unreasonable unjust and dishonourable to those Bishops whose sentence they appealed from For What cause saith he could these persons have of coming and declaring against their Bishops For either they are pleased in what they have done and continue in their wickedness or if they are displeased at it and recede from it they know whither to return For since it is decreed by us all and it is a thing just and reasonable in it self that every ones cause be heard where the fault was committed and every Pastour hath a part of the flock committed to him which he is to rule and govern as being to give an account of it to God it is requisite that those whom we rule over ought not to run about and break the concord of Bishops by their headdiness and subtilty but there to defend their cause where they may have accusers and witnesses of their faults Vnless it be that to a few desperate and profligate persons the authority of the Bishops of Africa seems less to them who have already sate in judgement upon them and solemnly condemned them lately for their crimes Can any thing be more express
proceeded so high in the letters of excommunication against Andronicus that he forbids all the Churches upon earth to receive him into their communion And withall adds That if any should contemn his Church because it was of a little City and should receive those who were condemned by it as though it were not necessary to obey so poor a Church he lets them know that they make a Schism in that Church which Christ would have to be one We see here on what equal terms the communion of the Catholick Church then stood when so small a Church as that of Ptolemais could so farr oblige by her act the Catholick Church that they should be guilty of Schism who admitted them to communion whom she had cast out of it If Synesius had believed the Church of Rome to have been the center of Ecclesiastical communion had it not been good manners nay duty in him to have asked first the pleasure of the Church of Rome in this case before he had passed so full and definitive a sentence as this was But the wise and great men of those ages were utterly strangers to these rare distinctions of a causal formal and participative Catholick Church It is true indeed they did then speak honourably of the Church of Rome in their age as a principal member of the Catholick Church and having advantages above other Churches by its being fixed in the seat of the Empire on which account her communion was much desired by other persons But still we find the persons most apt to extoll her Authority were such as were most obnoxious who not being able to hold any reputation in their own Churches where their crimes and scandals were sufficiently known ran presently to Rome which was ready still to take their part thereby to inhance her power as is most evident in the many disputes which arise upon such accounts between the Roman and African Bishops But these things we shall have occasion to discuss more particularly afterwards At the present it may be sufficient by these few of very many examples which might be produced to have made it appear that it was farr from being a known and received truth in the ancient Church that the Church of Rome was the center of Ecclesiastical communion or that the Church was call'd Catholick from the union with her and dependence upon her But we must now consider what strenuous proofs you produce for so confident an affirmation your instances therefore being the most pregnant to your purpose which you could find in Antiquity must be particularly examined your first is of St. Ambrose relating that his brother Satyrus going on shore in a certain City of Sardinia where he desired to be Baptized demanded of the Bishop of that City whether he consented with the Catholick Bishops that is saith he with the Roman Church These words I grant to be in St. Ambrose but whosoever throughly considers them will find how little they make for your purpose For which it will be sufficient to look on the following words which tell us that at that time there was a Schism in the Church and Sardinia was the chief seat of it For Lucifer Caralitanus had newly separated himself from the Church and had left Societies there which joyned in his Schism For Caralis was the Metropolis of Sardinia and it appears by St. Hierome that the Luciferians confined the Church only to Sardinia which is the cause of that expression of his That Christ did not come meerly for the sake of the Sardinians So that those Luciferians were much like the Donatists confining the Church only to their own number Now there being such a Schism at that time in Sardinia what did Satyrus any more then enquire whether the Bishop of the place he resorted to was guilty of this Schism or no But say you he made that the tryal whether he was a Catholick or no by asking whether he agreed with the Church of Rome To which I answer that there was very great reason for his particular instancing in the Church of Rome 1. Because Satyrus was originally of the Church of Rome himself for Paulinus in the life of S. Ambrose Satyrus his brother speaking of him after his consecration to be Bishop say's Ad urbem Romam hoc est ad natale solum perrexit He went to Rome i. e. to the place of his birth now Satyrus being originally a Roman what wonder is it that he should particularly enquire of the Roman Church As suppose one of the Gallican Church of Arles or Vienna should have been cast upon shore in another Island belonging to France at the same time and understanding there was a Schism in the place should particularly enquire whether they agreed with the Catholick Bishops i. e. with the Church of Arles or Vienna Could you hence inferr that either of these were the center of Ecclesiastical communion and if not from hence how can you from the other Or suppose in the time of the Donatists Schism in Africk a stranger coming accidentally thither and desiring communion with the Christians of that City he was in should enquire of the Bishop of the City whether he communicated with the Catholick Bishops i. e. with the Church of Hippo or Carthage Could you hence inferr that Hippo was causally the Catholick Church and if not with what reason can you do it from so parallel a case 2. Because Sardinia did belong to the Metropolitan Province of the Church of Rome it being one of the Suburbicarian Provinces under the jurisdiction of the Roman Lieutenant and consequently one of the Suburbicarian Churches appertaining to the Metropolitan power of the Bishop of Rome and therefore it was but reason to ask whether the Churches in Sardinia did agree with their Mother Church or no. But all this is very farr from implying that the Vnity of the Catholick Church comes from the particular Church of Rome on this account because at that time when the Vnity of the Catholick Church was preserved by that continual correspondence between the parts of it by the formed letters and otherwise who ever was known to have communion with any one particular Church which communicated with the rest had thereby communion with the Catholick Church So that on that account the question might as well have been asked of the Churches of Milan Agobio or any other in Italy as of the Church of Rome For whosoever communicated with any of them did communicate with the Catholick Church as well as those who did communicate with the Church of Rome So that your first instance will prove no more the Church of Rome to be the fountain and center of Ecclesiastical communion then any other particular Church Your second is from St. Hieromes saying That the Church of Alexandria made it her glory to participate of the Roman Faith But doth it hence follow that the Church of Alexandria was therefore Catholick because she participated of
was to shew that their Church from which the Donatists separated was the true Catholick Church which he proves from their communion with all the Apostolical Churches which had a clear and distinct succession from the Apostles their planters And because of the Vicinity and Fame of Rome and the easier knowing the succession there he instanceth in that in the first place and then proceeds to the rest of them But withall to shew the Vnity of all these Apostolical Churches when he had mentioned Siricius as the present Bishop of Rome he adds That all the world agreed with him in the entercourse of the formed Letters not thereby intimating any supremacy of that Church above others but to shew that that succession he instanceth in at Rome was of the Catholick Church because the whole Christian world did agree in Communion with him that was the Bishop there And when he speaks of one chair it is plain he means it of the particular Church of Rome because every Apostolical Church had an Apostolical Chair belonging to it So Tertullian expresly That in all the Apostolical Churches there were their Chairs still remaining And Eusebius particularly mentions the Apostolical Throne or Chair at Hierusalem as others do that of Mark at Alexandria and of the rest elsewhere Nothing then can possibly be inferred from these words of Optatus concerning the Church of Rome but what would equally hold for any other Apostolical Church and how much that is let the Reader judge And how much soever it be it will be very little for your advantage who pretend to something peculiar to the Church of Rome above all other Churches From Optatus you proceed or rather return to S. Hierom who say you professes the Church is built upon S. Peter 's See and that whoever eats the Lamb that is pretends to believe in Christ and partakes of the Sacraments out of that house that is out of the communion of that Church is prophane and an Alien yea that he belongs to Antichrist and not to Christ whoever consents not with the successor of S. Peter This Testimony sounds big and high at first and I shall not impute these expressions either to S. Hierome's heat or his flattery although it looks the more suspicious because at that time he had so great a pique against the Eastern Bishops and that these words are contained in a complemental address to Damasus But setting aside what advantages might be gained on that account to weaken the force of this Testimony if we consider the occasion or nature of these expressions we shall find that they reach not the purpose you design them for We must therefore consider that at the time of the writing this Epistle S. Hierom seems to be in a great perplexity what to do in that division which was then in the Church of Antioch concerning Paulinus Vitalis and Miletius but besides this Schism it seems S. Hierom suspected some remainders of Arrianism to be still among them from their demanding of him Whether he acknowledged three distinct hypostases in the Trinity Now S. Hierom by hypostasis understands the essence as many of the Greek Fathers did and thence the Sardian Council defined That there was but one hypostasis of the Father Son and Spirit and therefore he suspects that when they require of him the acknowledgement of three hypostases they might design to entrap him and unawares betray him into Arrianism And therefore argues stifly in the remainder of that Epistle that hypostasis properly signifies essence and nothing else and from thence urgeth the inconvenience of admitting the terms of three hypostases Now S. Hierom being thus set upon by these Eastern Bishops he keeps off from communion with them and adviseth with the Aegyptian Confessors and follows them at present but having received his Baptism in the Church of Rome and being looked on as a Roman where he was he thought it necessary to address himself to Pope Damasus to know what he should do in this case And the rather because if S. Hierom had consented with them they would have looked on it as an evidence of the agreement of the Roman Church with them Therefore he so earnestly and importunately writes to Damasus concerning it as being originally part of his charge having been baptized in that Church But say you whatever the occasion of the words were Is it not plain that he makes the Church to be built on S. Peter's See and that whosoever is out of the communion of that Church is an Alien and belongs to Antichrist To that therefore I answer 1. That he doth not say that the Catholick Church is built on the particular Church of Rome for it is not super hanc Petram as referring to the Cathedra immediately preceding but super illam and therefore it is not improbably supposed by some that the Rock here referrs to Christ. And although Erasmus doth imagine that some particular priviledge and dignity did belong to Rome above other Churches from this place which is not the thing we contend about yet withall he sayes that by the Rock we must not understand Rome for that may degenerate but we must understand that Faith which Peter professed And it is a much easier matter for Marianus Victorius to tell him he lyes as he doth here in plain terms than to be able to confute what he saith And that the rather because he begins his discourse in that manner Ego nullum primum nisi Christum sequens whereby he attributes the supreme power and infallible judgement in the Church only to Christ. For as for your learned correction of praemium for primum though you follow Cardinal Perron in it yet it is without any probability at all it being contrary to all the MSS. used by Erasmus Victorius Gravius Possevin and others and hath no authority to vouch it but only Gratian who is condemned by your own Writers for a falsifier and corrupter of Authours 2. I answer when S. Hierom pronounces those Aliens and prophane who are out of the communion of the Church either it belongs not to the particular Church of Rome or if it doth it makes not much for your purpose 1. There is no certainty that he there speaks of the particular Church of Rome but that he rather speaks of the true Vniversal Church for it is plain he speaks of that Church which is built upon the Rock now by your own confession that cannot be the Church of Rome for that you suppose to be the Rock it self viz. the See of Peter and therefore the Church built upon it must be the Vniversal Church And that this must be his meaning appears from his plain words for he saith Vpon that Rock the Church is built and whosoever eats the Lamb without this house is prophane he cannot certainly mean Whosoever eats without the Rock but without the house built upon it so that the house in the latter clause
considering them any further than hath been done already in the very entrance into this Conference And here you tell us You now come to perform your Promise viz. to examine more fully his Lordships pretended solutions as you call them of Bellarmine 's authorities in behalf of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome But for all your boasting at first what great things you would do you seem a little fearful of engaging too far and therefore are resolved only to maintain them in general as they make for the Infallible Authority of the Church or of the Pope defining Articles of Faith in a General Council But as far as you dare go I shall attend your motions and doubt not to make it evident that none of these authorities have any reference to that sense which you only offer to maintain them in and that though they had yet no such thing as Infallibility can be proved out of them The first authority is out of S. Cyprian's Letter to Cornelius Bishop of Rome whose words I am contented should be recited as fully as may be In which he chargeth Felicissimus and Fortunatus with their complices that having set up a Bishop against him at Carthage they sail to the chair of Peter and the principal Church from whence the sacerdotal Vnity had its rise and carry Letters from prophane and Schismatical persons not considering that the Romans whose Faith was commended by the Apostle were such to whom perfidiousness could not have access Now the meaning of this place you would have to be this and no other viz. that the See of S. Peter which is the principal of all Churches was so infallibly directed by the Holy Ghost that no errour in Faith could have access to it or be admitted by it if not as a particular Church yet at least as the Head of the Vniversal Church of Christ and as the Fountain of Priestly Vnity which S. Cyprian here expresly affirms that Church and See to be This you summe up at last as the most which can be made of this Testimony and which is indeed far more in all particulars than it can amount to Which will appear by particular examinations of what you return in answer to his Lordship Three things his Lordship answers to this place 1. That perfidia can hardly stand here for errour in Faith and if so then this can make nothing for Infallibility 2. That supposing it granted to signifie errour in Faith and Doctrine yet it belongs not to the Romans absolutely but with a respect to those first Romans whose Faith was commended by the Apostle 3. That it seems to be rather a Rhetorical insinuation than a dogmatical assertion And that S. Cyprian could not be supposed to assert herein the Popes Infallibility appears by the contracts between him and the Bishops of Rome This is the short of his Lordships answers to this place to which we must consider what you reply 1. His Lordship sayes That perfidia can hardly stand for errour in Faith or misbelief but it properly signifies malicious falshood in matter of trust and action not error in Faith but in fact against the discipline and Government of the Church And to make this interpretation appear the more probable his Lordship gives an account of the story which was the occasion of writing that Epistle which is this as his Lordship reports it from Binius and Baronius In the year 255. there was a Council in Carthage in the cause of two Schismaticks Felicissimus and Novatian about restoring of them to the communion of the Church which had lapsed in time of danger from Christianity to Idolatry Felicissimus would admit all even without penance and Novatian would admit none no not after penance The Fathers 42 in number went as Truth led them between both extreams To this Council came Privatus a known Heretick but was not admitted because he was formerly excommunicated and often condemned Hereupon he gathers his Complices together and chooses one Fortunatus who was formerly condemned as well as himself Bishop of Carthage and set him up against St. Cyprian This done Felicissimus and his Fellows haste to Rome with letters testimonial from their own party and pretend that 25 Bishops concurred with them and their desire was to be received into the communion of the Roman Church and to have their new Bishop acknowledged Cornelius then Pope though their haste had now prevented St. Cyprians letters having formerly heard from him both of them and their Schism in Africk would neither hear them nor receive their letters They grew insolent and furious the ordinary way that Schismaticks take Vpon this Cornelius writes to St. Cyprian and St. Cyprian in this Epistle gives Cornelius thanks for refusing these African fugitives declares their Schism and wickedness at large and encourages him and all Bishops to maintain the Ecclesiastical Discipline and censures against any the boldest threatnings of wicked Schismaticks This being the story his Lordship sayes He would fain know why perfidia all circumstances considered may not stand here in its proper sense for cunning and perfidious dealing which these men having practised at Carthage thought now to obtrude upon the Bishop of Rome also but that he was wary enough not to be over-reached by busie Schismaticks This demand of his Lordship seeming very just and reasonable we are bound to consider what reasons you give why perfidia must be understood for errour in Faith and not in the sense here mentioned Why calls he say you St. Peters chair Ecclesiam principalem the chief Church but because it is the head to which all other Churches must be subordinate in matter of doctrine the words following signifie as much Unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est from which chair of St. Peter as it were from its fountain unity in Priesthood and consequently unity in Faith is derived Why brings he the Apostle as Panegyrist of the Roman Faith Is it forsooth because no malicious falshood in matter of trust or errour in fact against the Discipline and Government of the Church can have access unto them as the Bishop will needs misinterpret the place or rather because no errour in Faith can approach the See Apostolick Certain it is perfidia in this sense is diametrically opposed to the Faith of the Romans immediately before commended by the Apostle which was true Christian Faith and consequently it must of necessity be taken for the quite contrary viz. misbelief or errour in Faith Three Arguments in these words you produce why perfidia must be understood of errour in Faith 1. Because the Church of Rome is called the chief Church but is it not possible it should be called so in any other sense but as the head of all other Churches in matter of doctrine Is it not sufficiently clear from Antiquity that there were other accounts of calling the Church of Rome the chief or principal Church as the eminency of it joyned
