niteris quod ante nescivimus Hier. Epist ad Pammach Ocean to teach us that which was not known before Pope Celestin I. Exhorting the Gallican Church to repress a sort of People that would have established new Doctrines concludes with these very pithy words Corripiantur hujusmodi non sit illis liberum habere pro voluntate sermonem Desinat incessere novitas vetustatem Coelest Ep. ad Episc Gall. Let such men be corrected let them not have the liberty to say what they please let not Novelty insult over Antiquity And Sixtus III. Animated by the same Spirit that his Predecessour was and following his steps speaks to John of Antioch with the same force writing to him in these terms Let no more be allowed to Novelty Nihil ultra liceat Novitati quia nihil addi convenit vetustati Six III. Ep. ad Joan. Antioch because nothing ought to be added to Antiquity Not but that the Church which makes no new Articles of Faith may declare after many Ages being instructed by the Holy Ghost which successively teaches her all truth that certain matters that have not been before examined whether or not they be Articles of Faith are really such as she hath done upon many occasions obliging us to believe distinctly what was not as yet known to be matter of Faith But that we ought so to stick to that which hath been believed in Antiquity in matter of Doctrine and especially in the four or five first Ages when according to our Protestants themselves there was as yet no corruption in Doctrine that new Doctours may add nothing of their own invention nor establish any Novelty contrary to it This solid Principle being equally received by Catholicks and Protestants I hope to satisfie both in declaring calmly and without dispute by the bare relation of evident matters of Fact what the ancient Church hath believed concerning the establishment of the Church of Rome and the Prerogatives and rights of her Bishops This then is the Method which I shall trace in this Treatise CHAP. II. Of the Foundation and Establishment of the Church of Rome ALL Catholicks who know that the Popes are the Successours of St. Peter agree amongst themselves as to that point but not with all Hereticks For there are some Modern who confidently deny that that Divine Apostle ever was at Rome or that he fixed his Chair either there or in the City of Antioch Calvin l. 4. Inst c. 6. They ground so extraordinary and new an Opinion upon the silence of St. Luke and St. Paul who having been at Rome would not have failed to have spoken of St. Peter and to have found Christians if he had already Preached the Gospel there besides they ground it upon a certain Chronology which they have made as they thought fit of the Acts of the Apostles and which can no way agree with that History of St. Peter and in fine upon the very Epistles of that Apostle who gives us to know that his Mission was into Asia and that he died at Babylon There is nothing that gives a clearer proof of the weakness and delusion of the wit of man than when by that Pride which is so natural to him he shakes off that Authority to which he is obliged to submit and for that end opposes it by his false reasonings that serve for no other purpose but to discover his blindness and vanity Though we had elsewhere no Intelligence of the Voyage to and Chair of St. Peter at Rome yet no man of sense would suffer himself to be persuaded by such inconclusive arguments so easie to be refuted St. Luke says nothing of it in the Acts of the Apostles Hath he mentioned there any thing of St. Paul's Journey into Arabia of his return to Damascus and then three years after to Jerusalem of his Travels into Galatia his being ravished up into Heaven his three Shipwrecks his eight Scourgings and of a thousand things else that he suffered shall one conclude from that silence that all is false And though St. Paul had not written of these things himself or if his Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians Galat. 1. 2 Cor. 2. had never come to our hands would that silence of St. Luke have been of any greater force to prove that that is not true seeing it is really so and was true before St. Paul wrote any thing of it That Evangelist saith St. Jerome hath past over a great many things which St. Paul suffered as likewise that St. Peter established his Chair first at Antioch In Ep. ad Galat. c. 2. and then at Rome And as to the Chronology calculated to refute the two Foundations of Antioch and Rome we maintain that it is false and it is easie to give another fixed by the ablest writers of Ecclesiastical History and Chronologers which perfectly agrees with the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul Take it thus then in a few words The year of our Lord thirty five that Apostle was sent with St. John to Samaria Anno 35. to lay hands upon those whom the Deacon St. Philip had newly converted there Act. 8. v. 20. And having Preached the Gospel to the People of that Province he returned to Jerusalem where St. Paul three years after his Conversion went to visit him in the year thirty nine Now seeing the Church at that time lived in a profound peace St. Peter took so favourable a time to go visit Anno 39. as St. Luke saith in express terms Galat. 1. v. 18. Act. 9. v. 31. 32. all the Believers that the Disciples dispersed through the Provinces during the Persecution of the Jews after the Martyrdom of St. Stephen Act. 11. v. 19. Euseb in Chron. Chrysost Hieron Greg. M. alii had gained to Christ And then it was that being informed that many of these dispersed Disciples had by their Preaching wrought much fruit at Antioch he went and setled his Patriarchal Chair in that great City the Capital of the East as the Ancients assure us From thence seeing he had the care of all the Churches having given necessary orders for the government of that of Antioch Anno 40 41. Anno 42. he returned into Judaea visits Lidda Joppa Caesarea opens a door to the calling of the Gentiles by the Conversion of Cornelius the Centurion and returns to Jerusalem Act. 11. v. 4. where having declared what God had revealed to him upon that Subject he was informed by the relation of those that came from Antioch that the number of Believers increased there dayly And therefore St. Barnabas was sent thither V. 22. who finding that there was a great Harvest there went to fetch St. Paul from Tarsus to assist him in the work V. 25. and both of them laboured in that holy employment for the space of a whole year with so great success Anno 43. that there the Believers who
name when he speaks of it at the time when it Persecuted the Christians and so cruelly shed the bloud of so many thousand Martyrs And what is most pleasant the Protestants are pleased to give to Christian Rome the name of Babylon and are not satisfied that Pagan Rome should be so called by St. Peter That being presupposed and all the weak batteries of our Adversaries so easily overthrown I had reason to say that if we knew not by other means that St. Peter had been at Rome yet all the reasons that are objected against it would never persuade a Man of sense of the contrary How must it be then at present when we have an invincible Argument to convince us of that truth which we ought never to abandon even though we could not disentangle our selves from the captious Arguments wherewith they assault us For that can never proceed but from the weakness of our mind and not the defect of the object which when it is once certainly known to be true is necessarily so always What is that invincible Argument then which ought to convince us of this truth It is that which as I have said I shall employ throughout this whole Histarical Treatise I mean Antiquity according to that great Principle which at first I laid down To wit that that which is newly broached if it be contrary to what hath been believed in the Primitive Church is false because ancient belief and that descends to us by Tradition especially when we trace it back to the age of the Apostles is always truth it self Now all Antiquity hath believed Blondel de la prim en l'Eglise Chap. 32. p. 823. that St. Peter was at Rome That is so true that Mr. David Blundel the most knowing of all our Protestant Ministers frankly confesses it And he must needs doe so for being a Man of such parts and so well read in the Ancients as appears in his Works he cannot deny but that almost all the Latin and Greek Fathers have asserted it Apud Prudent in peris toph Amongst the Latins Prosper Orosius St. Augustine Saint Jerome Prudentius Optatus Saint Ambrose Lactantius Arnobius St. Cyprian Hippolytus Tertullian and St. Irenoeus and amongst the Greeks Theodoret St. Cyril of Alexandria Apud Euseb l. 2. c. 24. Ibid. Ibid. c. 13. St. Chrysostom St. Epiphanius St. Cyril of Jerusalem St. Athanasius Peter of Alexandria Eusebius Origene Clemens Alexandrinus Denis of Corinth Cajus contemporary with Tertullian and Papias a disciple and hearer of St. John Nor shall we mention all the other Writers who in all succeeding ages have constantly asserted the same thing insomuch that no Heretick nor Schismatick ever dreamt of calling it in question before our Protestants who are the Authours of that impudent and unjustifiable novelty which can never pass with a Man of sense in opposition to all venerable Antiquity and to the authority of so many great men who have constantly in all ages given testimony to that truth from