with the power of the City the potentior principalitas in Irenaeus which advanced its reputation to the height it was then at What matters of doctrine do you find brought to the Church of Rome to be Infallibly decided there in St. Cyprians time how little did St. Cyprian believe this when he so vehemently opposed the judgement of Stephen Bishop of Rome in the case of rebaptization Doth he write speak or carry himself in that Controversie like one that owned that Church of Rome to be head of all other Churches to which they must be subordinate in matter of doctrine Nay in the very next words St. Cyprian argues against appeals to Rome and is it possible then to think that in these words he should give such an absolute power and authority to it And therefore any one who would reconcile St. Cyprian to himself must by those words of Ecclesia principalis only understand the dignity and eminency and not the power much less the Infallibility of the Church of Rome And no more is implyed in the Second That it is said to be the fountain of Sacerdotal Vnity which some think may probably referr to the Priesthood of the Church of Africk which had its rise from the Church of Rome as appears by Tertullian and others in which sense he might very well say that the Vnity of the Priesthood did spring from thence or if it be taken in a more large and comprehensive sense it can import no more then that the Church of Rome was owned as the Principium Vnitatis which certainly is a very different thing from an infallible judgement in matters of Faith For what connexion is there between Vnity in Government and Infallibility in Faith Suppose the Church of Rome should be owned as the principal Member of the Catholick Church and therefore that the Vnity of the Church should begin there in regard of the dignity of it doth it thence follow that there must be an absolute subordination of all other Churches to it Nothing then can be inferr'd from either of those particulars that by perfidia errour in Faith must be understood taking those two expressions in the most favourable sense that can be put upon them But considering the present state of the Church of Rome at the time when Felicissimus and Fortunatus came thither I am apt to think another interpretation more probable than either of the foregoing For which we must remember that there was a Schism at Rome between Novatianus and Cornelius the former challenging to be Bishop there as well as the latter upon which a great breach was made among them Now these persons going out of Africa to Rome that they might manage their business with the more advantage address themselves to Cornelius and his party upon which St. Cyprian saith Navigare audent ad Petri Cathedram atque ad Ecclesiam principalem unde Vnitas sacerdotalis exorta est thereby expressing their confidence that they not only went to Rome but when they were there they did not presently side with the Schismatical party of the Novatians there but as though they had been true Catholicks they go to Cornelius who being the legal successour of St. Peter in opposition to Novatianus calls his See the chair of St. Peter and the principal Church and the spring of the Vnity of the Priesthood because the contrary party of Novatianus had been the cause of all the Schism and disunion which had been among them And in this sense which seems very agreeable to St. Cyprians words and design we may easily understand what this perfidia was viz. that falseness and perfidious dealing of these persons that although they were Schismaticks themselves yet they were so farr from seeming so at their coming to Rome that as though they had been very good Catholicks they seek to joyn in communion with Cornelius and the Catholick party with him By which we see what little probability there is from those expressions that perfidia must be taken for an errour in Faith But 3. You say To what purpose else doth he mention St. Pauls commendation of their Faith if this perfidia were not immediately opposite to it But then inform us what part of that Apostolical Faith was it which Felicissimus and Fortunatus sought to violate at Rome It is apparent their whole design was to be admitted into communion with the Church of Rome which in all probability is that access here spoken of if therefore this perfidia imported some errour in Faith it must be some errour broached by those particular persons as contrary to the old Roman Faith which was extold by the Apostle And although these persons might be guilty of errours yet the ground of their going to Rome was not upon any matter of Doctrine whereby they sought to corrupt the Church of Rome but in order to the justifying of their Schism by being admitted into the communion of that Church Notwithstanding then any thing you have produced to the contrary there is no necessity of understanding perfidia for an errour in matter of Faith And St. Cyprians mentioning the praise given to the Romans for their Faith by the Apostle was not to shew the opposition between that and the perfidia as an errour in Faith but that being the greatest Elogium of the Church of Rome extant in Scripture he thought it now most convenient to use it the better to engage Cornelius to oppose the proceedings of the Schismaticks there Although withall I suppose St. Cyprian might give him some taste of his old office of a Rhetorician in the allusion between fides and perfidia without ever intending that perfidia should be taken in any other sense then what was proper to the cause in hand You having effected so little in the solution of his Lordships first answer you have little cause to boast in your following words That hence his other explication also vanishes into smoak viz. when he asserts that Perfidia non potest may be taken hyperbolically for non facile potest because this interpretation suits not with those high Elogiums given by St. Cyprian to the Roman Church as being the principal Church the Church whence Vnity of Faith and Discipline is derived to all other Christian Churches If you indeed may have the liberty to interpret St. Cyprians words as you please by adding such things to them of which there is no intimation in what he saith you may make what you please unsuitable to them For although he calls it the principal Church from whence the Vnity of the Priesthood is sprung yet what is this to the Vnity of Faith and Discipline as derived from thence to all other Churches as you would perswade the unwary reader that these were St. Cyprians words which are only your groundless interpretation of them And therefore there is no such improbability in what his Lordship sayes That this may be only a Rhetorical excess of speech in which St. Cyprian may
Cyprian The second Authority is out of St. Hierome whose words are The Roman Faith commended by the Apostle admits not such praestigiae deceits and delusions into it though an Angel should Preach it otherwise than it was Preached at first being armed and fenced by St. Pauls Authority it cannot be changed Here you tell us You willingly agree with his Lordship that by Romanam fidem St. Hierom understands the Catholick Faith of Christ and so you concur with him against Bellarmine that it cannot be understood of the particular Church of Rome But by the way you charge your Adversaries with great inconsequence that in this place they make Roman and Catholick to be the same and yet usually condemn you for joyning as Synonyma 's Roman and Catholick together A wonderful want of judgement as though the Roman Faith might not be the Catholick Faith then and yet the Catholick Faith not be the Roman Faith now The former speech only affirms that the Faith at Rome was truly Catholick the latter implyes that no Faith can be Catholick but what agrees with Rome and think you there is no difference between these two But you say further That this Catholick Faith must not here be taken abstractly that so it cannot be changed for Ruffinus was not ignorant of that but that it must be understood of the immutable Faith of the See Apostolick so highly commended by the Apostle and St. Hierom which is founded upon such a rock that even an Angel himself is not able to shake it But St. Hierom speaking this with a reference to that Faith he supposeth the Apostle commended in them although the Apostle doth not so much commend the Catholickness or soundness of their Faith as the act of believing in them and therefore whatever is drawn from thence whether by St. Hierome or any else can have no force in it for if he should infeâ— the immutability of the Faith of the Church of Rome from so apparently weak a foundation there can be no greater strength in his testimony than there is in the ground on which it is built and if there be any force in this Argument the Church of Thessalonica will be as Infallible as Rome for her Faith is commended rather in a more ample manner by the Apostle then that of Rome is St. Hierome I say referring to that Faith he supposes the Apostle commended in them must only be understood of the unchangeableness of that first Faith which appears by the mention of an Angel from Heaven Preaching otherwise Which certainly cannot with any tolerable sense be meant thus that St. Hierome supposed it beyond the power of an Angel from Heaven to alter the Faith of the Roman Church For in the very same Apology he expresseth his great fears lest the Faith of the Romans should be corrupted by the Books of Ruffinus But say you What is this then to Ruffinus who knew as well as St. Hierom that Faith could not change its essence However though St. Hierome should here speak of the Primitive and Apostolical Faith which was then received at Rome that this could receive no alteration yet this was very pertinent to be told Ruffinus because St. Hierome charges him with an endeavour to subvert the Faith not meerly at Rome but in all other places by publishing the Books of Origen with an Encomiastick Preface to them and therefore the telling him The Catholick Faith would admit of no alteration which was received at Rome as elsewhere might be an Argument to discourage him from any attempts of that nature And the main charge against Ruffinus is not an endeavour to subvert meerly the people of Rome but the Latin Church by his translation and therefore these words ought to be taken in their greatest latitude and so imply not at all any Infallibility in the Roman See The remaining Testimonies of Gregory Nazianzene Cyril and Ruffinus as appears to any one who reads them only import that the Roman Church had to their time preserved the Catholick Faith but they do not assert it impossible it should ever do otherwise or that she is an Infallible preserver of it and none of their Testimonies are so proper to the Church of Rome but they would equally hold for any other Apostolical Churches at that time Gregory Nazianzene indeed sayes That it would become the Church of Rome to hold the entire Faith alwayes and would it not become any other Church to do so to doth this import that she shall Infallibly do it or rather that it is her duty to do it And if these then be such pregnant Authorities with you it is a sign there is little or nothing to be found in Antiquity for your purpose But before we end this Chapter we are called to a new task on occasion of a Testimony of St. Cyril produced by his Lordship in stead of that in Bellarmin which appeared not in that Chapter where his Name is mentioned In which he asserts That the foundation and firmness which the Church of Christ hath is placed not in or upon the person much less the Successour of St. Peter but upon the Faith which by Gods Spirit in him he so firmly professed which saith his Lordship is the common received opinion both of the ancient Fathers and of the Protestants Vpon this Rock that is upon this Faith will I build my Church On which occasion you run presently out into that large common place concerning Tu es Petrus and super hanc Petram and although I should grant all that you so earnestly contend for viz. That these words are not spoken of St. Peters Confession but of his Person I know no advantage which will accrue to your cause by it For although very many of the Fathers understand this place of St. Peters Confession as containing in it the ground and Foundation of Christian Religion Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God which therefore may well be said to be the Rock on which Christ would build his Church and although it were no matter of difficulty to defend this interpretation from all exceptions yet because I think it not improbable the words running by way of address to St. Peter that something peculiar to him is contained in them I shall not contend with you about that But then if you say that the meaning of St. Peters being the Rock is The constant Infallibility in Faith which was derived from St. Peter to the Church of Rome as you seem to suggest you must remember you have a new task to make good and it is not saying That St. Peter was meant by the Rock will come within some leagues of doing it I pass therefore by that discourse as a thing we are not much concerned in for it is brought in by his Lordship as the last thing out of that testimony of Cyril but you were contented to let go the other more material Observations that you might more
which needed Reformation And although it be plainly affirmed that Judah kept not the commands of the Lord their God but walked in the statutes of Israel which they had made yet you who it seems knew Judah's Innocency better than God or the Prophets did say very magisterially That as long as she was united with her Head the High-Priest What need I pray was there of her Reformation And this being the case of Judah I may easily grant you That Judah is not the Protestant party but that of the Roman Church i. e. while Judah was under her corruptions and yet you say She needed no Reformation she is the fittest parallel you could think of for your Church but we pretend to no parallel between Judah and the Protestant party in not needing a Reformation but in her power to reform her self Which we say still that she had though Israel would not joyn with her by virtue of these words of the Prophet Though Israel transgress yet let not Judah sin thereby manifesting that though the greatest part was degenerated in the ten Tribes yet Judah might prevent the same in her self by reforming those abuses which were crept among them And therefore the sense of those words Let not Judah sin must in this case imply a power to reform her self If therefore we speak of Judah degenerated we grant the parallel lyes wholly between Judah and the Church of Rome for although there were great corruptions in Judah and as great in your Church yet with the same reason you say That neither needed Reformation But if we speak of Judah reforming her self under Hezekiah then we say The parallel lyes between Judah and the Protestant party whatever you say to the contrary But you shrewdly ask If you be Judah Who I pray are the revolted ten Tribes Who are of Jeroboams Cabal Even they who set up the Calves at Dan and Bethel Such who worship Images instead of the true God though they intend them only as Symbols of the Divine Presence for no more did Jeroboam and the Israelites intend by their Calves and there is no pretence which you use to justifie your selves from Idolatry but will excuse Jeroboam and the ten Tribes from it If the Protestant party then be Judah it is easie finding out the revolted ten Tribes and Jeroboams Cabal the Court of Rome answering to this as the Church of Rome doth to the other But we cannot be Judah because we left the Catholick Jerusalem that is Rome the City of Peace By whom I pray was Rome christened The Catholick Jerusalem For if we consider the worship there used and the politick ends of it it much more looks like Samaria or Dan and Bethel If Rome be our Catholick Jerusalem shew us When God made choice of that for the peculiar place of his Worship Where we are commanded to resort thither for Divine Worship When God placed his Name there as he did of old in Jerusalem When you have shewed us these things we may think the worse of our selves for leaving Rome but not before And let the world judge Whether it be more likely one should meet with the worship of Golden Calves at Rome or among the Protestants It is you who have found out new Sacrifices new Objects of Worship new Rites and Ceremonies in it new Altars and consequently new Priests too and yet for all this you must be orthodox Judah which needed no Reformation And who I pray do in point of obedience most resemble the ten Tribes Have not you set up a spiritual Jeroboam as a new Head of the Church in opposition to the Son of David And that you may advance the Interest of this spiritual Head you raise his authority far above that of Kings and Temporal Princes whom you ought to be subject to declaring it in his power to excommunicate depose and absolve subjects from obedience to them And therefore is not the parallel between the ten Tribes and the Church of Rome very pat and much to the purpose But when you would seem to return this upon us by a false and scurrilous parallel between Jeroboam and that excellent Princess Queen Elizabeth in the Reformation of the Church of England you only betray the badness of your cause which makes detractions so necessary to maintain it For as her title to the Crown was undoubted so her proceedings in the Reformation were such as are warranted by the Law of God and the Nation and her carriage in her reign towards Jesuits and Priests no other than what the apparent necessity of her own and her Kingdoms preservation put her upon But if she must be accounted like Jeroboam for banishing Priests and Jesuits often convicted of treasonable practices upon pain of death if they were found in England What must we think of the Catholick Jerusalem the City of Peace that sweet and gentle Mother the Church of Rome that hath carried her self so peaceably towards those who have dissented from her Witness the blood of so many hundred thousands which she hath imbrued her hands in meerly for opposing her doctrines and superstitions witness that excellent School of Humanity the Inquisition and the easie Lessons she teaches those who come under her discipline there witness the proceedings in England in the daies of Queen Mary and then let any judge if the parallel must be carried by cruelty towards dissenters which of their two Reigns came the nearest that of Jeroboam The only true words then that you say are but enough of this parallel and more than enough too of such impudent slanders against the memory of that famous Queen But your Church would have been more unlike the ten Tribes if there had not been a lying Prophet there You dispute very manfully against his Lordship for asserting That Israel remained a Church after the separation between Judah and the ten Tribes and yet after you have spent many words about it you yield all that he asserts when you say That in a general sense they were called the people of God as they were Abrahams seed according to the flesh by reason of the promise made to Abraham I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee And what is there more than this that his Lordship contends for for he never dreamt that the ten Tribes were Abraham's seed according to the Spirit but only sayes That there was salvation for those thousands that had not bowed their knees to Baal which cannot be in the ordinary way where there is no Church And if as you say Abrahams seed only according to the Spirit i. e. the faithful make the true Church then it follows Where there were so many faithful there must needs be a true Church And thus for any thing you have said to the contrary his Lordships argument from the case of Judah holds for every particular Churches power to reform it self when the General will not reform His Lordship further argues
imposed those things which had been before only the errours of particular persons as the Catholick Doctrines of that Church and the necessary conditions of Communion with her 3. I may answer yet further That it is not enough to prove any Doctrine to be Catholick that it was generally received by Christian Churches in any one Age but it must be made appear to have been so received from the Apostles times So that if we should grant that these Doctrines were owned for Catholick not only by the Church of Rome but all other Christian Churches so far as it can be discerned by their Communion yet this doth not prove these Doctrines so owned to be truly Catholick unless you can first prove that all the Christian Churches of one Age can never believe a Doctrine to be Catholick which is not so You see therefore your task increases further upon you for it is not enough to say That A. D. 1517. such and such Doctrines were looked on as Catholick and therefore they were so but that for 1517. years successively from the Apostles to that time they were judged to be so and then we shall more easily believe you When you will therefore prove Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass Image-worship Invocation of Saints or any other of the good Doctrines mentioned by you in a constant tradition from the Apostles times to have been looked on as Catholick Doctrines you may then say That Protestants in denying these did take away something Catholick from the Doctrine of the Church but till that time these Answers may abundantly suffice We now come closer to the business of the Reformation but before we examine the particulars of it the general grounds on which it proceeded must somewhat further be cleared which his Lordship tells you are built upon the power of particular Churches reforming themselves in case the whole Church is negligent or will not to which you say That you grant in effect as great power as the Bishop himself does to particular Churches to National and Provincial Councils in reforming errours and abuses either of doctrine or practice only we require that they proceed with due respect to the chief Pastor of the Church and have recourse to him in all matters and decrees of Faith especially when they define or declare points not generally known and acknowledged to be Catholick Truths What you grant in effect at first you in effect deny again afterwards For the Question is about Reformation of such errours and abuses as may come from the Church of Rome and when you grant a power to reform only in case the Pope consent you grant no power to reform at all For the experience of the world hath sufficiently taught us How little his consent is to be expected in any thing of Reformation For his Lordship truly saith in Answer to Capellus who denies particular Churches any power of making Canons of Faith without consulting the Roman See That as Capellus can never prove that the Roman See must be consulted with before any Reformation be made So it is as certain that were it proved and practised we should have no Reformation For it would be long enough before the Church should be cured if that See alone should be her Physitian which in truth is her disease Now to this you say That even Capellus himself requires this as though Capellus were not the man whom his Lordship answers as to this very thing But besides you say The practise of the Church is evident for it in the examples of the Milevitan and Carthaginian Councils which as St. Austin witnesseth sent their decrees touching Grace Original sin in Infants and other matters against Pelagius to be confirmed by the Pope but what is all this to the business of Reformation that nothing of that nature is to be attempted without the Popes consent That these Councils did by Julius an African Bishop communicate their decrees to Pope Innocent Who denyes but what is it you would thence infer to your purpose for the utmost which can be drawn hence is that they desired the Pope to contribute his assistance in condemning Pelagius and Coelestius by adding the authority of the Apostolical See to their decrees that so by the consent of the Church that growing Heresie might the more easily be suppressed And who denyes but at that time the Roman Church had great reputation which is all that Authority implyes and by that means might be more serviceable in preventing the growth of Pelagianism if it did concur with the African Councils in condemning that Doctrine But because they communicated their decrees to Pope Innocent desiring his consent with them that therefore no reformation should be attempted in the Church without the consent of the Pope is a very far-fetched inference and unhappily drawn from those African Fathers who so stoutly opposed Zosimus Innocents Successour in the case of Appeals about the business of Apiarius Did they think you look on themselves as obliged to do nothing in the reforming the Church without the Popes authority who would by no means yield to those encroachments of power which Zosimus would have usurped over them Nay it appears that till the African Fathers had better informed him Zosimus did not a little favour Coelestius himself and in case he had gone on so to do do you think they would have thought themselves ever the less obliged to reform their Churches from the Pelagian Heresie which began to spread among them And in this time of the Controversie between Zosimus and them though they carried it with all fairness towards the Roman See yet they were still careful to preserve and defend their own priviledges and in case the Pope should then have challenged that power over them which he hath done since no doubt they would not have struck at calling such incroachments The disease of the Church without any unhandsomness or incivility and would have been far from looking on him as the only Physitian of it To that pretence That things should have been born with till the time of a General Council his Lordship answers First 't is true a General Council free and entire would have been the best remedy and most able for a Gangrene that had spread so far and eaten so deep into Christianity But what should we have suffered this Gangrene to endanger life and all rather then be cured in time by a Physitian of weaker knowledge and a less able hand Secondly we live to see since if we had stayed and expected a General Council what manner of one we should have had if any For that at Trent was neither General nor free And for the errours which Rome had contracted it confirmed them it cured them not And yet I much doubt whether ever that Council such as it was would have been call'd if some Provincial and National Synods under Supreme and Regal power had not first set upon this great work of Reformation which
the sad complaints of the usurpations and abuses which were in it and these abundantly delivered by Classical Authors of both the present and precedent times and to use more of your own words all Ecclesiastical Monuments are full of them so that this is no false calumny or bitter Pasquil as you call it but a very plain and evident truth But that there was likewise a great deal of art subtilty and fraud used in the getting keeping and managing the Popes power he hath but a small measure of wit who doth not understand and they as little of honesty who dare not confess it CHAP. V. Of the Roman Churches Authority The Question concerning the Church of Rome's Authority entred upon How far our Church in reforming her self condemns the Church of Rome The Pope's equality with other Patriarchs asserted The Arabick Canons of the Nicene Council proved to be supposititious The Polity of the Ancient Church discovered from the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice The Rights of Primates and Metropolitans settled by it The suitableness of the Ecclesiastical to the Civil Government That the Bishop of Rome had then a limited Jurisdiction within the suburbicary Churches as Primate of the Roman Diocese Of the Cyprian Priviledge that it was not peculiar but common to all Primates of Dioceses Of the Pope's Primacy according to the Canons how far pertinent to our dispute How far the Pope's Confirmation requisite to new elected Patriarchs Of the Synodical and Communicatory Letters The testimonies of Petrus de Marcâ concerning the Pope's Power of confirming and deposing Bishops The Instances brought for it considered The case of Athanasius being restored by Julius truly stated The proceedings of Constantine in the case of the Donatists cleared and the evidence thence against the Pope's Supremacy Of the Appeals of Bishops to Rome how far allowed by the Canons of the Church The great case of Appeals between the Roman and African Bishops discussed That the Appeals of Bishops were prohibited as well as those of the inferiour Clergy C's fraud in citing the Epistle of the African Bishops for acknowledging Appeals to Rome The contrary manifested from the same Epistle to Boniface and the other to Coelestine The exemption of the Ancient Britannick Church from any subjection to the See of Rome asserted The case of Wilfrids Appeal answered The Primacy of England not derived from Gregory's Grant to Augustine the Monk The Ancient Primacy of the Britannick Church not lost upon the Saxon Conversion Of the state of the African Churches after their denying Appeals to Rome The rise of the Pope's Greatness under Christian Emperours Of the Decree of the Sardican Synod in case of Appeals Whether ever received by the Church No evidence thence of the Pope's Supremacy Zosimus his forgery in sending the Sardican Canons instead of the Nicene The weakness of the pleas for it manifested THat which now remains to be discussed in the Question of Schism is concerning the Authority of the Church and Bishop of Rome Whether that be so large and extensive as to bind us to an universal submission so that by renouncing of it we violate the Vnity of the Church and are thereby guilty of Schism But before we come to a particular discussion of that we must cast our eyes back on the precedent Chapter in which the title promiseth us That Protestants should be further convinced of Schism but upon examination of it there appears not so much as the shadow of any new matter but it wholly depends upon principles already refuted and so contains a bare repetition of what hath been abundantly answered in the first part So your first Section hath no more of strength than what lyes in your Churches Infallibility For when you would plead That though the Church of Rome be the accused party yet she may judge in her own cause you do it upon this ground That you had already proved the Roman Church to be infallible and therefore your Church might as well condemn her accusers as the Apostles theirs and that Protestants not pretending Infallibility cannot rationally be permitted to be Accusers and Witnesses against the Roman Church Now What doth all this come to in case your Church be not infallible as we have evidently proved she is not in the first part and that she is so far from it that she hath most grosly erred as we shall prove in the third part Your second Section supposes the matter of fact evident That Protestants did contradict the publick Doctrine and belief of all Christians generally throughout the world which we have lately proved to be an egregious falsity and shall do more afterwards The cause of the Separatists and the Church of England is vastly different Whether wee look on the authority cause or manner of their proceedings and in your other Instances you still beg the Question That your Church is our Mother-Church and therefore we are bound to submit to her judgement though she be the accused party But as to this whole business of Quô Judice nothing can be spoken with more solidity and satisfaction than what his Lordship saith If it be a cause common to both as certain it is here between the Protestant and Roman Church then neither part alone may be Judge if neither alone may judge then either they must be judged by a third which stands indifferent to both and that is the Scripture or if there be a jealousie or a doubt of the sense of the Scripture they must either both repair to the Exposition of the Primitive Church and submit to that or both call and submit to a General Council which shall be lawfully called and fairly and freely held with indifferency to all parties and that must judge the Difference according to Scripture which must be their Rule as well as private mens When you either attempt to shew the unreasonableness of this or substitute any thing more reasonable instead of it you may expect a further Answer to the Question Quô Judice as far as it concerns the difference between your Church or ours The remainder of this whole Chapter is only a repetition of somewhat concerning Fundamentals and a further expatiating in words without the addition of any more strength from reason or authority upon the Churches Infallibility being proved from Scripture which having been throughly considered already and an account given not only of the meaning of those places one excepted which we shall meet with again but of the reason Why the sense of them as to Infallibility should be restrained to the Apostles I find no sufficient motive inducing me to follow you in distrusting the Readers memory and trespassing on his patience so much as to inculcate the same things over and over as you do Passing by therefore the things already handled and leaving the rest if any such thing appear to a more convenient place where these very places of Scripture are again brought upon
but it belonged likewise to him to depose unworthy ones and restore the unjustly deposed by others We read of no less then eight several Patriarchs of Constantinople deposed by the Bishop of Rome Sixtus the third deposed also Polychronius Bishop of Hierusalem as his Acts set down in the first Tome of the Councils testifie On the contrary Athanasius Patriarch of Alexandria and Paulus Bishop of Constantinople were by Julius the first restored to their respective Sees having been unjustly expelled by Hereticks The same might be said of divers others over whom the Pope did exercise the like authority which he could never have done upon any other ground then that of Divine Right and as being generally acknowledged St. Peters Successour in the Government of the whole Church Three things I shall return you in Answer to this Discourse 1. That the practise of the Church doth not shew any such inequality as you contend for between the Pope and other Patriarchs 2. That no such practise of the Church can be proved from the instances by you brought And therefore lastly It by no means follows that the Pope exercised any such authority by Divine right or was acknowledged to be St. Peters Successour in the Government of the whole Church I begin with the practice of the ancient Church which is so far from being an evidence of such an inequality of Patriarchs as that you contend for that nothing doth more confirm that which his Lordship saith concerning the equality of them then that doth For which we appeal to that famous testimony to this purpose in the sixth Canon of the Nicene Council Let ancient customes prevail according to which let the Bishop of Alexandria have power over them who are in Aegypt Libya and Pentapolis because this was likewise the custome for the Bishop of Rome And accordingly in Antioch and other Provinces let the priviledges be preserved to the Churches Which Canon is the more remarkable because it is the first that ever was made by the ancient Church for regulating the rights and priviledges of Churches over each other which there was like to be now more contest about not only by reason of the Churches liberty under Constantine but because of the new disposition of the Empire by him which was made not long before the sitting of the Council of Nice But the particular occasion of this Canon is generally supposed to be this Meletius an ambitious Bishop in Aegypt much about the time that Arrius broached his Heresie at Alexandria takes upon him to ordain Bishops and others in Aegypt without the consent of the Bishop of Alexandria This case being brought before the Nicene Fathers they pronounce these ordinations null depose Meletius and to prevent the like practises for the future do by this Canon confirm the ancient customs of that nature in the Church so that the Bishop of Alexandria should enjoy as full right and power over the Provinces of Aegypt Libya and Pentapolis as the Bishop of Rome had over those subject to him as likewise Antioch and other Churches should enjoy their former priviledges Where we plainly see that the ground of this extent of power is not attributed to any Divine right of the Bishop of Rome or any other Metropolitan but to the ancient custome of the Church whereby it had obtained that such Churches that were deduced as it were so many colonies from the Mother-Church should retain so much respect to and dependence upon her as not to receive any Bishop into them without the consent of that Bishop who governed in the Metropolis Which was the prime reason of the subordination of those lesser Churches to the Metropolis And this custome being drawn down from the first plantation of Churches and likewise much conducing to the preserving of unity in them these Nicene Fathers saw no reason to alter it but much to confirm it For otherwise there might have been continual bandying and opposition of lesser Bishops and Churches against the greater and therefore the Discipline and Vnity of the Church did call for this subordination which could not be better determined then by the ancient custome which had obtained in the several Churches It being found most convenient that the Churches in their subordination should be most agreeable to the civil disposition of the Empire And therefore for our better understanding the force and effect of this Nicene Canon we must cast our eye a little upon the civil disposition of the Roman Empire by Constantine then lately altered from the former disposition of it under Augustus and Adrian He therefore distributed the administration of the Government of the Roman Empire under four Praefecti Praetorio but for the more convenient management of it the whole body of the Empire was cast into several Jurisdictions containing many Provinces within them which were in the Law call'd Dioeceses over every one of which there was appointed a Vicarius or Lieutenant to one of the Praefecti Praetorio whose residence was in the chief City of the Diocese where the Praetorium was and justice was administred to all within that Diocese and thither appeals were made Under these were those Proconsuls or Correctores who ruled in the particular Provinces and had their residence in the Metropolis of it under whom were the particular Magistrates of every City now according to this disposition of the Empire the Western part of it contained in it seven of these Dioceses as under the Praefectus Praetorio Galliarum was the Diocese of Gaul which contained seventeen Provinces the Diocese of Britain which contained five afterwards but three in Constantines time the Diocese of Spain seven Under the praefectus Praetorio Italiae was the Diocese of Africa which had six Provinces the Diocese of Italy whose seat was Milan 7. the Diocese of Rome 10. Under the Praefectus Praetorio Illyrici was the Diocese of Illyricum in which were seventeen Provinces In the Eastern Division were the Diocese of Thrace which had six Provinces the Diocese of Pontus 11. and so the Diocese of Asia the Oriental properly so called wherein Antioch was 15. all which were under the Praefectus Praetorio Orientis the Aegyptian Diocese which had six Provinces was under the Praefectus Augustalis in the time of Theodosius the elder Illyricum was divided into two Dioceses the Eastern whose Metropolis was Thessalonica and had eleven Provinces the Western whose Metropolis was Syrmium and had six Provinces According to this division of the Empire we may better understand the Affairs and Government of the Church which was model'd much after the same way unless where Ancient custom or the Emperour's edict did cause any variation For as the Cities had their Bishops so the Provinces had their Arch-Bishops and the Dioceses their Primates whose Jurisdiction extended as far as the Diocese did and as the Conventus Juridici were kept in the chief City of the Diocese for matters of Civil Judicature so the chief Ecclesiastical
and by an Epistle of Pelagius 1. A. D. 555. it appears that the Bishops of Aquileia and Milan were wont to ordain each other which though he would have believed was only to save charges in going to Rome yet as that learned and ingenuous person Petrus de Marcâ observes the true reason of it was because Milan was the Head of the Italick Diocese as appears by the Council of Aquileia and therefore the ordination of the Bishop of Aquileia did of right belong to the Bishop of Milan and the ordination of the Bishop of Milan did belong to him of Aquileia as the chief Metropolitan of the general Synod of the Italick Diocese Although afterwards the Bishops of Rome got it so far into their hands that their consent was necessary for such an ordination yet that was only when they began more openly to encroach upon the liberties of other Churches But as the same learned Author goes on those Provinces which lay out of Italy did undoubtedly ordain their own Metropolitans without the authority or consent of the Bishop of Rome which he there largely proves of the African Spanish and French Churches It follows then from the scope of the Nicene Canon and the practice of the Church that the Bishop of Rome had a limited Jurisdiction as the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch and other Primates had 2. That what Churches did enjoy priviledges before had them confirmed by this Canon as not to be altered For it makes provision against any such alteration by ordaining that the ancient Customs should be in force still And accordingly we find it decreed in the second Canon of the Constantinopolitan Council That the same limits of Dioceses should be observed which were decreed in the Council of Nice and that none should intrude to do any thing in the Dioceses of others And by the earnest and vehement Epistles of Pope Leo to Anatolius we see the main thing he had to plead against the advancement of the Patriarch of Constantinople was that by this means the most sacred Decrees of the Council of Nice would be violated We see then that those priviledges which belonged to Churches then ought still to be inviolably observed so that those Churches which then had Primates and Metropolitans of their own might plead their own right by virtue of the Nicene Canon So we find it decreed in that Council of Ephesus in the famous case of the Cyprian Bishops for their Metropolitan being dead Troilus the Bishop of Constance the Bishop of Antioch pretended that it belonged to him to ordain their Metropolitan because Cyprus was within the civil Jurisdiction of the Diocese of Antioch upon this the Cyprian Bishops make their complaint to the General Council at Ephesus and ground it upon that ancient custom which the Niccne Canon insists on viz. that their Metropolitan had been exempt from the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Antioch and was ordained by a Synod of Cyprian Bishops which priviledge was not only confirmed to them by the Ephesine Council but a general decree passed That the rights of every Province should be preserved whole and inviolate which it had of old according to ancient custom Which was not a decree made meerly in favour of the Cyprian Bishops but a common asserting the rights of Metropolitans that they should be held inviolate Now therefore it appears that all the Churches then were far from being under one of the three Patriarchs of Rome Antioch or Alexandria for not only the three Dioceses of Pontus Asia and Thracia were exempt although afterwards they voluntarily submitted to the Patriarch of Constantinople but likewise all those Churches which were in distinct Dioceses from these had Primates of their own who were independent upon any other Upon which account it hath not only been justly pleaded in behalf of the Britannick Churches that they are exempt from the Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop but it is ingenuously confessed by Father Barns That the Britannick Church might plead the Cyprian priviledge that it was subject to no Patriarch And although this priviledge was taken away by force and tumult yet being restored by the consent of the Kingdom in Henry 8. time and quietly enjoyed since it ought to be retained for peace sake without prejudice of Catholicism and the brand of Schism If so certainly it can be no Schism to withdraw from the usurped Authority of the Roman Church But these things have been more largely insisted on by others and therefore I pass them over 3. From thence it follows that there was then an equality not only among the Patriarchs whose name came not up till some time after the Council of Nice but among the several Primates of Dioceses all enjoying equal power and authority over their respective Dioceses without subordination to each other But here it is vehemently pleaded by some who yet are no Friends to the unlimited power of the Roman Bishop That it is hardly conceivable that he should have no other power in the Church but meerly as Head of the Roman Diocese and that it appears by the Acts of the Church he had a regular preheminence above others in ordering the Affairs of the Church To which I answer 1. If this be granted it is nothing at all to that Vniversal Pastorship over the Church which our Adversaries contend for as due by divine right and acknowledged to be so by consent of the Church Let the Bishop of Rome then quit his former plea and insist only on this and we shall speedily return an Answer and shew How far this Canonical Primacy did extend But as long as he challengeth a Supremacy upon other grounds he forfeits this right whatever it is which comes by the Canons of the Church 2. What meerly comes by the Canons of the Church cannot bind the Church to an absolute submission in case that authority be abused to the Churches apparent prejudice For the Church can never give away her Power to secure her self against whatever incroachments tend to the injury of it This power then may be rescinded by the parts of the Church when it tends to the mischief of it 3. This Canonical preheminence is not the main thing we dispute with the Church of Rome let her reform her self from all those errours and corruptions which are in her communion and reduce the Church to the primitive purity and simplicity of Faith and Worship and then see if we will quarrel with the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons or any regular preheminence in him meerly in order to the Churches Peace and Unity But this is not the case between us and them they challenge an unlimited power and that by divine right and nothing else will satisfie them but this although there be neither any ground in Scripture for it nor any evidence of it in the practice of the Ancient Church But however we must see what you produce for it First