our present times up to the age of the Apostles For to say as some have done That all the Fathers and these Learned men have been deceived by an equivocal word taking that part of the lesser Asia Quas omnes provincias aetas nostra Anatoliam vocat Vnde apud Barbaros pars illa in qua Asia Bithynia Galatia Cappadocia prima Rom. id est Romania sive Romaea appellatur Pars vero quae ad austrum est in qua Lycia Pamphylia Cilicia sunt Otto-Manidia id est Familiae Ottomani quibus illa successit quondam dicebantur Dominic Marius Niger Venet. Asiae Pomment 1. de Asia Minore where St. Peter Preached for the City of Rome and which as the Geographer Marius Niger writes was called Rom. or Romania it is a ridiculous extravagance and no less shamefull ignorance It is onely the Turks who since they became Masters of the Eastern Empire have called the neighbouring Countrey to Constantinople especially beyond the Bosphorus Romania or Rom. or Romelia as that Geographer says for others give that name of Romania or Romelia onely to Thrace This being so Can it be affirmed without disgrace that these holy Fathers who flourished many Ages not onely before the Conquest of the Turks but even before the founding of Constantinople have been deceived in imagining that St. Peter was at Rome because it hath been said that he Preached in the Countrey of Rom. See what extravagance they are capable of who to satisfie their passion dare confront their ridiculous novelty with Antiquity of which we may say with Pope Celestine I. Desinat incessere novitas vetustatem CHAP. III. That the Church of Rome hath been founded by St. Peter that he was the first Bishop of it and that the Popes are his Successours therein IT will not be difficult to confirm the truth of this by the same principle of Antiquity to which I confine my self in this Treatise For all the same Fathers almost Cyprian ad Corn. Ep. 55. lib. de unit Optat. Cont. Parm. l. 2. Ambros de Sacr. l. 3. c. 1. Hierom. de Script in Petr. alibi Hegesip apud Hier. de Script Ruffin invect Sulp. Sever. Hist Sacr. l. 3. August contra Petil. l. 2. c. 51. and ancient Authours who assure us that Saint Peter was at Rome say also that he founded that particular Church It is true that many of them joyn St. Paul with him in that function as it is done at present and there is reason for so doing because both of them Preached the Gospel there in different times and both at the same time Consecrated that illustrious Church by their Martyrdom But when they speak as they very often do of the Episcopacy and Chair of Rome they call it solely the Chair of St. Peter without joining St. Paul with him So that it is not to be doubted but that all Antiquity hath acknowledged St. Peter of all the Apostles to have been the first Bishop of Rome De la Primanté en l'Eglise p. 44. as Mr. Blondel confesses So also when Optatus Melevitanus St. Jerome St. Austin and the rest give a Catalogue of the Bishops of Rome they place always St. Peter first and bring them down to him that possessed the See in their time to shew the uninterrupted Succession of Popes from St. Peter whose lawfull Successours they are and whose Chair they fill as the holy Fathers and Councils frequently say I know there are some who have said Hilar. in Frag. p. 23. Cypr. Ep. 43. Optat. contra Parm. l. 1. That Bishops being the Successours of the Apostles are in that quality all of them in St. Peter's Chair We say the same also and it must needs be granted for the reason that I shall alledge according to one of the Principles which I laid down at first in the first Chapter of this Treatise As the Universal Church is one and a body constituted of all particular Churches in
union with one principal or chief Church the principle and centre of their unity So there is but one general Chair in the Church and one Episcopacy Cathedra una super Petrum Domini voce fundata Cypr. Epist 40. Optat. contra Parmen l. 2. composed of all the Episcopal Chairs by the communication which they have with the Head of that Church and with that chief Chair whence their unity proceeds So that as all Believers are members of the same Church when they are united to its Head so all Bishops taken in general and every one in particular sit in the same Chair by the communion which they have with him that sits in that principal Chair from whence by that union which they preserve with it results the unity of the Chair and of Episcopacy in the Church But besides that every one of them hath his particular Chair wherein none of the rest have any share as they have all a share in that Chair which is but one in the Universal Church And because Saint Peter is head of it as we shall presently make it appear not onely his particular Chair of Rome but likewise that of the whole Church is by the holy Fathers often called the Chair of St. Peter It is in that sense then that all Bishops sit in St. Peter's Chair as all the Doctours of the old Law sate in the Chair of Moses But for all that all Bishops sit not in St. Peter's particular Chair no more than his Successours in that Chair sit in the Chairs of other Bishops every one possessing entirely his own as a part of the Universal Episcopacy And thus also is to be understood what is said that all Bishops are the Successours of St. Peter Take it in this manner I have clearly made it out in my Treatise of the true Church even according to Calvin and the ablest of our Protestants that the true mark of the true Church which distinguishes her from all others is the perpetuity that will make her continue without ever failing to the end of the World And seeing she is that great Sheep-fold wherein all believers who are the sheep of Jesus Christ are gathered together into one flock she cannot subsist in that unity without there be Pastours and Sheep some to teach and others to receive the truths which they are to believe guides and people to be guided and unless these pastours and guides succeed one another without interruption to the end for governing and guiding believers Now that is not to be seen but in the Catholick Church by the Union that all these particular Churches and their Bishops have with him whom they own for their Head For in what time soever these Churches began to be planted some sooner some later they may ascend by virtue of that Union through a perpetual Succession from Pastours to Pastours and from Bishops to Bishops till they come to him whom Jesus Christ hath given them for Head And because St. Peter is he as we shall presently see it is evident that it is by that that they are his Successours since by the Union which they have with the Bishop of Rome their Head who in a streight line succeeds to St. Peter they mount up without interruption by a continuity and collateral Succession even to that Apostle as all the branches of a Tree are united to the root in oblique and indirect lines by the union with the trunk and body of that Tree But we must now consider the rights and prerogatives of St. Peter who was the first Bishop of Rome CHAP. IV. Of the Primacy of St Peter and that he hath been established by Jesus Christ head of the Vniversal Church I Shall not enlarge in a long discussion of this point which the great and large volumes that so many learned men of the past and present age have composed for clearing of it have drained in alledging all that solidly can be said as to this Article of our Faith on which depends that perfect unity which we avow to be essential to the Church I shall onely say what all Catholicks agree in that Jesus Christ chose St. Peter amongst all his Apostles to give him not onely the Primacy of order honour and rank by assigning him the first place as one chief in dignity amongst his equals and in those gifts talents and graces which are inseparable from the Apostleship and Episcopacy but also the Primacy of Jurisdiction Power and Authority over all believers in the whole Church of whom he appointed him head This they learn from the Gospel in that famous passage of the sixteenth Chapter of St. Matthew where St. Peter having answered for all the Apostles to our Saviour who had asked them what they thought of him Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God our heavenly Lord commending his faith said to him Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona for flesh and bloud hath not revealed it unto thee but my father which is in heaven And I say unto thee that thou art Cephas that is to say in the Syriack Tongue a Stone and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it And I will give unto thee the Keyes of the kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Most of the holy Fathers especially those that were before the Council of Nice interpret to the person of St. Peter these words and upon that rock I will build my Church according to the reference that they must necessarily have to those which go before I say unto thee that thou art Cephas that is to say a Stone or Rock Tertul. de praescr c. 32. Origen in Ep. 14. hom 5. Cypr. Epist 71. p. 73. ad Jabaium Hilar. lib. 6. de Trinit Greg. Nist in opera de adv Domini Ambros in cap. 2. Ep. ad Eph. Chrysost in Matt. 15.83 in cap. 1. Ep. ad Gal. Hier. in Matth. c. 6. August in Joan. Tract 124. There are others particularly since the Council of Nice who to confute the impiety of the Arians have understood them of that illustrious confession of Faith that St. Peter made when he said Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God and some have referred them to Jesus Christ himself who is the foundation and corner Stone of which St. Paul saith That no man can lay another than that which is already laid which is Jesus Christ But besides that the same Authours say elsewhere that the Church is founded on St. Peter it is easie to reconcile all these opinions together which without any difficulty may be reduced to one that results from all the three by saying that these words ought to be understood of the person of St. Peter confessing Jesus Christ to be the Son of the living God It is evident that these three interpretations naturally resolve