have proved and not meerly said But What an unreasonable man are you who would put his Lordship to prove Negatives if you challenge a right which the Pope hath over us it is your business to prove it his Lordship gave a sufficient reason for what he said in saying that Britain was one of the Dioceses of the Empire and therefore had a Primate of her own This you deny not but say this only proves That the Inferiour Clergy could not appeal to Rome What again but this subterfuge hath been prevented already But to pass by what without any shadow of proof you say of the Patriarch of Constantinople 's being subject to the Pope and Pope Urban 's calling Anselm the Patriarch of the other world which we are far from making the least ground to make Canterbury a Patriarchal See which as far as concerns the rights of Primacy was so long before the Synod of Bar in Apulia we come to that which is more material viz. your attempt to prove That Britain was anciently subject to the See of Rome for which you instance in Wilfrid Arch-Bishop of York appealing to Rome about A. D. 673. who was restored to his Bishoprick by virtue of the sentence passed in his behalf at Rome and so being a second time expelled appealed as formerly and was again restored To which I shall return you a clear and full Answer in the words of another Arch-Bishop the late learned L. Primate of Ireland The most famous saith he I had almost said the only appellant from England to Rome that we read of before the Conquest was Wilfride Archbishop of York who notwithstanding that he gained sentence upon sentence at Rome in his Favour and notwithstanding that the Pope did send express Nuncio's into England on purpose to see his sentence executed yet he could not obtain his restitution or the benefit of his sentence for six years during the Raigns of King Egbert and Alfrede his son Yea King Alfrede told the Nuncio's expresly That he honoured them as his Parents for their grave lives and honourable aspects but he could not give any assent to their Legation because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Council of the English should be restored upon the Popes letter If they had believed the Pope to be their competent Judge either as Universal Monarch or so much as Patriarch of Brittain or any more then an honourable Arbitratour which all the Patriarchs were even without the bounds of their proper jurisdictions How comes it to pass that two Kings successively and the great Councils of the Kingdom and the other Archbishop Theodore with all the prime Ecclesiasticks and the flower of the English Clergy did so long and so resolutely oppose so many sentences and messages from Rome and condemn him twice whom the Pope had absolved Consider that Wilfride was an Archbishop not an Inferiour Clerk and if an appeal from England to Rome had been proper or lawful in any case it had been so in this case But it was otherwise determined by those who were most concerned Malmsbury supposeth either by Inspiration or upon his own head that the King and the Archbishop Theodore were smitten with remorse before their deaths for the injury done to Wilfride and the slighting the Popes sentence letter and Legats But the contrary is most apparently true For first it was not King Alfrede alone but the great Council of the Kingdome also not Theodore alone but the main body of the Clergy that opposed the Popes letter and the restitution of Wilfride in that manner as it was decreed at Rome Secondly after Alfrede and Theodore were both dead we find the Popes sentence and Wilfrides restitution still opposed by the surviving Bishops in the Raign of Alfredes son To clear the matter past contradiction let us consider the ground of this long and bitter contention Wilfride the Archbishop was become a great Pluralist and had ingrossed into his hands too many Ecclesiastical Dignities The King and the Church of England thought fit to deprive him of some of them and to confer them upon others Wilfride appealed from their sentence to Rome The Pope gave sentence after sentence in favour of Wilfride But for all his sentences he was not he could not be restored untill he had quitted two of his Monasteries which were in Question Hongestilldean and Ripon which of all others he loved most dearly and where he was afterwards interred This was not a Conquest but a plain waving of his sentences from Rome and yielding of the Question for those had been the chief causes of the Controversie So the King and the Church after Alfredes death still made good his conclusion That it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Council of the English should be restored upon the Popes Bull. And as he did not so neither did they give any assent to the Popes Legation This I hope may suffice as a most sufficient Answer to your Objection from Wilfrides Appeal But you would seem to urge yet further for the ancient subjection of Britain to the Church of Rome in these words Again is it not manifest out of him Bede that even the Primitive original Institution of our English Bishops is from Rome And for this you cite a letter of Pope Gregory 1. to Augustine the Monk whom you call our English Apostle in which Gregory grants to him the use of the Pall the proper badge or sign of Archiepiscopal Dignity and that he condescended that he should ordain twelve Bishops under his jurisdiction c. Behold here say you the original Charter as I may say of the Primacy of Canterbury in this Letter and Mandate of the Pope it is founded nor can it with any colour of reason be drawn from other origin And by vertue of this Grant have all the succeeding Bishops of that See enjoyn'd the Dignity and Authority of Primats of this Nation From whence you very civilly charge his Lordship either with gross Ignorance if he knew it not or with great Ingratitude if he knew it To which I Answer that his Lordship knowing this no doubt very well that Gregory sent Austin into England c. could not from thence think himself bound to submit to the Roman Bishop and it had been more pertinent to your purpose not to charge him with Ingratitude but with Disobedience For that was it which you ought to prove hence that the Archbishop of Canterbury ought still to be subject to the Bishop of Rome because Gregory 1. made Augustine the first Archbishop of Canterbury A wonderful strong Argument no doubt which out of charity to you we must further examine for you tell us The Original Charter of the Primacy of Canterbury is contained in that Grant To satisfie you as to this two things are to be considered the Primacy it self and the exercise of it by a particular person in some
sufficiently detected by the African Bishops And it is the worst of all excuses to lay the blame of it as you do on the Pope's Secretary for Do you think Pope Zosimus was so careless of his business as not to look over the Commonitorium which Faustinus carried with him Do you think Faustinus would not have corrected the fault when the African Bishops boggled so at it What made him so unwilling that they should send into the East to examine the Nicene Canons but intreated them to leave the business wholly with the Pope if he were not conscious of some forgery in the business But you say as a further plea in Zosimus his excuse That the Council of Sardica was an Appendix to the Nicene Council rather than otherwise An excellent Appendix made at two and twenty years distance from the other and called by other Emperours consisting of many other persons and assembled upon a quite different occasion If this had been an Appendix to the Nicene Council How comes that to have but twenty Canons How came Atticus and Cyrillus not to send these with the other How come all the Copies of Councils and Canons to distinguish them How came they not to be contained in the Code of Canons produced in the Council of Chalcedon in the cause of Bassianus and Stephanus If this were the same Council because some of the same things were determined How comes that in Trullo not to be the same with the 6. Oecumenical How comes the Council of Antioch not to be an Appendix to the Council of Nice if this was when it was celebrated before this and the Canons of it inserted in the Code of Canons owned by the Council of Chalcedon So that by all the shifts and arts you can use you cannot excuse Zosimus from Imposture in sending these Sardican under the name of the Nicene Canons And on what account the Pope satisfied the Canons then is apparent enough viz. for the advancing the Interess of his See and this the African Fathers did as easily discern afterwards as we do now But by this we see What good Foundations the Pope's claim of Supremacy had then and what arts not to say frauds they were beholding to for setting it up even as great as they have since made use of to maintain it CHAP. VI. Of the Title of Universal Bishop In what sense the Title of Vniversal Bishop was taken in Antiquity A threefold acceptation of it as importing 1. A general care over the Christian Churches which is attributed to other Catholick Bishops by Antiquity besides the Bishop of Rome as is largely proved 2. A peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Roman Empire This accounted then Oecumenical thence the Bishops of the seat of the Empire called Oecumenical Bishops and sometimes of other Patriarchal Churches 3. Nothing Vniversal Jurisdiction over the whole Church as Head of it so never given in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome The ground of the Contest about this Title between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople Of the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon about the Popes Supremacy Of the Grammatical and Metaphorical sense of this Title Many arguments to prove it impossible that S. Gregory should understand it in the Grammatical sense The great absurdities consequent upon it S. Gregory's Reasons proved to hold against that sense of it which is admitted in the Church of Rome Of Irenaeus his opposition to Victor's excommunicating the Asian Bishops argues no authority he had over them What the more powerful principality in Irenaeus is Ruffinus his Interpretation of the 6. Nicene Canon vindicated The Suburbicary Churches cannot be understood of all the Churches in the Roman Empire The Pope no Infallible successor of S. Peter nor so acknowledged to be by Epiphanius S. Peter had no Supremacy of Power over the Apostles HIs Lordship having undertaken to give an account How the Popes rose by degrees to their Greatness under the Christian Emperours in prosecution of that necessarily falls upon the Title of Vniversal Bishop affected by John the Patriarch of Constantinople and condemned by Pelagius 1. and Gregory 2. This you call a trite and beaten way because I suppose the truth is so plain and evident in it but withall you tell us This Objection hath been satisfied a hundred times over if you had said the same Answer had been repeated so often over you had said true but if you say that it hath been satisfied once you say more than you are able to defend as will evidently appear by your very unsatisfactory Answer which at last you give to it So that if none of your party have been any wiser than your self in this matter I am so far from being satisfied with what they say that I can only pitty those persons whose interest swayes their understandings so much or at least their expressions as to make them say any thing that seems to be for their purpose though in it self never so senseless or unreasonable And I can scarce hold my self from saying with the Oratour when a like Objection to this was offered him because multitudes had said so Quasi verò quidquam sit tam valdè quà m nihil sapere vulgare That truth and reason are the greatest Novelties in the world For seriously Were it possible for men of common understanding to rest satisfied with such pitiful shifts as you are fain to make if they would but use any freedom in enquiring and any liberty of judging when they had done But when once men have given not to say sold away the exercise of their free reason by addicting themselves to a particular interest there can scarce any thing be imagined so absurd but it passeth currently from one to another because they are bound to receive all blindfold and in the same manner to deliver it to others By which means it is an easie matter for the greatest nonsense and contradictions to be said a hundred times over And Whether it be not so in the present case is that we are now to enquire into And for the same ends which you propose to your self viz. that all obscurity may be taken away and the truth clearly appear I shall in the first place set down What his Lordship saith and then distinctly examine What you reply in Answer to it Thus then his Lordship proceeds About this time brake out the ambition of John Patriarch of Constantinople affecting to be Vniversal Bishop He was countenanced in this by Mauricius the Emperour but sowrely opposed by Pelagius and S. Gregory Insomuch that S. Gregory plainly sayes That this Pride of his shews that the times of Antichrist were near So as yet and this was near upon the point of six hundred years after Christ there was no Vniversal Bishop no one Monarch over the whole Militant Church But Mauricius being deposed and murthered by Phocas Phocas conferred upon Boniface the third that very Honour which two of his predecessors had
Emperour had checked him for medling in it and was so far from opposing the Patriarchs Title that in effect he bid him trouble himself no more about it Which poor S. Gregory took very ill And afterwards when Cyriacus succeeded John in Constantinople the Emperour being somewhat fearful lest Gregory at the coming in of a new Patriarch might on the account of this new Title deny his Communicatory Letters he dispatches a Letter to him to quicken him about it And he takes it very unkindly that the Emperour should suspect his indiscretion so much that for the sake of this Title which he saith had sorely wounded him he should deny Communion in the Faith with him and yet in the same Epistle saith That whosoever took the Title of Vniversal Bishop upon him was a forerunner of Antichrist But if this name had been apprehended in that which you call The Literal and Grammatical sense Would not the Emperour being commended by Gregory too for his Piety have rather encouraged him in it where as he plainly tells him It was a contest about a frivolous name and nothing else and that there ought to be no scandal among them about it Upon which Gregory is put to his distinctions of two sorts of frivolous things some that are very harmless and some that are very hurtful i. e. frivolous things are either such as are frivolous or such as are not for Who ever imagined that such things as are very hurtful are frivolous But however S. Gregory speaks excellent sense for his meaning is that the Title it self may be frivolous but the consequences of it may be dreadful and so we have found it since his time So that this appears to be the true state of the business between them the Patriarch of Constantinople he challengeth the Title of Oecumenical Patritriarch or Bishop as belonging of right to him being Patriarch of the chief Seat of the Empire but in the mean time challengeth no Vniversal Jurisdiction by virtue of this Title On which account the Emperour and Eastern Bishops admit of it On the other side the Bishops of Rome partly looking at their own interest in it for so it appears by one of Gregory's Epistles to the Emperour that he suspected it to be his own interest which he stood so much up for and partly foreseeing the dangerous consequences of this if Vniversal Jurisdiction were challenged with it they resolutely oppose it not meerly for the Title sake but for that which might follow upon that Title taking it not in your Literal but in your Metaphorical sense as I shall shew presently But neither party was so weak and silly as to apprehend it in your Literal sense for then neither would the Emperour have sleighted it nor the Popes opposed it on those terms which they do and on such grounds which reach your Metaphorical sense 5. The same Title in the same sense which Gregory opposed it did Boniface accept of from the Emperour Phocas This you confess your self when you say That all that Phocas did was but to declare that the Title in contest did of right belong to the Bishop of Rome only therefore the same Title which the Patriarch of Constantinople took to himself before was both given by Phocas and taken by Pope Boniface This then being confessed by you let me now seriously ask you Whether the Title of Vniversal Bishop which Pope Gregory opposed was to be taken in the Grammatical or Metaphorical sense Take now Whether of them you please if in the Metaphorical all his arguments hold against the Popes present Vniversal Jurisdiction by your own confession if in the Literal and Grammatical then Pope Boniface had all those things belonging to him which Gregory condemns that Title for Then by your own confession Pope Boniface must be the forerunner of Antichrist he must equal himself to Lucifer in pride he must have that name of blasphemy upon him and all those dreadful consequences must attend him and all his followers who own that Title of Vniversal Bishop in that which you call the Literal or Grammatical sense of it 6. Lastly it appears from S. Gregory himself that the Reasons which he urgeth against the Title of Vniversal Bishop are such as hold against that which you call the Metaphorical sense of it which in short is An Vniversal Pastor exercising Authority and Jurisdiction over the whole Church And It is scarce possible to imagine that he should speak more clearly against such an Vniversal Headship than he doth and urges such arguments against it which properly belong to that Metaphorical sense of it As when he saith to John the Patriarch What wilt thou answer to Christ the Head of the Vniversal Church in the day of judgement who dost endeavour to subject all his members to thee under the name of Vniversal Bishop What is there in these words which doth not fully belong to your Metaphorical sense of Head of the Church Doth he not subject all Christs members to him Doth he not challenge to himself proper Jurisdiction over them What then will he be able to answer to Christ the Head of the Vniversal Church as St. Gregory understands it exclusivè of any other Doth not he arise to that height of singularity that he is subject to none but rules over all yet these are the very words he uses and Can any more expresly describe your Head of the Church than these do Yet herein he saith He imitates the Pride of Lucifer who according to St. Gregory endeavoured to be the Head of the Church Triumphant as the Pope of the Church Militant And follows that parallel close That an Vniversal Bishop imitates Lucifer in exalting his Throne above the Starrs of God For saith he What are all the Brethren the Bishops of the Vniversal Church but the Starrs of Heaven and after parallels them with the Clouds and so this terrestrial Lucifer ascends above the heights of the clouds And again saith he Surely the Apostle Peter was the first member not the Head of the Holy and Vniversal Church Paul Andrew and John What are they else but the Heads of particular Churches And yet they are all members of the Church under one Head Can any thing be more clear against any Head of the Vniversal Church but Christ himself when St. Peter is acknowledged to be only a prime member of the Church How then come his successors to be the Heads of it And as he goes on The Saints before the Law and under the Law and under Grace who all make up the body of our Lord they were all but members of the Church and none of them would be called Vniversal And I pray let his Holiness consider his following words Let your Holiness acknowledge what pride it is to be called by that name which none that was truly holy was ever call'd by And Do you think now that these expressions do not as properly reach