that passage to prove the necessity of praying and of obtaining grace from God without which we cannot persevere And this is also the sense that Theophylact Oecumenius Euthymius Cardinal Hugo Albertus Magnus St. Thomas St. Bonaventure Lyranus Dionysius Carthusianus and all the rest of the most famous Interpreters and Divines have followed as being the true literal sense It is evident that that onely agrees with the time of the Passion and the Person of St. Peter alone wherein his Successours can have no part And though they should pretend they had yet that would not hinder but that they might fail and fall as St. Peter did by publishing a falshood contrary to the true faith which is more against the duty of a Pope than to believe an Errour without publishing it CHAP. VIII What follows Naturally from the great debate that Pope Victor had with the Bishops of Asia THere had been for a long time very different Customs in the Church about the Celebration of the Festival of Easter and the observation of the Fast which ought to go before that holy day For all over the West according to the practice observed from the beginning in the Church of Rome that Festival was kept on Sunday which is the day of our Saviour's Resurrection But the Churches of Asia founded by the Apostle St. John Euseh Hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 24. Hieron de script c. 44. Exod. 12. Hieron de script in Polychr some of their Neighbours and many other Churches of the East kept it always the fourteenth of the Moon of March as the Passover is appointed to be kept in Exodus and according to the Tradition which they had received from St. John As to the Fast that is to be observed before Easter there was still a greater diversity in the Customs established in several places Irenae ap Euseb hist l. 5. c. 24. For some fasted but one day before that Feast as we do on the Vigile of Christmas and of Whitsunday others fasted two days some who were numerous fasted longer and many observed punctually the Fourty days fast of Lent Omnes Ecclesiae tum eorum qui decimo quarto die diem festum pachat is observabant tum eorum qui secus tranquillâ pace inter ipsas fruebantur Euseb Ibid. However these different customs that were amongst Christians of the second nay and of the first age of the Church concerning Lent and Easter made no breach at all of the peace and every one observed peaceably the custom of their Church which they thought to be good without condemning the practices of others This is so true that St. Polycarp Bishop of Smirna being come to Rome under the Pontificat of Saint Anicetus these two great Saints in a long conference which they had about the celebration of the Feast of Easter did what they could mutually to draw one another over to their party and seeing both remained stedfast in their opinions St. Polycarp saying always that he had from St. John his Master the custom that was observed in his Church and St. Anicetus affirming that that which was followed at Rome and in the Western Churches was derived from St. Peter they could never agree upon the matter Yet that hindred not but that they still lived together in great amity and in the same communion insomuch that the Pope to doe honour to St. Polycarp Ibid. prayed him to officiate publickly in his Church That good intelligence continued always betwixt the Popes and Asiatick Bishops Ann. 193. Euseb l. 5. c. 22. untill Victor I. who having held several Councils at Rome about that subject amongst the Gauls and elsewhere where the practice of the Roman Church was observed Euseb c. 24. would needs compell the Asiaticks to conform to it by celebrating Easter on Sunday And because these who thought not themselves obliged to obey him contrary to the tradition which their Churches had from St. John Omnes fratres eam incolentes regionem prorsus à communione secludendos edicit Ibid. would by no means comply He threatened them with Excommunication and published against them that which now adays is called a Monitory Polycrates who was at that time Bishop of Ephesus held also a Council with his brethren about the same subject and answering in name of all by a Synodal Letter to Pope Victor and his Bishops he says That what the Asiaticks did had been religiously observed by the Apostles St. Philip and St. John Hieron de Script in Polychr by another St. John a Bishop and Martyr whose body rested at Ephesus by St. Polycarp Bishop of Smirna by the Martyr St. Thraseas and by many other holy Bishops who had always celebrated that Holy day the fourteenth of the Moon according to that Tradition that for himself who was sixty five years of age having consulted many able Men of all Nations and carefully read all Writings for informing himself in that controverted Peragratâ omni scripturâ non formidabo eos qui nobis minantur c. point he did not fear those that threatned him because it hath been said by his Predecessours that it is better to obey God than Man And seeing Victor still persisted in his threats and that he would by all means Excommunicate the Asiaticks if they obeyed not Verum ista caeteris omnibus parum place-bant Episcopis ....... quorum verba utpote Victorem acrius acerbius coarguentium scriptis prodita adhuc extant Euseb l. 5. c. 24. Ibid. several Bishops of other Countries who blamed his proceeding wrote sharply to him to divert him from his enterprise Amongst others St. Irenaeus the great Archbishop of Lyons sent him a long Letter in name of all the Gallican Church whom he had assembled for that effect wherein he represents to him with as much force at least but with far greater moderation than the rest that he ought not for a difference of that nature cut off from the Universal Church so many particular Churches so many Bishops and so many Believers who acted according to an ancient Tradition upon which they founded themselves He adds that he would doe far better to follow the example of so many holy Popes his Predecessours Anicetus Pius Hyginus Telesphorus and Sixtus who though they as well as he had observed a quite different custome from that of the Bishops of Asia yet never treated them as Hereticks for that nor forbore to communicate with them in a perfect union Multos Asiae orientis Episcopos ..... damnandos crediderat Hieron de script Eccles c. 24. But notwithstanding all these Remonstrances Victor was still of the mind that they ought to be Condemned Nay there are some who affirm that he did actually condemn and thunder an Anathema against them However it be it is certain that they would not submit to his Ordinances that the custome of their Churches concerning the Feast of Easter was allowed them and that they who observed it
As to the Epistles of Pope Leo Father Francis Cambesis a learned Jacobin Edit Paris 1648. hath so cleared the truth of them that at present no body doubts of it And besides he hath given us a very rare piece which alone might end the Controversie if there still remained any about a point so fully determined That is a little work of the Deacon Agatho Keeper of the Records and Vice-Chancellour of the Church of Constantinople For he saith there that Officiating as Secretary in the Sixth Council he Transcribed all the Acts with his own hand which were carefully kept in the Imperial Palace and that by the command of the Emperour he took five Copies of them for the five Patriarchs that so the Decisions of the Council might not be altered by Consequent it was one of these Copies which the Legats carried to the Pope who without doubt is the first of the five Patriarchs A little after he adds Id praeterea autoritate decernens ut Sergii Honoriique ac caeterorum pariter ab eâdem sanctâ oecumenicâ Synodo ejectorum nomina in sacra Ecclesiarum dyptica praeconio publico referrentur eorumque per loca imagines erigerentur that Philippicus who from his youth was bred in the Heresie of the Monothelites being advanced to the Empire caused a Picture to be removed from before the Gate of the Palace before he would enter it which represented the Sixth Council and commanded that the Images should be set up again and that the Names of Sergius Honorius and of all the rest who had been Anathematised in the Holy Ecumenical Council should be replaced in the Sacred Dypticks So many convincing evidences make it manifestly out that the Acts of that Council have not been corrupted by the Greeks And therefore most part of those that said it before abandoning so weak a defence have retrenched themselves behind another saying That the Fathers were mistaken in not having rightly understood the sense and meaning of the Epistles of Honorius who made use of a wise dispensation for uniting and calming all Winds