been given a hundred times over is so pitifully weak absurd and ridiculous that you might have been ashamed to have produced it once and much more to repeat it without saying any more for it than you do For your other discourse depends wholly upon it and all that being taken away the rest doth fall to the ground with it We must now therefore return to his Lordships discourse in which he goes on to give an account of the rise of the Pope's Greatness As yet saith he The right of Election or ratification of the Pope continued in the Emperour but then the Lombards grew so great in Italy and the Empire was so infested with Saracens and such changes happened in all parts of the world as that neither for the present the homage of the Pope was useful for the Emperour nor the protection of the Emperour available for the Pope By this means the Bishop of Rome was left to play his own game by himself A thing which as it pleased him well enough so both he and his Successors made great advantage by it For being grown to that Eminence by the Emperour and the greatness of that City and place of his aboad he found himself the more free the greater the Tempest was that beat upon the other And then first he set himself to alienate the hearts of the Italians from the Emperour Next he opposed himself against him And about A. D. 710. Pope Constantine 1. did also first of all openly confront Philippicus the Emperour in defence of Images as Onuphrius tells us After him Gregory 2. and the 3. did the same by Leo Isaurus By this time the Lombards began to pinch very close and to vex on all sides not Italy only but Rome also This drives the Pope to seek a new Patron And very fitly he meets with Charls Martell in France that famous warrior against the Sarazens Him he implores in defence of the Church against the Lombards This address seems very advisedly taken at least it proves very fortunate to them both For in short time it dissolved the Kingdom of the Lombards in Italy which had then stood two hundred and four years which was the Popes security And it brought the Crown of France into the house of Charls and shortly after the Western Empire And now began the Pope to be great indeed For by the bounty of Pepin Son of Charls that which was taken from the Lombards was given to the Pope So that now of a Bishop he became a Temporal Prince But when Charls the Great had set up the Western Empire then he resumed the ancient and original power of the Emperour to govern the Church to call Councils to order Papal Elections And this power continued in his posterity For this right of the Emperour was in force and use in Gregory the seventh's time Who was confirmed in the Popedom by Henry the fourth whom he afterward deposed And it might have continued longer if the succeeding Emperours had had abilities enough to secure or vindicate their own Right But the Pope keeping a strong Council about him and meeting with some weak Princes and they oft-times distracted with great and dangerous warrs grew stronger till he got the better So this is enough to shew How the Popes climed up by the Emperours till they over-topt them which is all I said before and have now proved And this was about the year 1073. Yet was it carried in succeeding times with great changes of fortune and different success The Emperour sometimes plucking from the Pope and the Pope from the Emperour winning and losing ground as their spirits abilities aids and opportunities were till at the last the Pope settled himself upon the grounds laid by Gregory 7. in the great power which he now uses in and over these parts of the Christian world To all this you return a short Answer in these words We deny not but that in Temporal power and Authority the Popes grew great by the Patronage of Christian Emperours But what is this to the purpose If he would have said any thing material he should have proved that the Popes rose by the Emperours means to their Spiritual Authority and Jurisdiction over all other Bishops throughout the whole Catholick Church which is the only thing they claim jure divino and which is so annexed to the dignity of their office by Christ's institution that were the Pope deprived of all his Temporalties yet could not his Spiritual Authority suffer the least diminution by it But 1. Doth his Lordships discourse only contain an account of the Popes temporal greatness by the Patronage of Christian Emperours Doth he not plainly shew How the Popes got their power by rebelling and contesting with the Emperours themselves How they assumed to themselves a power to depose Emperours and Do they claim these things jure Divino too 2. What you say of the Popes Spiritual Authority will then hold good when it is well proved but bare asserting it will never do it We must therefore have patience till you have leisure to attempt it But in the mean time we must consider How you vindicate the famous place of Irenaeus concerning as you say the Pope's Supreme Pastoral Authority from his Lordships interpretation Yet before we come to the Authority it self there are some light skirmishes as you call them to be passed through and those are concerning Irenaeus himself For his Lordship saith That his Adversarie is much scanted of ancient proof if Irenaeus stand alone besides Irenaeus was a Bishop of the Gallican Church and a very unlikely man to captivate the liberty of that Church under the more powerful principality of Rome And how can we have better evidence of his judgement touching that principality then the actions of his life When Pope Victor excommunicated the Asian Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all at a blow was not Irenaeus the chief man that reprehended him for it A very unmeet and undutiful thing sure it had been in Irenaeus in deeds to tax him of rashness and inconsiderateness whom in words A. C. would have to be acknowledged by him the Supreme and Infallible Pastour of the Vniversal Church To which you Answer 1. To the liberty of the Gallican Church As if forsooth the so much talked of liberties of the Gallican Church had been things known or heard of in St. Irenaeus his time as though there were no difference between not captivating the Liberty of that Church to Rome and asserting the Liberties of the Gallican Church in her obedience to Rome yet these two must be confounded by you to render his Lordships Answer ridiculous which yet is as sound and rational as your cavil is vain and impertinent But this you pass over and fix 2. Vpon his reprehending Pope Victor where you say that Eusebius hath not a word importing reprehension but rather a friendly and seasonable perswasion his words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
c. he exhorts him after a handsome manner as reflecting on the Popes dignity and clearly shews that the Pope had of right some Authority over the Asian Bishops and by consequence over the whole Church For otherwise it had been very absurd in St. Irenaeus to perswade Pope Victor not to cut off from the Church so many Christian Provinces had he believed as Protestant contends he did that the Pope had no power at all to cut them off Just as if a man should entreat the Bishop of Rochester not to excommunicate the Archbishop of York and all the Bishops of his Province over whom he hath not any the least pretence of Jurisdiction I Answer that if you say that Eusebius hath not a word importing reprehension it is a sign you have not read what Eusebius saith For doth not he expresly say That the Epistle of some of the Bishops are yet remaining in which they do severely rebuke him Among whom saith he Irenaeus was one c. It seems Irenaeus was one of those Bishops who did so sharply reprehend him but it may be you would render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 kissing his Holiness feet or exhorting him after a handsome manner and indeed if they did it sharply they did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suitably enough to what Victor deserved for his rash and inconsiderate proceedings in this business But withall to let you see how well these proceedings of his were resented in the Christian world Eusebius tells us before That Victor by his letters did declare those of the Eastern Churches to be excommunicate and he presently adds But this did no wayes please all the Bishops wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they countermanded him that he might mind the things of peace and unity and brotherly love And will you still render that word too by exhorting him after a handsome manner when even Christopherson renders it by magnoperè adhortabantur Valesius by ex adverso hortati sunt and although these seem not to come up to the full emphasis of the word yet surely they imply somewhat of vehemency and earnestness in their perswading him as well as their being hugely dissatisfied with what Victor did I grant that these persons did reflect as you say on the Pope but not as you would have it on his dignity but on his rashness and indiscretion that should go about to cast the Asian Churches out of Communion for such a trifle as that was in Controversie between them But you are the happiest man at making inferences that I have met with for because Irenaeus in the name of the Gallican Bishops writes to Victor not to proceed so rashly in this action thence you infer that the Pope had of right some Authority over the Asian Bishops and by consequence over the whole Church Might you not every jot as well inferr that when a man in passion is ready to kill those that stand about him whoever perswades him not to do it doth suppose he might lawfully have done it if he would But if those Bishops had so venerable an esteem as you would perswade us they had then of the Bishop of Rome How come they to dispute his actions in so high a manner as they did If they had looked on him as Vniversal Pastor of the Church it had more become them to sit still and be quiet then severely to reprehend him who was alone able to judge what was fit to be done and what not in those cases If the Pope had call'd them to Council to have known their advise it might have been their duty to have given it him in the most humble and submissive manner that might be But for them to intrude themselves into such an office as to advise the Head of the Church what to do in a matter peculiarly concerning him as though he did not know what was fit to be done himself methinks you should not imagine that these men did act 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as became them in doing it Could they possibly in any thing more declare how little they thought it necessary for all Churches to conform to that of Rome when they plead for dissenters in such a matter which the Pope had absolutely declared himself about And how durst any of them slight the thunderbolts which the Pope threatned them with Yet not only Polycrates and the Asian Bishops who joyned with him profess themselves not at all affrighted at them but the other Churches looked not on themselves as obliged to forsake their communion on that account If this be such an evidence of the Popes power in one sense I am sure it is a greater evidence of his weakness in another It seems the Head of the Church began betimes to be troubled with the fumes of passion and it is a little unhappy that the first Instance of his Authority should meet with so little regard in the Christian world If the Pope did begin to assume so early you see it was not very well liked of by the Bishops of other Churches But it seems he had a mind to try his power and the weight of his Arm but for all his haste he was fain to withdraw it very patiently again Valesius thinks that he never went so far as to excommunicate the Asian Bishops at all but the noise of his threatning to do it being heard by them it seems the very preparing of his thunderbolts amazed the world Irenaeus having call'd a Synod of the Bishops of Gaul together doth in their name write that Letter in Eusebius to Victor to disswade him from it and that it wrought so effectually with him that he gave it over And this he endeavours to prove 1. Because Eusebius saith he only endeavour'd to do it But Cardinal Perron supposeth Eusebius had a worse meaning then so in it i. e. that though the Pope did declare them excommunicate yet it took no effect because other Bishops continued still in communion with them and therefore he calls Eusebius an Arrian and an enemy to the Church of Rome when yet all the records of this story are derived from him 2. Because the Epistles of Irenaeus tend to perswade him not to cut them off whereas if they had been excommunicate it would have been rather to have restored them to Communion and that Photius saith that Irenaeus writ many letters to Victor to prevent their excommunication But because Eusebius saith expresly That he did by letters pronounce them out of the Communion of the Church the common opinion seems more probable and so Socrates understands it but still I am to seek for such an Argument of the acknowledgement of the Popes Authority then as you would draw from it Yes say you because they do not tell him He had no Authority to do what he did which they would have done if they could without proclaiming themselves Schismaticks ipso facto and shaking the very Foundation of the Churches Discipline and Vnity
What principality do you mean over all Churches But that was the thing in Question So that if you will make Irenaeus speak sense and argue pertinently his meaning can be no other than this If there be such a Tradition left it must be left somewhere among Christians if it be left among them it may be known by enquiry Whether they own any such or no. But because it would be troublesome searching of all Churches we may know their judgement more compendiously there is the Church of Rome near us a famous and ancient Church seated in the chief City of the Empire to which all persons have necessities to go and among them you cannot but suppose but that out of every Church some faithful persons should come and therefore it is very unreasonable to think that the Apostolical Tradition hath not alwaies been preserved there when persons come from all places thither Is not every thing in this account of Irenaeus his words very clear and pertinent to his present dispute But in the sense you give of them they are little to the purpose and very precarious and inconsequent And therefore since the more powerful principality is not that of the Church but of the City since the necessity of recourse thither is not for doubts of Faith but other occasions therefore it by no means follows thence That this Churches power did extend over the faithful every where thus by explaining your Proposition your Conclusion is ashamed of it self and runs away For your argument comes to this If English men from all parts be forced to resort to London then London hath the power over all England or if one should say If some from all Churches in England must resort to London then the Church at London hath power over all the Churches in England and if this consequence be good yours is for it is of the same nature of it the necessity of the resort not lying in the Authority of the Church but in the Dignity of the City the words in all probability in the Greek being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so relate to the dignity of Rome as the Imperial City From whence we proceed to the Vindication of Ruffinus in his Translation of the 6. Canon of the Council of Nice The occasion of which is this His Lordship saith Supposing that the powerful principality be ascribed to the Church of Rome yet it follows not that it should have power over all Churches for this power was confined within its own Patriarchate and Jurisdiction and that saith he was very large containing all the Provinces in the Diocese of Italy in the old sense of the word Diocese which Provinces the Lawyers and others term Suburbicaries There were ten of them the three Islands Sicily Corsica and Sardinia and the other seven upon the firm Land of Italy And this I take it is plain in Ruffinus For he living shortly after the Nicene Council as he did and being of Italy as he was he might very well know the bounds of the Patriarchs Jurisdiction as it was then practised And he sayes expresly that according to the old custom the Roman Patriarchs charge was confined within the limits of the Suburbican Churches To avoid the force of this testimony Cardinal Perron laies load upon Ruffinus For he charges him with passion ignorance and rashness And one piece of his ignorance is that he hath ill translated the Canon of the Council of Nice Now although his Lordship doth not approve of it as a Translation yet he saith Ruffinus living in that time and place was very like well to know and understand the limits and bounds of that Patriarchate of Rome in which he lived This you say is very little to his Lordships advantage since it is inconsistent with the vote of all Antiquity and gives S. Irenaeus the lye but if the former be no truer than the latter it may be very much to his advantage notwithstanding what you have produced to the contrary What the ground is Why the Roman Patriarchate was confined within the Roman Diocese I have already shewed in the precedent Chapter in explication of the Nicene Canon We must now therefore examine the Reasons you bring Why the notion of Suburbicary Churches must be extended beyond the limits his Lordship assigns that of the smalness of Jurisdiction compared with other Patriarchs I have given an account of already viz. from the correspondency of the Ecclesiastical and Civil Government for the Civil Dioceses of the Eastern part of the Empire did extend much farther than the Western did and that was the Reason Why the Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria had a larger Metropolitical Jurisdiction than the Bishop of Rome had But you tell us That Suburbicary Churches must be taken as generally signifying all Churches and Cities any waies subordinate to the City of Rome which was at that time known by the name of Urbs or City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of excellency not as it related to the Praefect or Governour of Rome in regard of whose ordinary Jurisdiction we confess it commanded only those few places about it in Italy but as it related to the Emperour himself in which sense the word Suburbicary rightly signifies all Cities or Churches whatsoever within the Roman Empire as the word Romania also anciently signified the whole Imperial Territory as Card. Perron clearly proves upon this subject But this is one instance of what mens wits will do when they are resolved to break through any thing For whoever that had read of the Suburbicary Regions and Provinces in the Code of Theodosius or other parts of the Civil Law as distinguished from other Provinces under the Roman Empire and those in Italy too could ever have imagined that the notion of Suburbicary Churches had been any other than what was correspondent to those Regions and Provinces But let that be granted which Sirmondus so much contends for That the notion of Suburbicary may have different respects and so sometimes be taken for the Churches within the Roman Diocese sometimes for those within the Roman Patriarchate and sometimes for those which are under the Pope as Vniversal Pastor yet How doth it appear that ever Ruffinus took it in any other than the first sense No other Provinces being called Suburbicary but such as were under the Jurisdiction either of the Roman Prefect within a hundred miles of the City within which compass references and appeals were made to him or at the most to the Lieutenant of the Roman Diocese whose Jurisdiction extended to those ten Provinces which his Lordship mentions It is not therefore In what sense words may be taken but in what sense they were taken and what Evidence there is that ever they were so understood Never was any Controversie more ridiculous than that concerning the extent of the Suburbicary Regions or Provinces if Suburbicary were taken in your sense for all the Cities within the Roman
but his Lordship objects a shrewd Consequence from this Universal Pastourship that this brings the necks of Princes under the Roman Pride And if Kings be meant his Lordship saith yet the command is pasce feed them but deponere or occidere to depose or kill them is not pascere in any sense Lanii id est non Pastoris that 's the Butchers not the Shepheards part This you call his Lordships winding about and falling upon that odious Question of killing and deposing Kings An odious Question indeed whether we consider the grounds or the effects and consequents of it But yet you would seem to clear your selves from the odium of it First By saying that it is a gross fallacy to argue a negatione speciei ad negationem generis which is a new kind of Logick It is indeed for it is of your own coyning for his Lordship argues ab affirmatione generis ad affirmationem speciei and I hope this is no new Logick unless you think he that saith He hath power over all living creatures hath not thereby power over men too His Lordship therefore doth not argue against the Popes Vniversal Supremacy from the denyal of that but deduces that as a consequence from your assertion and explication of what you mean by Sheep and Lambs But this is but a sleight Answer in comparison of what follows Secondly we answer That the point of Killing Kings is a most false and scandalous Imputation scandalous enough indeed if false and though your Popes have not given express warrant for the doing it yet it is sufficiently known How the Pope in Consistory could not contain his joy when it was done in the case of Henry 3. of France And it hath been sufficiently confessed and lamented by persons of your own communion How much the Doctrine of the Jesuits hath encouraged those Assassinations of those two successive Henryes of France Will you or dare you vindicate the Doctrines of Mariana and others which do not obscurely deliver their judgement as to that very thing of Killing Haeretical Princes But if we should grant you this That the Pope may not command to kill What say you to that of deposing Princes which seldome falls much short of the other As to this you dare not cry It is a false and scandalous imputation as you did to the other but you answer 'T is no point of your Faith that the Pope hath power to do it and therefore you say it is no part of your task to dispute it Is this all the security Princes have from you that it is no point of your Faith that the Pope hath power to do it Is it not well enough known that there are many things which are held undoubtedly by the greatest part of your Church which yet you say are no points of Faith And yet in this you are directly contradicted by one who knew what were points of Faith among you as well as you and that was Father Creswell whose testimony I have cited already and he saith expresly Certum est de fide It is a thing certain and of Faith that the subjects of an Haeretical Prince are not only freed from Allegiance but are bound ex hominum Christianorum dominatu ejicere to cast him out of his power which certainly is more than the deposing of him And Sanders plainly enough saith That a King that will not submit to the Popes Authority is by no means to be suffered but his subjects ought to do their utmost endeavour that another may be placed in his room Indeed he saith not as the other doth That this is de fide but that is the only reserve you have when a Doctrine is odious and infamous to the world to cry out It is not de side when yet it may be as firmly believed among you as any that you account de fide And if you believe the Duke of Alva in his Manifesto at the siege of Pampelona when the Pope had deposed the King of Navarre to whom that City belonged he saith That it is not doubted but the Pope had power to depose Heretical Princes And if you had been of another opinion you ought to have declared your self more fully than you do If you had said that indeed some were of that opinion but you abhorred and detested it you had spoken to the purpose but when you use only that pitiful evasion That it is not of Faith c. you sufficiently shew What your judgement is but that you dare not publickly own it It seems you remember what was said by your Masters in reference to Emanuel SÃ Non fuit opus ad ista descendere There was no need to meddle with those things It seems if there had been there was no hurt in the Doctrine but only that it was unseasonable I pray God keep us from that time when you shall think it needful to declare your selves in this point But you conclude this with a most unworthy and scandalous reflection on Protestants in these words But what Protestants have both done and justified in the worst of these kinds is but too fresh in memory But Were those the practices and principles of Protestants Were they not abhorred and detested in the highest manner by all true Protestants both at home and abroad It will be well if you can clear some of your selves from having too much a hand in promoting both those principles and practices I suppose you cannot but have heard Who it was is said to have expressed so much joy at the time of that horrid execution What counsels and machinations are said to have been among some devoted Sons of the Church of Rome abroad about that time Therefore clear your selves more than yet you have done of those imputations before you charge that guilt on Protestants which they express the highest abhorrence of And let the names of such who either publickly or privately abett or justifie such horrid actions be under a continual Anathema to all Generations After all this discourse about the Popes Authority A. C. brings it at last home to the business of Schism For he saith The Bishop of Rome shall never refuse to feed and govern the whole Flock in such sort as that neither particular man nor Church shall have just cause under pretence of Reformation in manners of Faith to make a separation from the whole Church This his Lordship saith by A. C 's favour is meer begging the Question For this is the very thing which the Protestants charge upon him namely that he hath governed if not the whole yet so much of the Church as he hath been able to bring under his power so as that he hath given too just cause of the present continued Separation And as the corruptions in the Doctrine of Faith in the Church of Rome were the cause of the first Separation so are they at this present day the cause why the Separation continues