But that is a worse and far more dangerous Answer than the former For it strikes onely at some private persons who are accused but not known upon bare conjectures of having falsified the Acts but the other attacks a whole Ecumenical Council robbing it of all the authority and force which it ought to have against Hereticks The truth is by the same liberty that is taken to say that the Council hath not rightly understood the Letters of Pope Honorius thought it hath examined them the Monothelites if there were any at present might say That it hath not rightly understood the Scriptures nor the Fathers upon the credit of whom it pretends to have rightly condemned the doctrine of Theodore of Pharan Sergius Pyrrhus Paul of Constantinople and of Macarius of Antioch and thereby are made useless all the Decrees of Councils and all the Constitutions of Popes received in the Church which have condemned as Heretical certain doctrines and certain propositions particularly pointed at and contained in the Books of some Authours as the Fathers of the Fifth Council did in regard of the Three Chapters and in our time Pope Innocent X. and Alexander VII in regard of the Book of Jansenius These are Arguments which in my opinion can never be answer'd But since the method of this Treatise is not the way of Arguments which draws always Dispute after it against those who that they may not seem to be at a stand when they are put to it by evident reason never fail of the subterfuges of perplexed distinctions which are never well understood I 'll keep within the bounds that I have set to my self and onely make use of unquestionable matters of Fact in Antiquity that History furnishes us with Upon that ground then I say for an Answer to both in the first place that whether the Acts of the Sixth Council have been corrupted or not it is certain that all Antiquity hath received it in the same manner as we have it at present with the Condemnation of Honorius Detestamurque cum eâ Sergium Honorium c. Act. ult That appears not to say any thing of Pope Leo by the Decree of the seventh Council which as the sixth did anathematises Sergius Pyrrhus and Honorius Anastas in Vit. Leon Epist. ad Joâ—â— diacon by Anastasius the Library-keeper who certainly saw the Copy that was brought from Constantinople and who in the Life of Leo II. saith that that Pope received the sixth Council where Cyrus Sergius Pyrrhus and Honorius were condemned by that Letter of Adrian II which I have alledged by the determination of the eighth Council and by the Confession of Faith which the ancient Popes made after their Election nay more than that by the constant Tradition of the Gallican Church as it may be seen in the Chronicle of Ado and in the most ancient Manuscript of his Martyrology Aetat 6. which is to be found in the Mazarine Bibliotheke This is also to be seen in the Opuscles of Hincmar Archbishop of Reims Opusc de non Trin unit where he puts the Condemnation of Honorius in the sixth Council with that of the other Monothelites And for that very reason it was that writing to Pope Nicolas he saith Opusc 33. c. 20. That it is known that all the Churches of France are subject to that of Rome and that all the Bishops are subjected to the Pope by reason of his Primacy and that therefore they ought all to obey him Apud Flodard l. 3. Hist c. 13. but salva fide adds he the Faith being secured which it is most clear he would not have added had it not been believed in France as elsewhere that Popes might err as well as Pope Honorius In fine for an authentick Confirmation of all this there is no Author to be found who before some Moderns of the last Age durst say even contrary to the Tradition of the Church of Rome that the Acts of the sixth Council have been corrupted by the Greeks This is so true that in the ancient Breviary of Rome printed at Venice in the year 1482 and 61 years after at Paris in the Year 1543 after that it is said in the first Lesson of the second Nocturn of the Office of St. Leo on the eight and twentieth of June Hic suscepit sanctam sextam Synodum in the second it is to be read In qua synodo damnati sunt Cyrus Sergius Honorius Pyrrhus Paulus c. But in the new Breviary the Name of Honorius is left out and it hath been thought sufficient to put into that second Lesson In eo Concilio Cyrus Sergius Pyrrhus condemnati sunt Whereupon it is easie to conclude from most manifest matters of Fact alone that all Antiquity Oecumenick Councils Popes all the Gallican Church nay and even the Church of Rome until the last Age have believed that
the sixth Council received by all the Church hath condemned Pope Honorius and ranked him amongst Monothelite Hereticks Whence it clearly follows That Antiquity hath believed that the Pope was not infallible The same may be said to those who maintain that the Council in condemning the Epistles of Honorius to Sergius did not rightly understand them Whether that be so or no it is certain according to your selves that it condemned them Then a whole great Council of above two hundred Bishops of the seventh Age representing the Universal Church in her Pastors lawfully assembled did not believe the Pope to be Infallible for had they been of that Belief they would have had a care whether they had well or ill understood these Letters not to have anathematised him as they did The Result of all is That Antiquity in the Seventh Eighth and Ninth Ages as well as in those that preceded hath believed that the Pope was not Infallible This is it that I was to prove leaving the Modern Doctors who hold his Infallibility to their Liberty of thinking and saying thereupon whatever they please by Logick that can never overthrow the truth of matters of Fact which I have produced and which make known to us what Antiquity hath believed concerning the Infallibility of the Pope CHAP. XIII Of the Popes Clement III. Innocent III. Boniface VIII and Sixtus V. SUch as apply themselves to the Study of Antiquity find that in the Ages following there have been other Popes that have erred in their Decisions as these that follow In the twelfth Age Ostiens C. Quarto de Divortiis Clement III. declared in his Decretal Laudabilem That the Wife of an Heretick being converted and her Husband continuing obstinate in his Heresie might be married to another which doubtless neither Catholicks nor Protestants could at present suffer to be brought into practice And therefore Pope Innocent III. who filled the Holy See shortly after Clement recalled that Constitution thereby plainly declaring that his Predecessor had erred This is affirmed by Cardinal Cortzeon who flourished in the Pontificat of Innocent III. in his Sum which I have seen in Manuscript in the Abbey Royal of St. Victor And this same Pope Innocent himself for all he was so able a man was subject to the same failing from which Popes according to the Belief of Antiquity are not exempted that is to be deceived even when they decide a point of Doctrine in their Council without the Consent of the Church The matter of Fact is related by Caesarius a Cistertian Monk Lib. 3. Historiar Memorab c. 32. and contemporary with Innocent He says that a Monk of his Order who without doubt before he entered the Monastery had given it out that he was a Priest committed daily a dreadful Sacriledge in celebrating Mass though he had never received sacred Orders Having confessed this to his Abbot who failed not to enjoyn him as he ought to abstain from saying it for the future he would not obey him for on the one hand he feared that by refraining he should disgrace himself and give occasion to his Brethren to think ill of him and on the other he thought he had no cause to apprehend that his Abbot to whom he had discovered his Crime under the inviolable Seal of Confession durst do him any prejudice because of that Discovery The Abbot being in great perplexity bethought himself to propose this Case in general Terms in a Chapter of his Order that was held some time after and asking the Question what was to be done if such a Case should ever happen in their Monasteries the whole Assembly were as much puzled as the good Abbot had been and neither the Chapter of the Cistertians nor any of the rest durst ever undertake to decide that case of Conscience which was thought to be so difficult that it was resolved upon by all to write about it to the Pope for a Resolution Innocent III. the then Pope assembled thereupon the Cardinals Doctors and Learned Men to take their Advice who after some debate agreed all in his Judgment to wit That such a Confession being rather Blasphemy than a Confession the Confessor in such a case ought to discover so horrible a Crime because it might bring great prejudice to the Church And the Year following he wrote to the Chapter what he had determined Et placuit sententia omnibus scri sitque sequenti anno Capitulo quod fuerat à se determinâ—tum à Cardinâ—libus approbatum and what was approved in that great Congregation of Cardinals It is not at all to be doubted but that that Definition is wrong So that the same Pope a little after made no Scruple to retract it in the great Council of Lateran where he himself presided Ann. 12 15. which positively declared the contrary in these Terms Caveat sacerdos ne verbo vel signo vel alio quovis modo prodat aliquatenus peccatorem Qui peccaâ—um in poenitentiali Judicio sibi detectum praesumpserit revelare