be amiss in Doctrine of Faith However since it belonged to the Council to reform those abuses the Pope as an interessed person ought not to have presided there had it not been his intention to have prevented any real Reformation For all the Decrees of the Council to that purpose were meerly delusory and nothing of Reformation followed upon them and the most important things to that end could never pass the Council And if we gain this that the Pope ought not to be Judge where himself is concerned as to the Reformation of abuses your former assertion will make the other follow viz. that in case of Heresie other Bishops may in Council proceed against the Pope and by the same reason when any errours in Faith are charged upon him or those who joyn in Communion with him that such ought to be debated in a full and free Council where no one concerned may preside to over-aw the rest But such Presidents should be appointed as were in former General Councils to whom it belonged to manage the debates of the Council without any such Power and Jurisdiction over them as the Pope pretended to have over all those assembled at Trent And thus it appears that what his Lordship said was just and true That it is contrary to all Law Divine Natural and Humane that the Pope should be chief Judge in his own Cause Your instances of Pope Leo at the Council of Chalcedon and Alexander at the Council of Nice will be considered in their due place Which that we may come to we must examine the matter of fact as to the Popes presidency in General Councils His Lordship denying that the Pope did preside in the Council of Nice either by himself or Legats because Hosius was the President of it You Answer That Hosius did preside in that Council and so did likewise Vitus and Vincentius Priests of Rome but you say they all presided as the Popes Legats and not otherwise This you say appears by their subscribing the Conciliary Decrees in the first place of which no other account can be given and because Cedrenus and Photius confess that the Pope gave authority to this Council by his Legats and in the old preface to the Council of Sardica it is said expresly that Hosius was the Popes Legat and the same acknowledged by Hincmarus and Gelasius Cyzicenus whom you prove that Photius had read These being then all the Evidences you produce for the Popes Presidency at the Nicene Council we are obliged to afford them a particular consideration Your first argument which Bellarmin and Baronius likewise insist on is the order of subscription because the name of Hosius is set first but if we mark it this argument supposeth that which it should prove For thus it proceeds Hosius subscribed first and therefore he was the Roman Legat Hosius was the Roman Legat and therefore he subscribed first For it supposeth that the first Subscription did of right belong only to the Roman Legat which we may as well deny by an argument just like it Vitus and Vincentius did not subscribe first and therefore the Roman Legats did not subscribe first But you ask Why then did Hosius subscribe before the Patriarchs and other Bishops of greater dignity than himself I answer Because Hosius was President of the Council and not they But if you ask Why they chose him President before others the Nicene Fathers must answer you and not I. But you say Cedrenus and Photius confess That the Pope gave Authority to the Nicene Council by his Legats but How comes that to prove that Hosius was one of those Legats Photius I am sure in his Book of the seven Synods first published in Greek by Justellus out of the Sedan Library sayes no such thing but only mentions the two Presbyters who were there the Roman-Bishops Legats And Cedrenus only mentions the Roman Legats amongst those who were chief in that Council reckoning up the several Patriarchs Your old preface to the Sardican Synod supposed of Dionysius Exiguus is no competent testimony being of a later Author and a Roman too And Hincmarus is much younger than he and therefore neither of their testimonies hath any force against the ancient Writers neither hath that of Gelasius Cyzicenus who lived under Basiliscus A. D. 476. And that you may not think I do you wrong to deprive you of his testimony you may see How freely Baronius passeth his censure upon those Acts under the name of Nicene Council Sed ut liberè dicam somnia puto haec omnia that I may speak freely I account them no better than dreams And gives this very good reason for it because ever since the time of that Council all persons have been so extremely desirous of the Acts of that Council and yet could never obtain them But that which comes in the rear transcends all the rest which is That Photius though a Schismatical Greek and bitter enemy of the Roman Church witnesseth he had read this Book of Gelasius and in it the above-cited testimony And I pray What follows from thence I hope Photius had read many other Books in that excellent collection of his Bibliotheca besides this and Will you say that Photius believed all that he there saith he had read No but you say That thereupon he confesses that the said Hosius was Legat for the Bishop of Rome at the Council of Nice But you would have done well to have told us Where this Confession is extant for you seem to insinuate as though it were in the same place where he mentions the reading this Book of Gelasius but he only saith That Gelasius affirms it adding nothing at all of his own judgement and in his Book of the seven Synods where he declares his own mind he only mentions Vitus and Vincentius as the Legats of the Roman See And brings in Hosius afterwards not joyning him with Vitus and Vincentius but with Alexander of Constantinople and Sylvester and Julius of Rome and Alexander and Athanasius of Alexandria whom he makes the Chief in the Council For if Photius had intended to have made Hosius one of the Popes Legats there was all the reason in the world he should have set him before Vitus and Vincentius who were only Presbyters And that the Pope had no other Legats there but these two Presbyters we have the consent of all the ancient Ecclesiastical Historians Eusebius mentioning the absence of the Roman Bishop because of his Age adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His Presbyters being present supplied his place so Theodoret the Bishop of Rome could not be present 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but he sent two Presbyters with power to give his assent not to preside over the Council To the same purpose Sozomen Nicephorus Zonaras speak And it is very strange not one of all these Historians should mention this if Hosius had presided there as Legat of the Bishop of Rome and much
charged with Heresie as well as the other Things being grown to this height Theodosius calls a General Council at Ephesus to be held the ensuing year writes to all the Metropolitans to appear there at the time appointed and bring such Bishops with them as they thought convenient but what contentions happened there between the two parties is not here our business to relate but the Emperour foreseeing what disturbance was like to be there sent the Count Candidianus for better management of the affairs of the Council Now S. Cyril and his party having the advantage of the other both in number and forwardness of being there Cyril sits as President among them The Question now is Whether he sate there by virtue of that Legantine Power he had for the excommunicating Nestorius the year before or not or only as Patriarch of Alexandria and chief of that party But by what authority he should challenge to be President of the Council because he had been deputed by Coelestine to act his part in the excommunicating Nestorius I think is somewhat hard to understand Neither doth any thing appear in the Council which gives any ground for it for Cyril subscribes to it meerly as Patriarch of Alexandria the Council on all occasions call him and Memnon of Ephesus their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when they speak of Coelestine after his Legats came they say He did only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 assist together with them in Council But Why should Coelestine send other Legats afterwards viz. Arcadius Philippus and Projectus if S. Cyril supplied the Popes place there already Yet although we should grant that before the Legats came Cyril did supply the place of Coelestine yet it doth not follow that he sate President of the Council on that account but only to shew the concurrence of Coelestine with the Council in matter of Doctrine and this there was good reason for because Coelestine had fully declared himself to Cyril concerning that already And this was usual in the Councils as appears in this very Council by Flavianus Bishop of Philippi subscribing likewise in the place of Rufus of Thessalonica So that if we grant Cyril to sit in the Council as Legat of Coelestine yet it doth not follow that he was President of the Council in that capacity for the other was only to testifie his consent this required a particular Commission to that purpose So that he might give a vote in the Council for Coelestine and yet sit as he did President of the Council as Patriarch of Alexandria Thus it being manifested that in the three first General Councils the Pope sate not either by himself or his Legats as President it is sufficiently proved thereby that his Presidency is no necessary condition to a General Council and if not then we say It is unjust and unreasonable he should challenge it when he is the person mainly accused But in the mean while it is not at all necessary that we should deny that ever he sate as President in any other General Council for being the Bishop of the chief See Why should he in a case of general concernment to the Church as that of Chalcedon not be allowed by his Legats to have the prime place But there wants sufficient evidence too that these were properly the Presidents of that Council In the next at Constantinople you grant that Eutychius Bishop of Constantinople sate President but you say That he acknowledged this priviledge to be due to Pope Vigilius But How came it to pass then that he would not sit there though then at Constantinople It appears by the many frivolous excuses he made that he durst not trust himself in the Council for fear that authority should not be given him which he expected For that hath alwaies been the subtilty of the Popes in those elder times when they began to encroach not to venture themselves in presence in a General Council for fear of opposition but by their absence they reserved to themselves a liberty to declare their dissent when any Acts passed which did not please them As Leo did in the case of the Council of Chalcedon But however this is evident from the fifth General Council that the Popes Presidency was not then thought at all necessary What was done in following Councils is not material to our purpose because it doth already sufficiently appear that the Popes Presidency is not necessary to a General Council and therefore you conclude with a notorious falsity in saying with Bellarmin That the Pope hath been possest full 1500 years of the right of presiding in General Councils His Lordships third exception against the Council of Trent is That the place was not free but either in or too near the Popes dominions To this you Answer That certainly Trent is not within the Popes dominion but it is well enough known that Trent was under the sole jurisdiction of the Bishop and the Bishop to be sure was under the Popes dominion having been particularly obliged too by receiving a Cardinal's Hat And therefore it was not without just reason that the place was protested against not only by the German Protestants as being out of Germany where the States of the Empire had often promised the Council should be at the Diet at Norimberg 1524 at Auspurg 1526. Spire 1529. Ratisbone 1532 1541. again at Norimberg 1543. and last of all at Spire 1544. but as a most inconvenient place for them to come to being a weeks journey as they say from the borders of Germany seated in a barren and almost inaccessible place having no freedom of passage almost amidst the Alps This place I say was not only protested against by them as being contrary to the promises made to them but the German Bishops made it their earnest request that the Council might be held in Germany for at Trent they said they could neither be present themselves nor send any Legats thither and particularly instance in the unpassableness of the Alps between them and Trent and that it was rather in the borders of Italy then Germany And the Pope himself in his Answer to the German Bishops and the Emperours Protestation upon the removal of the Council from Trent to Bononia insists upon the inconvenience of Trent for the long residence of the Bishops there And in behalf of the Protestants declaring against this place in regard of the unsafeness of it the places about being all under the Popes authority du Ranchin tells you That it is an exception allowable by the Doctors of the Canon Law who all agree that an exception against the safety of the place is pertinent and ought to be admitted that it is good both by the Civil Law and the Law of Nature that a man summon'd to a place where any danger threatens him is not bound to appear nor to send his Proctour and that a Judge is bound to assign the parties a place of safety for the hearing of their
by Martian and Valentinian And this is so clear that Bellarmine in his Recognitions confesseth his mistake about the Constantinopolitan Council being called by the Letters of Pope Damasus and acknowledges that to be true which I at large proved before That the Synodical Epistle was not sent by the General Council but by another the year after If then the calling of Councils belongs not of right to the Pope it is not his summoning which can make a General Council without mission and deputation from those Churches whom they are to represent And any other sense of a General Council is contrary to the sense of Antiquity and is forced and unreasonable in it self For it must be either absolutely general or by representation none ever imagined yet an absolutely General Council and therefore it must be so called as it doth represent if so then there is a necessity of such a deputation But here a Question might arise Whether those Deputies of Churches have power by their own votes to oblige the Churches they are sent from by conveying in a General Council or else only as they carry with them the sense of those Churches whom they represent and this latter seems more agreeable to the nature of a truly General Council whose acts must oblige the whole Church For that can only be said to be the act of the whole Church which is done by the Bishops delivering the sense of all particular Churches and it is not easie to understand How the Vniversal Church can be obliged any other way unless it be proved that General Councils are instituted by some positive Law of Christ so that what is done by the Bishops in them must oblige the Catholick Church and then we must find out not only the Institution it self but the way and manner how General Councils should be called of which the Scripture is wholly silent And therefore there is no reason that there should be any other General Council imagined but by such a representation and in order to this the consent of all those Churches must be known by the particular Bishops before they can concurr with others so as to make a General Council The most suitable way then to a General Council is that the Summons of them being published by the consent of Christian Princes every Prince may call together a National Synod in which the matters to be debated in the Council are to be discussed and the sense of that Synod fully declared which those Bishops who are appointed by it to go to the General Council are to carry with them and there to declare the sense of their particular Church and what all these Bishops so assembled do all agree in as the sense of the whole Church may be called the decree of a General Council Or in case some great impediment happen that such Bishops cannot assemble from all Churches but a very considerable number appearing and declaring themselves which upon the first notice of it is universally received by all particular Churches that may ex post-facto be called a General Council as it was with the first four Oecumenical Councils And yet that in them there was such a deputation as this is appears by that expression in the Synodical Epistle of the Bishops of Constantinople before mentioned for in that they give this account Why they could not do what the Western Bishops desired because they brought not with them the consent of the Bishops who remained at home to that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And concerning this only Council viz. at Constantinople have we brought the consent of those Bishops which remain in the Provinces So that they looked on the consent of the other Bishops to be necessary as well as their own But now if we examine your Council of Trent by this Rule How far is it from any appearance of a General Council What Bishops were there sent from the most of Christian Churches Those that did appear What equality and proportion was there among them For Voices in General Councils ought not to go by the number of Bishops but by the number of Churches so that if six were sent from the Church of England or France delivering the sense of that Church they come from they have equal Votes with the greatest number of Italian Bishops But here lay the great imposture of that Council first that the Councils being general depended upon the Popes general Summons though never so few Bishops appeared next that the Decrees of the Council were to be carried by most Voices and the Bishops to give their bare placet these things being thus laid when there was any fear that businesses would not go right it was but the Legats using some art in delaying it and sending intelligence to Rome and forty Bishops are made together and posted to Trent to help out the number of voices and thus it was in the case of the Institution and Residence of Bishops And this is that you call a General Council 2. To your other That what was wanting in number at first was made up at last when all former Decrees were confirmed by a full number of Bishops it is soon replied That this is as all the rest of the proceedings of that Council was but a meer Artifice For it appears by the History of that Council that in the last Session under Pius 4. a Proposition was made that all the Decrees under Paul and Julius should be approved which was opposed because they said it would be a derogation to the Authority of the Council of those times if it should seem that the things then done had need of a new confirmation of the Fathers and would shew that this and that was not all one because none can confirm his own things But upon the French Bishops earnest insisting upon it it was determined simply to read them and no more And Do you call this a confirming and ratifying them de novo So that for all appears by this last Session the Authority of those Decrees must as far as concerns the Council depend upon the number of the Bishops then present which was but very small certainly for a General Council there being not so many in most of the Sessions as were in the Donatists Council in Africa so far were they from the number of the ancient General Councils But here comes your grand Objection in the way That nothing is pretended by us against the Council of Trent which might not have been in effect as justly objected by the Arrians against the Council of Nice But Is not there easily discernable a vast disparity between these two which way soever we conceive them The one called by the Emperour who in person sate in the Council to prevent all disorders and clancular actions the other by the Pope who presided in it by his Legats and ordered all things by his directions In that of Nice the Arrian Bishops were as freely admitted to debate as
yet the best your cause would bear And the greater you say the number of Bishopricks is in Italy the more friends I hope the Pope must make by disposing them and Could they do the Pope better service than to help him in this grand business at Trent wherein they sought to outvy each other by promoting the Popes Interest But not only the Protestants complained of this but the Emperour and other Princes and all impartial men in Germany France nay and in some part of Italy too But here his Lordship encounters an Objection of Bellarmine viz. that in the Council of Nice there were as few Bishops of the West present as were of the East at Trent and manifestly shews the great disparity between the the two Councils 1. Because it is not a meer disparity in number which he insists on but with it the Popes carriage to be sure of a major part but neither the Greek Church in general nor any Patriarch of the East had any private interest to look to in the Council at Nice 2. It was not so much a disparity between the Eastern and Western Bishops but that there were so many more Italians and Bishops obnoxious to the Popes Power than of all Germany France Spain and of all other parts of the West besides 3. Even in the comparison of those two Councils as to Eastern and Western Bishops there is this remarkable difference that Pope Sylvester with 275. Bishops confirmed the Council at Nice but the Council at Trent was never confirmed by any Council of Eastern Bishops To the two first of these you Answer with your best property silence Only you would fain perswade some silly people if there be any so weak in the world that enquire into such things That the Pope had no private interest at Trent but what was common to him with other Bishops You should have done well to have commended the excellency of an implicite Faith before you had uttered a thing so contrary to the sense of the whole Christian World To the third you confess It is some disparity but nothing to the purpose because if the Pope himself had ratified them the Council would have had as much Authority as by that accessory Assembly The more to blame was the Pope a great deal for putting so many Bishops to so needless a trouble But you say further This Council was not held just at the same time But Binius tells you it was held assoon as might be after the notice of what was done at Nice shew us the like of the Eastern Bishops at any time and we will not quarrel with you because it was not at the same time Though these Answers may pass for want of better they come not near your last which is a prodigious one the sense of it being That the Doctrine of Faith defined by the Council of Trent was more universally received in the Church then that of the Council of Nice For that of Trent you say was universally received by the whole Catholick Church and hath been more constantly held ever since whereas many Provinces either in whole or in part deserted the Faith defined at Nice and embraced the Arrian Heresie It seems then the twelve good Articles of Trent have been more generally received by the Catholick Church then the eternal existence of the Son of God and consequently that you are more bound to believe the Doctrine of Purgatory or Transubstantiation then that the Son is of the same substance with the Father For your grounds of Faith being resolved into the Churches Infallibility you cannot believe that which hath been so much questioned in the Church so firmly as that which hath been universally believed and constantly held But the universal reception of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent by the whole Catholick Church is so intolerable a falshood that you would scarce have vented it unless it were your design to write for the Whetstone To C's objection That neither French nor Spanish nor Schismatical Greeks did agree with the Protestants in those points which were defined by the Council his Lordship Answers That there can be no certainty who did agree and who not or who might have agreed before the Council ended because they were not admitted to a fair and free dispute And it may be too some Decrees would have been more favourable to them had not the care of the Popes Interest made them sowrer Here you complain of his Lordships falling again to his Surmizes of the Bishops being over-awed by the Popes Authority in the Council which you call an empty and injurious suspicion an unworthy accusation and arguing the want of Christian charity But usually when you storm the most you are the most guilty For if you call this an empty suspicion c. you charge many more with it besides his Lordship and those the greatest of your own Communion what meant else the frequent Protestations of the French and Spanish Ambassadours in which they often declared that as things were managed the Council was not Free What meant those words of the Emperour Ferdinand in his Letters to the Legats and the Pope That the Liberty of the Council was impeached chiefly by three causes one because every thing was first consulted of at Rome another because the Legats had assumed to themselves only the liberty of proposing which ought to be common to all the third because of the practises which some Prelats interested in the Greatness of the Court of Rome did make The French Ambassadour Monsieur de Lansac writ to the King his Master That the Pope was so much Master of this Council that his Pensioners whatsoever the Emperours or we do remonstrate to them will do but what they list Several of the like nature might easily be produced so that it is not his Lordship only is guilty of this want of charity as you call it but all impartial persons who were most acquainted with the Affairs of that Council Whose judgement is certainly much more to be taken then such who have sworn to defend it But you have an excellent Argument to prove the Council Free because the Bishops of the Council continued in the Faith and Doctrine of it as long as they lived And had they not good reason so to do when they were sworn before hand to defend the Pope and having secured him from danger of reformation by the Council and subscribed the Decrees of it they were as much bound to defend their own acts And although it is well enough known what practises were used to bring off the French and Spanish Bishops yet when they were brought off what a shame would it have been for them to have revolted from their own Subscriptions But what is this to that General freedom which was desired by the Roman Catholick Princes for Reformation of the Court of Rome and by Protestants both of the Court and Church Was the Council any thing
the Catholick Church with them and there was the greater hopes of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Since neither part did agree with the Bishop of old Rome or the Church which joynes with him but both oppose the evil customs and abuses which come by him which bears the same date with the Patriarchs first Answer to the Tubing Divines May 15. 1576. And the Patriarch in his letter heartily wishes an union and conjunction between them From hence we may easily gather how true both those things were viz. That the intent of their writing was to be admitted into the communion of the Greek Church and that the Patriarch did not in the least approve their Doctrine but confirmed the Tenets of the Roman Catholick Church But we must look further into the writings themselves to see how far they agreed and wherein they differed It appears then that the Patriarch did profess his consent with them in these things besides the Articles of the Creed and the satisfaction of Christ and other more general points viz. That the Sacrament was to be received in both kinds that the use of marriage was not to be absolutely forbidden the Clergy though their custom is that they must be married before they take Orders besides the grand Articles of the Popes Supremacy and the Roman Churches Infallibility Doth he that joyns with them in these things not in the least approve their Doctrine but confirm the Tenets of the Roman Catholick Church But withall it must be confessed that besides that common Article of the Procession of the Spirit wherein he disputes most earnestly there are five others in which they dissented from each other about Free will justification by Faith the number of Sacraments Invocation of Saints and Monastick life and about these the remaining disputes were In some of which it is easie to discern how far the right state of the question was from being apprehended which the Lutheran Divines perceiving sent him a larger and fuller explication of their mind in a body of Divinity in Greek but the Patriarchs troubles coming on Cantacuzenus deposing him too and other businesses taking him off upon his restauration he breaks off the Conference between them But although he differed from them in these things yet he was far enough from rebuking them for departing from the Roman Church although he was desirous they should have joyned with them in the approbation of such things as were in use among themselves And in those things in which he seems to plead for some practises in use in the Roman Church yet there are many considerable circumstances about them wherein they differ from the Church of Rome as hath been manifested by many others As in the Article of Invocation of Saints the Patriarch saith They do not properly Invocate Saints but God for neither Peter nor Paul do hear us upon which ground it is impossible to maintain the Romish Doctrine of Invocation of Saints And in most of the other the main difference lies in the want of a true State of the Questions between them But is this any such great matter of admiration that the Patriarch upon the first sight of their confession should declare his dissent from them in these things It is well enough known how much Barbarism had crept into the Greek Church after their being subdued by the Turks the means of Instruction being taken from them and it being very rare at that time to have any Sermons at all in so much that one of your Calogeri being more learned then the rest and preaching there in Lent was thereby under great suspicion and at last was by the Patriarch himself sent out of the way It is therefore more to be wondered they should preserve so much of the Doctrine of Faith entire as they have done then that any corrupt practises should prevail amongst them The most then which you can make of the judgement of the Patriarch Hieremias is that in some things he was opposite to the Protestants as in others to the Church of Rome But what would you have said if any Patriarch of Constantinople had declared his consent so fully with the Church of Rome as the Patriarch Cyril did afterwards with the Protestants who on that account suffered so much by the practises of the Jesuits of whom he complains in his Epistle to Vtenbogard And although a Faction was raised against him by Parthenius who succeeded him yet another Parthenius succeeding him stood up in vindication of him Since therefore such different opinions have been among them about the present Controversies of the Christian world and there being no declared Confession of their Faith which is owned by the whole Greek Church as to these things there can be no confident pronouncing what their judgement is as to all our differences till they have further declared themselves PART III. Of Particular Controversies CHAP. I. Of the Infallibility of General Councils How far this tends to the ending Controversies Two distinct Questions concerning the Infallibility and Authority of General Councils The first entered upon with the state of the Question That there can be no certainty of faith that General Councils are infallible nor that the particular decrees of any of them are so which are largely proved Pighius his Arguments against the Divine Institution of General Councils The places of Scripture considered which are brought for the Churches infallibility and that these cannot prove that General Councils are so Matth. 18.20 Acts 15.28 particularly answered The sense of the Fathers in their high expressions of the decrees of Councils No consent of the Church as to their infallibility The place of St. Austin about the amendment of former General Councils by latter at large vindicated No other places in S. Austin prove them infallible but many to the contrary General Councils cannot be infallible in the conclusion if not in the use of the means No such infallibility without as immediate a revelation as the Prophets and Apostles had taking Infallibility not for an absolute unerring power but such as comes by a promise of Divine Assistance preserving from errour No obligation to internal assent but from immediate Divine Authority Of the consistency of Faith and reason in things propounded to be believed The suitableness of the contrary Doctrine to the Romanists principles IF high pretences and large promises were the only things which we ought to value any Church for there were none comparable to the Church of Rome For there can be nothing imagined amiss in the Christian world but if we believe the bills her Factours set up she hath an Infallible cure for it If any enquire into the grounds of Religion they tell us that her testimony only can give them Infallible Certainty if any are afraid of mistaking in opinions they have the only Infallible Judge of Controversies to go to if any complain of the rents and divisions of the Christian world they have Infallible Councils either to
the Infallibility of General Councils that I believe a Philosopher might hear them repeated a hundred times over without ever imagining any such thing as a General Council much less concluding thence that they are Infallible But because you again cavil with another expression of his Lordships in that he saith That no one of them doth infer much less inforce Infallibility from whence you not infer but inforce this consequence that he was loath to say all of them together did not I shall therefore give you his Lordships Answer from all of them together Which is likewise sufficient for every one of them And for all the places together saith he weigh them with indifferency and either they speak of the Church including the Apostles as all of them do and then all grant the voyce of the Church is Gods voyce Divine and Infallible Or else they are general unlimited and appliable to private assemblies as well as General Councils which none grant to be Infallible but some mad Enthusiasts Or else they are limited not simply to all truth but all necessary to salvation in which I shall easily grant a General Council cannot err suffering it self to be led by this Spirit of Truth in Scripture and not taking upon it to lead both the Scripture and the Spirit For suppose these places or any other did promise assistance even to Infallibility yet they granted it not to every General Council but to the Catholick body of the Church it self and if it be in the whole Church principally then is it in a General Council but by consequent as the Council represents the whole And that which belongs to a thing by consequent doth not otherwise nor longer belong unto it then it consents and cleaves to that upon which it is a consequent And therefore a General Council hath not this assistance but as it keeps to the whole Church and Spouse of Christ whose it is to hear his Word and determine by it And therefore if a General Council will go out of the Churches way it may easily go without the Churches truth Which words of his contain so full an Answer to all these places together that till that be taken off there is no necessity at all to descend to the particular places especially those which are acknowledged by your selves to speak primarily of the Churches Infallibility Yet for your satisfaction more than any intelligent Readers I shall add somewhat further to shew the impertinency of the former places and then consider the force of the two last which have not yet been handled 1. There can be nothing drawn from promises made to the diffusive body for the benefit of the representative unless the maker of those promises did institute that representation Therefore supposing that Infallibility were by these promises bestowed upon the Catholick Church yet you cannot thence inferr that it belongs to a General Council unless you prove that Christ did appoint a General Council to represent the Church and in that representation to be Infallible For this Infallibility coming meerly by promise it belongs only to those to whom the promise is made and in that capacity in which it is made to it For Spiritual gifts are not bequeathable to Heirs nor can be made over to Assigns if the Church be promised Infallibility she cannot pass away the gift of it to her Assigns in a General Council unless that power of devolution be contained in the Original Grant For she can give no more then is in her power to bestow but this Infallibility being out of her disposal the utmost that can be given to a General Council is a power to oblige the Church by the acts of it which falls much short of Infallibility Besides this representation of the Church by a General Council is a thing not so evident from whence it should come that from a promise made to one it must necessarily be understood of the other For as Pighius sayes It cannot be demonstrated from Theological grounds that a General Council which is so far from being the whole Church that it is not a thousandth part of it should represent the whole Church For either saith he it hath this from Christ or from the Church but they cannot produce one tittle from Scripture where Christ hath conveyed over the power and authority of the whole Church to a hundred or two hundred Bishops If they say It is from the Church there are two things to be shewed first that it is done and secondly that it is de jure or ought to be so done First it can never be shewed that such a thing ever was done by the Vniversal Church for if it were it must either be by some formal act of the Church or by a tacit consent It could not be by any formal act of the Church For then there must be some such act of the Vniversal Church preceding the being of any General Council for by that act they receive their Commission to appear in behalf of the Vniversal Church And this could not be done in a General Council because that is not pretended to be the whole Church but only to represent it and therefore it must have this power to represent the Church by something antecedent to its being Else it would only arrogate this power to it self without any act of the Church in order to it Now that the Vniversal Church did ever agree in any such act is utterly impossible to be demonstrated either that it could be or that it was Yet such a delegation to a General Council must be supposed in order to its representation of the whole Church and this delegation must not only be before the first General Council but for all that I can see before every one For how can the Church by its act in one age bind the Church in all ages succeeding to the acts of those several Councils which shall be chosen afterwards If it be said That such a formal act is not necessary but the tacit consent of the whole Church is sufficient for it then such a consent of the Church must be made evident by which they did devolve over the power of the whole Church to such a representative And all those must consent in that act whose power the Council pretends to have and so it cannot be sufficient to say That those who choose Bishops for the Council do it for then they could only represent those who chose them and so their authority will fall much short of that of the whole Church But suppose such a thing were done by the whole Church of which no footsteps at all appear we must further enquire by what right or authority this is done for the authority of the Church being given it by Christ it cannot be given from it self without his commission for doing it Which if we stay till it can be produced in this case we may stay long enough before we see any such Infallible
of plain places wherein he saith That no other writing is Infallible but the Scripture That only according to them he judged freely of all other writings and that because he could yield an undoubted assent to none but them That there is no other writing wherein humane infirmities are not discovered but in them that men are at liberty to believe or not believe any thing besides the Scripture Can any man who sayes these things be reasonably supposed to assert that the decrees of General Councils are as certain as the Scripture is You see then what little advantage you have gained by this attempt of offering to make St. Austin contradict himself if in this place he should be supposed to assert that General Councils may err which he doth plainly enough to any but those who are resolved not to understand him This prejudice being therefore removed we come to the particular evasions of this place which you thus sum up in order to the defence of them That when he saith Former General Councils may be amended by the latter it is only to be understood in matters of fact in precepts pertaining to manners and discipline or by way of more full and clear explication of what had been delivered by former Councils To both these his Lordship offers very just exceptions To the first that it is to be understood of precepts of manners and discipline he saith 1. That Bellarmin contradicts himself because he had said before that General Councils cannot err in precepts of manners No say you this is no contradiction because these depend much upon circumstances of time place person c. which varying it often so falls out that what at first was prudently judged fit to be done becomes afterwards unfitting and in this case one General Council may be amended by another and yet neither charged with errour But do you suppose the mean while that St. Austin spake pertinently to this business or no If he did he can be understood only of such a precept as that relating to the baptism of Hereticks Suppose then one Council should decree Hereticks to be baptized and another afterwards correct this and say They should not Will you say that neither of these were in an errour So that your Answer is wholly impertinent to the scope of St. Austins discourse And so his Lordship saith This whole Answer is concerning precepts of manners for St. Austin disputes against the errour of St. Cyprian followed by the Donatists which was an errour in Faith namely that true Baptism could not be given by Hereticks and such as were out of the Church But you say St. Austin doth not confine his discourse to St. Cyprians case only but by occasion of his and his Councils errour he layes down general doctrine touching the different authority of the writings of particular Bishops Provincial National and General Councils Although I should grant you this it will make little for your purpose for St. Austins main design is to set the Authority of Scripture far above all these and that in point of Certainty and Infallibility and this being his main scope whatsoever he sayes of any of these it is certain his purpose is to shew that all of them fall short of the Sacred Scripture as to our yielding assent to them For these in the first place are set by themselves as only being Infallible and deserving an undoubted assent to all that is contained in them which being supposed he proceeds to shew what the extent is of all other authority besides this For the writings of Bishops saith he they are so far from deserving such an assent as we give to the Scriptures that they may be corrected by others or by National Councils and National Councils by Plenary and Plenary may be amended the former by the latter In all which gradations two things must be repeated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as running through the whole Discourse which are 1. The difference of all these from the Scripture in regard of our yielding assent to them for that is it which he begins with that we are not in the least to doubt whether any thing contained therein be true or no and then comes the other in by way of immediate Antithesis but the writings of Bishops c. and although there be a gradation in all these yet all of them are therein different from Scripture that whatsoever is found there may neither be doubted nor disputed but the writings of Bishops may be doubted or disputed of because they may be corrected by other Bishops or Councils And those National Councils may be because they may be corrected by General and even these General Councils cannot require such an undoubted assent as the Scripture doth because the former may be amended by the latter So that if you take the scope of S. Austin's discourse in this place whether he speaks generally or particularly nothing can be more evident than that he puts this difference between the Scriptures and all other writings or Councils that the one may not at all be doubted or disputed of but the other may and the common reason of all is because none are so Infallible but they may be corrected by something besides themselves which cannot be in any sense said of the Scripture 2. Although Saint Austin adds that clause Si quid in eis fortè à veritate deviatum est If they have erred from the truth only where he speaks of the writings of Bishops yet the series of his discourse implies that it should be understood in what follows too that as the writings of Bishops may be corrected by Councils if they have erred so National Councils may be corrected by General if they have erred and so former General Councils by latter on the same supposition still that they have erred For as the errours was supposed to be the ground of correction in the former it must be likewise of amendment here And whatever is not so perfect but that it may be amended cannot be supposed Infallible for if the persons had been Infallible who had made those Decrees in General Councils they would have prevented any necessity of further amendments by succeeding Councils So that take amendment in what sense you will either for supplying defects or correcting errours it is destructive to your pretence that the Decrees of General Councils are Infallible and as certain as the Scripture Which is so repugnant to the scope of this speech of S. Austin as nothing can be more Your Criticism then from the signification of emendare from menda and menda from minus and so importing only the taking away any defect yields you no relief at all for that defect which is supposed in General Councils which needs that emendation doth sufficiently argue there was no Infallible Assistance of the Spirit of God in the Decrees of those Councils For where Gods Spirit assists infallibly it leaves no such defects as are