non solum à sacerdotali officio deponendum decernimus verum etiam ad agendara perpetuam poenitenâ—iam in arctum Monasterium detrudendum Let the Priest have a care that he discover not either by Word Sign or in any other way whatsoever the Sin of his Penitent That if any one adds it presume to reveal the Sin that hath been discovered to him at the Tribunal of Confession we ordain not only that he be deposed from the Sacerdotal Office but also that he be confined to a Monastery there to do Penance during Life These are two quite opposite Decisions upon a Point of highest Importance Conc. Later 4. c. 21. and which concerns a Sacrament one of the Pope with his particular Council or his Council of Cardinals Priests and Deacons who represent the Church of Rome the other of the same Pope with a great Council representing the Universal Church Whence comes that difference if it be not That the Pope pronouncing and deciding upon any Point concerning Doctrine and Manners in a general Council or with the Consent of the Church is Infallible and when he acts otherwise he is not This appears still more manifestly in the Bull Vnam Sanctam of Boniface VIII whereby that Pope whose History is sufficiently known proposes to all Believers as an Article of Faith the Belief whereof is necessary to Salvation That Popes have a Supream Power over all the Kingdoms of the World as to the Temporal It was believed then in all these Kingdoms and is so still that that Definition is wrong Even they themselves who hold that the Pope hath some Power over the Temporal have a care not to say That one is obliged to believe it upon pain of Damnation and it is known that Clement V. recalled that Bull in the Council of Vienna Cap. meruit de Privilegiis That Pope then and that Council in the fourteenth Century believed not that
Churches And seeing it was not doubted but that Pope John XII in the manner he set about it acted with all his Authority and Force to introduce and establish that Error in the Church so also was it believed in that Fourteenth Age that the Pope teaching the Church might err and that he is not Infallible but when he pronounces from the Chair of the Universal Church as Head of it in a general Council or with consent of the principal Members of the Church who are the Bishops CHAP. XV. The Tradition of the Church of Rome as to that IT will be no difficult Task for us to prove that that Doctrine is conform to the constant Tradition of the Church of Rome as appears by the conduct of ancient Popes who in great Controversies about Faith after that they themselves had pronounced against Error have thought that for condemning it by a sovereign and infallible Sentence there was need of a Council or at least by another way the consent of the Church Vt pleniori Juâ—acio omnis possice ror aboleri Ep. 15. ad Ephes concil to the end that Error might be abolished by a more solemn and decisive judgment said the great St. Leo writing to the second Council of Ephesus though he himself had already condemned Eutyches in his particular Council which for that end he held at Rome This hath been confirmed by the Popes of the last Age when that after Leo X. had published his Bull against the Errors of Luther Solumque Concilium generale remedium à nostris praedecessoribus in casu simili usurpatum superesse Clem. VII in Bull. indict Concil 1533. Tam necessarium opus Pius IV. in Bull. confirm they declared in their Bulls speaking of the Council of Trent which was called for the supreme Decision of that Controversie that that was the last and necessary Remedy which had always been made use of by their Predecessors on the like Occasions Wherein all the Popes perfectly well agree with the fifth Council which for proving that necessity alledges the Example of the Apostles who decided in common with St. Peter the Question touching the Observation of the Law of Moses Nec enim potest in communibus de fide disceptationibus aliter veritas manifestari and then declares that otherways Truth cannot be found in Controversies that arise about the Faith It is evident by that that the Popes and that Council did not believe that the Pope was infallible for had they believed him infallible they would also have been persuaded that it was sufficient to consult that Oracle or that after his Responses and Decisions it would not have been necessary for abolishing Error entirely to have recourse to the determination of the Church represented by a Council But if it be said that there are some Heresies which the Popes alone have condemned and which have always been reckoned lawfully condemned without the Interposition of a Council it is easily granted but at the same time it may be said that that concludes nothing at all because in the three first Ages of the Church there were Heresies such as that of Cerinthus of the Ptolemaits the Severians Bardesanites Noetians Valesians and many others that single Bishops or particular Synods have condemned and which we are obliged to account Heresies tho neither Popes nor General Councils have had any hand in their Condemnation Not that these Bishops and Synods are infallible but because all the other Bishops who abominated these Heresies as much as they condemned them as they had done by approving all that they had done So when Popes have decided against any Doctrine which is afterward to be esteemed heretical it is so because they have defined with consent of the Church which hath received their Constitutions as we have in our days seen an illustrious Instance of it That which more confirms that ancient Tradition of the Roman Church is the great number of Popes who condemning some of their Predecessors after Oecumenical Councils have thereby declared that they themselves no more than others have not received of God the gift of Infallibility which he hath only bestowed upon his Church And indeed two great Popes of the last Times were so fully persuaded of this that they would not accept of it from the hands of men that would have attributed it unto them The first is Adrian VI. who in his Commentaries upon the fourth of the Sentences Art 3. de Mines confirm says positively and in a most decisive manner Certum est quod Pontifex possit err are etiam in iis quae tangunt fidem haeresiâ—â— per suam determinationem aut decretalem asserendo that he is certain the Pope may err even in matters belonging to the Faith teaching and establishing a Heresie by his Definition or by his Decretal which afterwards he proves by many Instances and very far from following Pius II. and changing Opinion as he did when he came to be Pope he persisted in it so constantly that he thought fit during his Pontificat that a new Edition of his Book should be printed at Rome exactly conform to that which he published when he was Doctor and Dean of Louvain wherein that Passage is entire without the Omission or Alteration of one single Word The second is Paul IV. who before his promotion to the Papacy had been great Inquisior Relat. Joann Hay Paris Theol. Addit aux mem de Casteluam c. 2. b. 6 the most severe and zealous that ever was for the preservation of the purity of the Catholick Faith against all Heresies Num matrimonium per verba de prasenti contractum quod est verum matrimonium verum sà cramentum juxta sanclorum Theolegorum sententiam authoritate nâ—stra dissolvi possit intelligo cum carnalis nulla conjunctio intercessit This Pope in the Year One thousand five hundred and fifty seven held a great Congregation of Cardinals Bishops and Doctors at Rome for the examining that important question Whether by the power of the Keys which Jesus Christ had given him as Successor to St. Peter he could dissolve the Marriage which the Mareschal of Montmorency had contracted in formal terms de praesenti with the Lady de Piennes Having proposed the matter to them by giving them to understand that the Question was about the deciding of a Point of very great Importance concerning a Sacrament he declared to them that he would not have them alledge to him the Examples of his Predecessors Non dubito quin ego decessores mei errare aliquando potuerimus non solum in koc sed etiam in pluribus aliis rerum generibus that he would not follow them but in so far as they were conform to the Authority of Holy Scripture and solid Reasons of Divinity For I make no doubt added he but that my Predecessors and may fail not only in this but in many other things Which he even proved by Testimonies