as well as of the Laws of other Courts before private men can take liberty to refuse obedience Therefore he concludes That this seems most fit and necessary for the peace of Christendom unless in case the errour be manifest and intolerable or that the whole Church upon peaceable and just complaint of this errour neglect or refuse to call a Council to examine it and there come in National and Provincial Councils to reform for themselves These words contain the full account of his Lordships opinion which you charge with so many interclashings and inconveniences The first of which is That it tends only to oblige all the members of the Church to an Vnity in errour against Scripture and demonstration during their whole lives or rather to the worlds end since such an Utopian rectifying Council as the Bishop here fancies is morally impossible ever to be had and therefore you call it a strange not not say an impious doctrine advanced without authority of Gods Word or Antiquity nay contrary to all solid reason This being a charge of the highest nature and manag'd with such unmeasurable confidence we must somewhat further enquire into the grounds of his Lordships opinion to see whether it be guilty of these crimes or no. There are three things therefore must be cleared in order to his Lordships Vindication 1. The design of his Discourse 2. The suppositions he makes as to the proceedings of the Council 3. The obligation of its decrees supposing that it should err 1. The design of his discourse is to be considered which is to remedy a supposable inconvenience and to provide for the Churches peace For the first question in debate was Whether a General Council might err or no. In which his Lordship gives sufficient evidence from Scripture Antiquity and Reason that it might But then here comes an inconvenience to be removed for his Adversary objects What are we then nearer to Vnity after a Council hath determin'd supposing it may err To this his Lordship suits his Answer wherein we ought to consider that the inconvenience objected is on his Lordships suppositions one of the rara contingentia and such a one ought not to destroy a principle of Government in all other cases useful and necessary For there cannot possibly be any way thought of for peace and Government but there may be a supposition made of some notable inconvenience but that not being necessary nor immediately consequent upon it but something which may happen and far more probably may not it ought not to hinder the obtaining of that which is generally both useful and necessary To give you a parallel case to this It is granted on all hands that the civil authority of a Nation is Fallible and therefore we may suppose it actually to err and that so far as to bind men by Law to something in it self unlawful Will you say now that the intent of civil authority is to bind men necessarily to sin I hope you will not but by this you may easily see the fallacy of your arguing against his Lordship for it is an Inconvenience indeed supposable but not at all necessary if he had said indeed that General Councils must necessarily err your Argument had been strong against him but as it is it hath no more force against his assertion then the supposition before made hath against civil authority For that case may be easily put that such a Law may pass but doth this hinder men from their obligation to duty and submission to a just authority or Will you have men presently to renounce obedience and to repeal such a Law themselves and not rather in all wayes of duty and reverence to authority make known their just complaints and desire a redress by the hands of Supream authority And this is all which his Lordship aims at that in case a General Council should err which is not easily imaginable upon his suppositions it tends more to the Churches peace for private men not to oppose the Decrees of it but to endeavour that another General Council be called to repeal it and till then to preserve the Churches peace supposing the errour not manifest or intolerable In this case then there are two inconveniences put the one of them is That when a Council is supposed to err every particular man may be at liberty to oppose the Decrees of it and so put the Church into confusion the other is That though private men may know it to be an errour yet they should be patient till the Church by another Council may repeal it now these two inconveniences being laid together the question is Which is the greater His Lordship with a great deal of reason judges the former to be because in the latter case it is only a silencing of some less necessary truth for some time but in the other it is an exposing the Church to the fury of mens turbulent Spirits But that which shews the unreasonableness of your objection That this is the way to bind the Church to an union in errour is that this doth not necessarily follow from his Lordships opinion but is only a case supposable and no rare Inconvenience ought to prejudice a general good And the peace of the Church in such a case ought to be preferred before private mens satisfaction But this will further appear if we consider secondly the Suppositions his Lordship makes for by that we shall see how rarely incident this case is for I hope the supposing that a General Council may erre doth not suppose that it must necessarily erre and granting those things which are supposed by him it is a rare case that it should erre For these things are by him supposed 1. That it must be a Council lawfully called and ordered and so not such Councils as that of Trent was or any like it wherein the Pope gives only a General Summons and that it must be called a General Council on that account how few Bishops soever appear in it nay though the far greatest part of the Christian world be excluded from it but it must be such a Council as may be acknowledged to be General by the general Consent of the Christian world For that we would make our Judge in the case as it was in the four first General Councils Not that we would stand upon Bishops being actually present from every particular Church but that such a number be present from the greatest Churches as may make it not be suspected to be meerly a Faction packed together for the Interess of some potent Prelate but that they do so indifferently meet from all parts that there may be no just ground of suspicion that they design any thing but the common good of the Christian world And therefore we acknowledge the first four General Councils to be truly such in our present sense neither do we quarrel at them because so few Bishops were present who lived out of the Roman Empire for
Church because that was the root and matrix of the Catholick Church his advice had signified nothing for the Question was not between the Church of Rome and other Churches in which case it might have been pertinent to have said they should adhere to the Church of Rome because that was the root c. But when the difference was at Rome it self between two Bishops there this reason had been wholly impertinent for the only reason proper in this case must be such as must discriminate the one party from the other which this could not do because it was equally challenged by them both And had belonged to one as well as the other in case Novatianus had proved the lawful Bishop and not Cornelius And therefore the sense of Cyprian's words must be such as might give direction which party to joyn with at Rome on which account they cannot import any priviledge of the Church of Rome over other Churches but only contain this advice that they should hold to the Vnity of the Catholick Church and communicate only with that party which did it This reason is so clear and evident to me that this place cannot be understood of any priviledge of the Church of Rome above other Churches that if there were nothing else to induce me to believe it this were so pregnant that I could not resist the force of it But besides this his Lordship proves that elsewhere S. Cyprian speaks in his own person with other Catholick Bishops nos qui Ecclesiae unius caput radicem tenemus we who hold the head and root of one Church by which it appears he could not make the Church of Rome the root and matrix of the Catholick this being understood of the Vnity and Society of the Catholick Church without relation to the Church of Rome and S. Cyprian writes to Cornelius that they had sent Caldonius and Fortunatus to reduce the Church of Rome to the Vnity and Communion of the Catholick Church and because no particular Church can be the root of the Catholick and if any were Jerusalem might more pretend to it than Rome and because S. Cyprian and his Brethren durst not have suspended their communion at all if they had looked on the Church of Rome as the root and matrix of the Catholick as Baronius confesses they did all which things are largely insisted on by his Lordship and do all confirm that hereby was not meant any Authority or Priviledge of the Church of Rome above other Apostolical Churches which in respect of the lesser Churches which came from them are called Matrices Ecclesiae by Tertullian and others But you are still so very unreasonable that though no more be said of the Church of Rome than might be said of any other Apostolical Church yet because it is said of the Church of Rome it must import some huge Authority which if it had been said of any other would have been interpreted by your selves into nothing For so do you deal with us here for because it is said that they who joyned with Cornelius did preserve the Unity of the Catholick Church therefore it must needs be understood that the Roman Church is the root of the Catholick But he must have a very mean understanding that can be swayed by such trifles as these are For Was there not a Catholick and Schismatical party then at Rome and if they who joyned with Novatianus did separate from the Catholick Church then they who were in communion with Cornelius must preserve the Vnity of it And Would not this Argment as well prove the Catholick party at Carthage to be the root and matrix of the Catholick Church as well as at Rome But such kind of things must they deal with who are resolved to maintain a cause and yet are destitute of better means to do it with So that I cannot find any thing in all your Answer but what would equally hold for any other Church at that time which was so divided as Rome was considering the great care that then was used to preserve the Vnity of the Catholick Church And what particularly S. Cyprian's apprehension was concerning the Nature and Vnity of the Catholick Church we have at large discoursed already to which place we referr the Reader if he desires any further satisfaction Your whole N. 5. depends on personal matters concerning the satisfaction of the Lady's conscience but if you would thence inferr That she did well to desert the Protestant Communion you must prove that it can be no sin to follow the dictates of an erroneous conscience For such we say it was in her and you denying it all this discourse signifies nothing but depends on the truth of the matters in controversie between us But you most notoriously impose on his Lordship when because he asserts the possibility of Salvation of some in your Church you would make him say That it is no sin to joyn with your Church You might as well say Because he hopes some who have committed Adultery may be saved therefore it is no sin to commit Adultery So that while you are charging him falsly for allowing dissimulation you do that which is more in saying that which you cannot but know to be a great untruth If our Religion be not the same with yours as you eagerly contend it is not let it suffice to tell you that our Religion is Christianity let yours be what it will And if it please you better to have a name wholly distinct from us yours shall be called the Roman Religion and ours the Christian. If you judge us of another Religion from yours because we do not believe all that you do we may judge you to have a different Religion from the Christian because you impose more by your own confession to be believed as necessary in order to Salvation than ever Christ or the Apostles did And certainly the main of any Religion consists in those things which are necessary to be believed in it in order to eternal happiness In your following discourse you are so far from giving us any hopes of peace with your Church that you plainly give us the reason why it is vain to expect or desire it which is that if your Church should recede from any thing it would appear she had erred and if that appears farewell Infallibility and then if that be once gone you think all is gone And while you maintain it we are so far from hoping any peace with you that the Peace of Christendom may still be joyned in the Dutchmans Sign with the quadrature of the circle and the Philosophers Stone for the sign of the three hopelesse things How far we are bound to submit to General Councils hath been so fully cleared already that I need not go about here to vindicate his Lordships Opinion from falsity or contradiction both which you unreasonably charge it with and that still from no wiser a
which Cyprian replies Whence comes this Tradition doth it descend from the Lords Authority or from the Commands and Epistles of the Apostles for those things are to be done which are there written And again If it be commanded in the Gospel or the Epistles and Acts of the Apostles then let this holy Tradition be observed We see then what St. Cyprian meant by his Apostolical Tradition not one Infallibly attested by the present Church but that is clearly derived from Scripture as its fountain and therefore brings in the foregoing words on purpose to correct the errours of Traditions that As when channels are diverted to a wrong course we must have recourse to the fountain so we must in all pretended Traditions of the Church run up to the Scriptures as the fountain-head And whereas Bellarmins only shift to avoid this place of Cyprian is by saying that Cyprian argued more errantium i. e. could not defend one errour but by another see how different the judgements of St. Augustine and Bellarmin are about it for St. Augustin is so far from blaming it in him that he saith Optimum est sine dubitatione faciendum i. e. It was the best and most prudent course to prevent errours And in another place where he mentions that saying of Cyprian It is in vain for them to object Custom who are overcome by Reason as though custom were greater than truth or as though that were not to be followed in spiritual things which is revealed by the Holy Ghost This saith St. Augustin is evidently true because reason and truth is to be preferred before custom He doth not charge these sayings on him as Bellarmin doth as part of his errours but acknowledgeth them and disputes against his opinion out of those principles And when before the Donatists objected the authority of St. Cyprian in the point of Rebaptization What kind of answer doth St. Augustine give them the very same that any Protestant would give Who knows not that the sacred Canonical Scripture of the Old and New Testament is contained within certain bounds and ought so far to be prefer'd before the succeeding writings of Bishops that of that alone we are not to doubt or call in question any thing therein written whether it be true and right or no. But as he saith in the following words All the writings since the confirmation of the Canon of Scripture are lyable to dispute and even Councils themselves to be examined and amended by Councils Think you then that St. Augustin ever thought of a present Infallibility in the Church or if he did he expressed it in as odd a manner as ever I read How easily might he have stopt the mouths of the Donatists with that one pretence of Infallibility How impertinently doth he dispute through all those Books if he had believed any such thing It were easie to multiply the Citations out of other Books of St. Austin to shew how much he attributed to Scripture as the only rule of Faith and consequently how farr from believing your Doctrine of Infallibility But these may suffice to shew how unhappily you light on these Books of St. Augustine for the proof of your opinion out of the Fathers The last thing your Discourser objects against his Lordships way is If the Church be fallible in the Tradition of Scripture how can I ever be Infallibly certain that she hath not erred de facto and defined some Book to be the Word of God which really is not his Word To which I answer If you mean by Infallible certainty such a certainty as must have some Infallible Testimony for the ground of it you beg the question for I deny any such Infallible Testimony to be at all requisite for our believing the Canon of Scripture and therefore you object that as an inconvenience which I apprehend to be none at all For I do not think it any absurdity to say that I cannot believe upon some Infallible Testimony that the Church hath not erred in defining the Canon of Scripture If by Infallible certainty you mean such a certainty as absolutely excludes a possibility of deception you would do well first to shew how congruous this is to humane nature in this present state before you make such a certainty so necessary for any act of humane understanding But if by Infallible certainty you mean only such as excludes all possibility of reasonable doubting upon the consideration of the validity and sufficiency of that Testimony I am to believe the Canon of Scripture upon then I assert that upon making the Churches Testimony to be fallible it doth not at all follow but that I may have so great a certainty as excludes the possibility of all reasonable doubting concerning the Canon of Scripture For when I suppose the Churches Testimony fallible I do not thereby understand as though there were as great reason to suspect her deceived as not nay I say there can be no reason to suspect her deceived but by that I understand only this that the Church hath not any supernatural Infallibility given her in delivering such a Testimony or that such Infallibility must be the foundation of believing the thing so delivered For whether I suppose your particular Church of Rome or the Catholick Church to be supernaturally Infallible in her Traditions there will be the same difficulty returning and an equal impossibility of vindicating our Faith from the entanglements of a Circle For still the question unavoidably returns From whence I believe such a supernatural Infallibility in the Church For in that it is supernatural it must suppose some promise on which it depends that promise must be somewhere extant and that can be no where but in Scripture therefore when I am asked Why I believe the Canon of the Scripture to be true if I answer Because the Tradition of the Catholick Church is Infallible the question presently returns Since humane nature is in it self fallible whence comes the Church to have this Infallibility If I answer By the assistance of Gods spirit I am presently asked Since no man by the light of nature and meer reason can be assured of this how know you that you are not deceived in believing such an assistance If to this I answer Because God who is Infallible hath made this promise in his Word I am driven again to the first question How I know this to be Gods Word and must answer it as before Upon the infallible Testimony of the Catholick Church Thus we see how impossible it is to avoid a Circle in the supposition of a supernatural Infallibility in the Churches Tradition But if no more be meant but a kind of rational Infallibility though those terms be not very proper i. e. so great evidence as if I question it I may upon equal grounds question every thing which mankind yields the firmest Assent to because I cannot imagine that so great a part of the wisest and most considerative