AN Historical Treatise OF THE FOUNDATION AND PREROGATIVES OF THE Church of Rome And of Her BISHOPS Written Originally in French By Monsieur MAIMBOURG And Translated into English By A. LOVEL A. M. LONDON Printed for Jos Hindmarsh Bookseller to His Royal Highness at the Black Bull in Cornhill MDCLXXXV The TRANSLATOR to the READER I Should be thought perhaps no less unmannerly than fanciful if I offered any other reason of the Authors publishing this Book than what he himself is pleased to give in his Epistle Dedicatory to his Great Master the Most Christian King which is that he might thereby according to his duty second the grand design of the King and his Gallican Church in removing those obstacles that hinder the reconciliation of Dissenting Believers and in confuting the mistakes of Authors who have occasioned either a scandalous separation from the Unity of the Church or a persistance in that Separation Yet seeing the Book before it came out and since it hath been Published hath made no small noise at Rome the French Court and elsewhere The Reader possibly may think that so Publick and Religious a design hath been either very ill Managed or far worse Interpreted I have nothing to say as to that it being a matter above my reach but I know the Ingenious will be apt to make remarks such as are now a days very frequent that no great matter ought or indeed can be brought about if Religion came not in for a share and if that turn not the World it will be hard for any thing else to convert it There is Religion so called that makes Turks fight against Christians and Christians not fight against Turks that makes some States invade the Rights of the Church and some Churches usurp upon the State that makes the Godly Plot and fight for Peace sake and the harmless Doves as innocent as Serpents And since these and many other such Principles are now a days in great vogue over most part of the World one may venture to say of the Religion which many nay I would it were not most Men practise at present what the Great Author of our true Religion says of the Wind It bloweth where it listeth and Men hear the sound of it but neither know whence it cometh nor whither it goeth And I should not be irreverent beyond example if I called it downright Hocus Pocus This may seem to the Reader an extravagance and a start out of the road but I had nothing else to say for my self in attempting to Translate a Book that like a Quarter-Staff strikes on both Hands pelts Protestants and knocks down the Pope save only that nothing of Modern Religion moved me to it for indeed I find not that I have any inward call to labour in anothers Vineyard but perceiving that this is an Age wherein People either open their own Eyes or desire they should be opened I was very willing since I am no loser nor I hope the Government offended by it to reach to others the Eye-salve that hath been handed to me And truly if by impartial Readers the issue of a Mans Religion should be tried by the verdict of the Authors Book perhaps it would be no easie matter to decide the Point since they 'll find in it too much either for a True Protestant or a truly Jesuited Papist How far this may justifie my undertaking I cannot tell but since the Bookseller can satisfie the Reader with how great dispatch it hath been Translated I hope he will be so kind as to pardon the hasty mistakes of the Translator A. Lovell The Authors Epistle Dedicatory TO THE FRENCH KING SIR ONE of the greatest impediments that hinders the re-union of Protestants with the Roman Church from which by a fatal Schism they are separated is that false Opinion wherewith they are prejudiced that we raise the Popes even above the Universal Church in attributing to them what only belongs to her and in giving them an absolute and unlimited Power not only in Spirituals but also over the Temporal and Crowns of Princes The Gallican Church willing to help on that great zeal which Your Majesty makes so conspicuously successful for the Conversion of your Subjects who continue still in Error hath thought that she could not do any thing to better purpose than to remove that obstacle by undeceiving them and professing as she hath done by a solemn Declaration upon a Point of that importance her Doctrin which is in all things conform to that of the Ancient Church It is the business of this Treatise which is purely Historical to make this out by matters of fact against which no subtlety argumentation nor Artifice of Novelty can hold good Nay Sir I dare even present it to Your Majesty as a Work that perhaps may be so happy as to contribute somewhat in making the Justice of your Edict known to the World whereby in quality of Protector of the Canons you make the Ancient belief current in the most Christian Kingdom This it is Sir that makes it truly to be said that Your Majesty hath done more for the Church of Rome than the Kings your Predecessors who have enriched her with the great Revenues she possesses and who have raised her to the pinacle of Temporal Grandeur and Dignities For indeed all that Wealth and these Worldly Grandeurs belong not to her true Kingdom which being that of Jesus Christ ought not to be of this World But in commanding by your Laws that this Doctrin of Antiquity be maintained in France to which the Gallican Church which hath always vigourously defended the interests and just Prerogatives of the Church of Rome hath in all Ages inviolably adhered You most solidly establish the Primacy of the Pope against the Novel attempts of Hereticks who dispute it and do all that they can to snatch it from him At the same time you take from them the pretext of their Revolt by letting them see that we believe not that which scandalises them and which some late Divines attribute to him of their own Head against the manifest Judgment of Antiquity That Sir is what may be called an effectual endeavour for restoring the true Kingdom of the Church of Rome to its Just Rights from which Hereticks who have separated from it through erroneous Notions that have been given them of our Doctrin have in little more than an Age rent away a great part of Europe Your Majesty who hath wrought and still work so many Miracles to render your Kingdom more Powerful and more flourishing than ever and to grant us once more a general Peace by making our Enemies accept it upon the conditions you thought fit to prescribe to them is apparently appointed of God to work the greatest of all in pacifying the troubles of Religion and in rendering to the Kingdom of the Church in France its ancient extent by the reduction of the remnant of our Protestants For my own part who have but very
little longer to live and who according to my Profession can contribute nothing to your Conquests but by my ardent Prayers I shall reckon my self most happy and shall die content if I can but joyn a little by my Pen to those which you daily Atchieve for enlarging the Empire of the Church by the Conversion of Hereticks which by most soft and efficacious ways you procure And if by my Writings and particularly by this I can make it known to all the World as I hope I may that I am as true a Catholick as a good French Man and that I will die as I have lived SIR Your Majesties Most Humble most Obedient and Faithful Subject and Servant LOUIS MAIMBOURG A TABLE OF The Chapters and of their Contents CHAP. I. The design and draught of this Treatise and the Principle upon which it moves THE true Church is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ The definition thereof It s unity in the multitude of particular Churches which make but one Episcopacy and one Chair by the communion they have with a chief Church which is the center of their Vnity Antiquity is to be followed against Novelty in Doctrin that is contrary to it Vpon this Principle it is proved in this Treatise against the new Opinions what Antiquity hath believed of the first Foundation and Prerogatives of that chief Church which is the Church of Rome Page 1. CHAP. II. Of the Foundation and Establishment of the Church of Rome That St. Peter hath been at Rome A Refutation of the Erroneous reasons that some Protestants alledge for overthrowing that Truth St. Luke hath omitted a great many other things which notwithstanding are true The true Chronology which agrees with the progress and coming of St. Peter to Antioch and Rome against the wrong Chronology contrived to subvert it There were Christians at Rome when St. Paul arrived there All Antiquity hath believed that St. Peter was at Rome The Extravagance of those who have said that the Fathers were mistaken in taking the Country of Rome or Romania for the City of Rome Page 15 CHAP. III. That the Church of Rome hath been founded by St. Peter that he was the first Bishop of it and that the Popes are his Successors in that Bishoprick THAT truth acknowledged by all Antiquity In what sense Bishops sit in St. Peter's Chair and are his Successors and how Popes are in another manner Page 31 CHAP. IV. Of the Primacy of St. Peter and that he hath been established by Jesus Christ Head of the Universal Church THE true interpretation of these words Thou art Peter and upon that Rock will I build my Church How the Church is built upon Jesus Christ upon the confession of his Divinity and on the person of St. Peter His Primacy of Jurisdicton over all Believers proceeds from the confession of Faith which he made for all the rest All Antiquity hath acknowledged that Primacy of St. Peter and of all his Successors in the Bishoprick of Rome Page 37 CHAP. V. Of the Rights and advantages that the Primacy gives to the Bishop of Rome over other Bishops WHAT the Council of Florence decided as to that The superintendence of the Pope over all that concerns the Government and good of the Church in General The right he hath of calling Councils for the Spiritual and presiding in them That appeals may be made to his Tribunal and that he ought to judge of greater causes An illustrious instance of that Supreme Authority of the Pope in the History of Pope Agapetus of the Patriarch Anthimius and the Emperor Justinian The prodigious Ignorance of Calvin in Ecclesiastical History The System of his Heresie quite contrary to the Doctrin of Antiquity What are the Prerogatives of Popes that are disputed amongst Catholicks Page 51 CHAP. VI. The state of the Question concerning the Infallibility of the Pope WHether or not when he defines without a Council and without the consent of the Church he may err p. 72 CHAP. VII What Antiquity hath concluded from that that St. Peter was reproved by St. Paul WHether St. Peter was blame-worthy His action is called an error by St. Austin The opinion of St. Jerome refuted by that holy Doctor He compares the Error of St. Cyprian with that of St. Peter The History of the Error of Vigilius in regard of the three Chapters and his change compared by Pelagius II. with the Error and change of St. Peter The Schism of the Occidentals founded upon the constitution of Vigilius According to Pope Pelagius for quenching that Schism the Holy See is to be followed in its change as believers were obliged to imitate St. Peter in that which he made from evil to good St. Paul believed not St. Peter to be infallible It was before the Council of Jerusalem that St. Peter was reproved by St. Paul The true interpretation of that passage I have prayed for thee Peter that thy faith fail not p. 77 CHAP. VIII What follows naturally from the great contest of Pope Victor with the Bishops of Asia DIfferent customs in the Church concerning the celebration of Easter and of the Fast before that Feast The good intelligence betwixt Pope St. Anicetus and St. Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna notwithstanding the diversity of their customs The Decree of Pope Victor rejected by Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus and by the other Asiaticks St. Ireneus in name of the Gallican Church opposes Pope Victor None of these Bishops of the East and West believed the Pope to be infallible p. 103 CHAP. IX What ought to be inferred from the famous debate that was betwixt the Pope St. Stephen and St. Cyprian concerning the Baptism of Hereticks WHAT was the Judgment of St. Cyprian in that question and what was that of St. Stephen Councils held thereupon on both sides The Decrees of the one and other quite contrary St. Stephen cuts off from his Communion the Bishops that would not submit to his Decree Neither these Bishops nor St. Cyprian did for all that change their opinion and practice It was also permitted long after the death of St. Cyprian to maintain the same opinion and to follow the same conduct The Holy Fathers who held a Doctrin contrary to the Decree of the Pope St. Stephen What the great Council of Arles Nice and Constantinople have decided as to that question All then except the Donatists submitted to the Decrees of these Councils because they were believed to be Infallible which was not thought of Popes p. 111 CHAP. X. The fall of Liberius HIS Letters published in all places wherein he condemns St. Athanasius suppresses the term Consubstantial receives the Arians to his Communion and subscribes the Formulary of Sirmium He is for that deposed by the Church of Rome p. 135 CHAP. XI The instance of Pope Vigilius THE constitution of that Pope for the three Chapters The fifth Council which is Infallible condemns them p. 140 CHAP. XII The condemnation of Honcrius in the sixth Council THE
Council over the Pope What in signifies in M. Schelstrates Manuscript That the Pope Elected cannot be bound The Judgment of the Vniversity of Paris and of the Gallican Church concerning the superiority of a Council over the Pope p. 317 CHAP. XXVI The state of the Question touching the Power that some Doctors have attributed to Popes over the Temporal THE distinction of the direct and indirect Power p. 341 CHAP. XXVII What Jesus Christ and his Apostles have taught us as to that A False distinction of Buchanans refuted It was upon an obligation of Conscience and not through weakness that Christians obeyed infidel Emperors and Persecutors The Allegiance that Subjects owe to their Sovereigns is of Divine Right with which Popes cannot dispence All the passages cited for the contrary opinion are understood contrary to the interpretation of the Fathers of the Church which is forbidden by the Council of Trent p. 345 CHAP. XXVIII What hath been the Judgment of the Ancient Fathers of the Church as to that Point THE distribution that God hath made of the Spiritual for the Church and her Pastors and of the Temporal for Kings An Exhortation of the passage Here are two Swords Dominion forbidden to the Popes and how p. 359 CHAP. XXIX The Judgment of Ancient Popes touching the Power over Temporals that some Doctors of late times attribute to the Pope THE Testimony of Gelasius Of Gregory II. That Pope offered not to depose Leo Isauricus nor to make Rome revolt against him Testimonies of Pelagius I. Stephen II. St. Gregory the Great and of Martin I. supposititious Bulls of St. Gregory Pope Gregory VII is the first that offered to depose Emperors Pope Zachary deposed not Childerick and Leo III. transferred not the Empire to Charlemagne p. 370 CHAP. XXX What hath always been the Opinion of the Gallican Church and of all France as to that The Conclusion of this Point and of the whole Treatise HOW the Bishops of France opposed the attempts of Gregory IV. against Louis the Debonnaire They have always done the like upon all occasions What the Chamber of the Clergy declared concerning the absolute independence of our Kings in the Estates Assembled in 1914. Their Declaration in the year 1682. in relation to the same Subject The sentences of Parliament and the Edicts of Kings upon the same occasion Conclusion of this Treatise p. 387 AN Historical Treatise Concerning the FOUNDATION AND PREROGATIVES OF THE CHURCH of ROME And of her BISHOPS CHAP. I. The Design and Draught of this Work and the Principle on which it moves TO maintain a State in peace and tranquillity which makes Subjects happy according to the scope that true Policie proposes to it self The first thing that is to be done is to beat off the enemy that hath taken up Arms for the ruine of it and then to take care that the quarrels and troublesome contests which sometimes arise amongst the chief members of the State proceed not so far as to occasion a Civil War All Christians agree that the true Church of Jesus Christ is that Spiritual Kingdom which he came to establish in this world and which nevertheless as he himself hath said is not of this world because the whole end of it is to procure us eternal happiness a thing no ways to be attained to upon Earth Hereticks and Schismaticks have often risen against the Lord and his Christ that they might overturn that beautifull kingdom and establish their particular Churches upon its ruines every one pretending that his is the Church of the Lord though indeed they be no more all of them but the Synagogue of Satan and the Kingdom of him who in the Gospel is called the Prince of this world Besides it falls out many times that amongst Catholicks who alone are members of the true Church disputes and controversies arise which may trouble the tranquillity and peace that Jesus Christ hath left unto them for securing their happiness in his Kingdom It is necessary then for the service of the Church and for maintaining it always in the flourishing state wherein Jesus Christ hath established it to fight and beat off the enemies that attack it and to compose and calme the quarrels that arise amongst the children of the Church about points that are disputed with heat on all hands and which might in the end disturb the repose and peace of the Kingdom of the Son of God As I have wholly devoted my self to the service of the Church so have I endeavoured as much as lay in my power to acquit my self of the former of those two duties in my Treatises of Controversie and especially in that of The true Church I think I have been pretty successfull in that engagement and repelled all the efforts of our Protestants in making it appear by evident and unanswerable Arguments That there is no true Church but ours which is enough without more dispute to put an end to all our Controversies since they acknowledge with us that the true Doctrine is always that of the true Church of Jesus Christ I discharge my self also as well as I can of that obligation in one part of that Treatise where I maintain against Hereticks the declared enemies of the Holy See the primacy rights power and authority of the visible head of the Church At present then that I may fulfill my duty in its full extent I must labour to prevent the springing up of any dangerous division amongst Catholicks by reason of some private opinions that divide them as to that important subject of the Church into which they are all equally incorporated Now that I may solidly carry on so laudable and necessary an undertaking It is at first to be presupposed that according to Catholick doctrine the Universal Church which ought allways to be visible and to continue without Interruption untill the consummation of all things is the Society of Christians dispersed all over the World united together by the profession of the True Faith the participation of the True Sacraments by the bond of the same Law and under one and the same Head Because the Church Joh. 10. v. 16. Ephes 1. v. 22. August Ep. 50. whose first and principal property is to be perfectly one is the mystical body of Jesus Christ and that the members of a living body may receive the influences of life they must be united to the Head Hence it is that according to Saint Austin Epist 48. p. 151. l. de un Eccl. c. 4. though one may have all the rest yet if he be separated from the Head and by consequent from the body which is united to him he is out of the Church Catholick by Schism as Hereticks are cut off from it because of the want of True Faith And as all the members of the body have not the same functions but the parts that constitute it being subordinate one to another in a lovely order there are some which are for giving motion to the
rest by the spirits that they send over all and some for distributing the nourishment which the rest receive for growth and for perseverance in the perfection of their state So amongst the multitudes of believers that make up the Church and who cannot all be immediately governed instructed and edified by one single man for edification of the body of Jesus Christ there must be as the great Apostle speaks a great diversity of Ministers and many Pastours subordinate one to another in an holy Hierarchy Act. 20. v. 28. to the end the people may have the Sacraments administred unto them be instructed and governed And that 's the reason that there are in the world so vast a number of particular Churches which have their several Bishops and which are all subordinate to a Principal Church of which the Bishop is the head of all the rest And these being assembled in name of their Churches in an Oecumenical Council represent the Universal Church which we believe to be infallible for absolutely deciding the points of Faith when her Bishops who are the Pastours and Teachers of Christians being one and the same as well as she say in her name to all her members in perfect unity Visum est Spiritui Sancto vobis For as the Universal Church is a whole consisting of all believers and of all particular Churches which are one by the Communion which they have with one Principal Church that is the source principle root and centre of their Unity as Saint Cyprian speaks So according to the doctrine of the same holy Father Episcopatus unus est multorum Episcoporum concordi numerositate diffusus Cypr. l. de unit Eccl. Epist 55. there is but one Episcopacy in the Church whereof each Bishop fully possesses a part and by consequent there is but one Chair wherein all Bishops sit by virtue of the Union which they have with him Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur Cypr. Ep. 52. Ecclesia una Cathedra una Domini voce fundata Cyp. Ep. 40. Ad Trimitatis instar cujus una est atque individua potestas unum esse per diversos antistites sacerdotium Sym. Ep. ad Aeon Arclat whom they ought to acknowledge for their Head This Pope Symmachus explains in a very sublime manner by an excellent comparison taken from the Trinity In the same manner saith he as there is but one Omnipotence by the Unity of Essence and Nature which so unites the three Persons that they are but one God So amongst the many Orthodox Churches throughout all Christendom there is but one onely Priesthood that is to say but one Episcopacy through the unity not onely of Faith and Belief but also of communion of all the Bishops with a Head whence results that unity which is inseparable from the Church of Jesus Christ This being presupposed in which all Catholicks do agree Aug. on Ps 101. it is certain that Jesus Christ himself hath established his Church which he purchased by his own bloud and unto which he hath given the Faith Act. 20. v. 28. the Sacraments the Law of Grace in his Gospel and a visible Head to represent him as his Vicar upon Earth And as from a very small beginning it hath enlarged it self according to the Prophecies over the whole earth So also the Apostles and their Successours after the departure of Jesus Christ have founded particular Churches establishing them themselves or ordaining Bishops for governing the believers distributed into several Dioceses in all the quarters of the World Now seeing that particular Church which within a few years after the Ascension of Jesus Christ was setled in the Capital City of the Empire is without doubt the most illustrious of all others that on the one hand Hereticks not being able to endure its splendour and greatness have always furiously risen up and conspired to destroy it and that on the other all Catholicks who are sensible of the real advantages that distinguish it from all others are nevertheless divided about certain prerogatives which some attribute to it and others dispute I shall shew without speaking of other Churches what hath been the first establishment of that of Rome what is the excelling dignity thereof and what are the prerogatives rights and privileges of its Bishops And because a subject of this nature is not to be handled by Philosophical reasonings but by matters of fact drawn from Scripture interpreted according to the Fathers Councils and ancient Traditions which are the two principles of true Theology therefore you are not to expect any speculation or Philosophy in this Treatise which is purely Historical I do in the very entry declare that there is nothing of mine in this work For I doe no more but as a sincere and exact Historian barely alledge by uncontroverted matters of fact drawn from the one or other of those two sources what venerable Antiquity believed concerning that important matter This method we usefully employ against our Protestants We make it clearly out to them that what we believe of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the Invocation of Saints prayer for the dead and other controverted points is the ancient Doctrine of the Church and that so their belief contrary to ours being new is false We force them to acknowledge that what they hold with us concerning Infant Baptism the Baptism of Hereticks and the change of the Sabbath into Sunday of which Scripture makes no mention they have it onely from Tradition and the ancient Practice of the Church and that therefore they reject the anabaptists because of the Novelty of their Doctrine And this is also the great Principle that the ancient Fathers made use of against the Hereticks of their times Let us onely consult the order of time Ex ipso ordine manifestatur id esse dominicum verum quod sit prius traditum id autem extraneum falsum quod sit posterius immissum Tertull de praescr c. 32. and we shall know that that which hath been first taught us cometh from the Lord and that it is truth but that on the contrary what new thing hath since been introduced cometh of the Stranger and is false And in his fourth Book against Marcion Quis inter nos determinabit nifi temporis ratio ei praescribens autoritatem quod antiquius reperietur ei praejudicans vitiationem quod posterius revincetur l. 4. cont Marci c. 4. Who can put an end to our differences unless it be the order and decision of time which Authorizes the Antiquity of Doctrine and declares that defective which comes not till after that ancient Belief Upon the same ground St. Jerome who flourished about the end of the fourth Century said to one of his Adversaries who would have made a new Party in the Church Why do you offer after four hundred years Cur post quadringentos annos docere nos
of the Pagans in Antiquity that Porphyrius one of their greatest Philosophers upbraided the Christians as St. Jerome informs us that their St. Paul was so rash as to have dared to reprove the Prince of the Apostles and his Master Hieron Ep. 89. Since then all venerable Antiquity hath believed the Primacy of St. Peter which our Protestants contest by the novelty of their Doctrine we have reason once more to say to them Desinat incessere novitas vetustatem After all it is so evident that Jesus Christ who will have his Church to continue to the end of the World hath given St. Peter the Primacy and Supreme dignity of visible Head of the Church for himself and Successours in that Principal Chair which that great Apostle fixed at Rome that it would be superfluous to attempt to prove it For if it had been so confined to his Person that it descended not to his Successours it would follow that after the death of St. Peter the Church was fallen that it had no longer that Principle of unity which makes it one that it was no more but a body without a head and a ruinous building without a foundation Besides Is it not well known that it is an order naturally fixed in lawfull Successions that Kings and other Princes and their Officers in the Civil State Bishops Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs nay and Ministers amongst our Protestants succeed to the rights and powers of their Predecessours But though we had no such convincing reasons Concil Sardic Ep. ad Jul. in frag Hil. Con. Constant ad Dam. Conc. Ephes Conc. Calcedon ad Leon. Conc. 6. Act 18. Ep. ad Agath Iren. l. 3. cont Valent Cyprian ad Corn. Ep. 55. l. de unitat Optat. contra Parm. l. 2. Vincent Lirin lib. contra Haer. c. 3. Hier. ad Dam. August de duab Ep. Pelag. l. 1. c. 1. Ep. 92.162 Chrysost Ep. 1. ad Innoc. Prosper de voc gent. l. 8. c. 6. St. Leo. St. Gregor Theodoret. Socrates Sozom. alii passim yet it would be enough to say that all the same evidences of Antiquity that have given testimony to the Primacy of St. Peter and to his supreme power in the Universal Church have also by common consent attributed it upon the same words of Jesus Christ to the Bishops of Rome who are the Successours of the Prince of Apostles There is nothing more ordinary in the Councils and Fathers where the same things that are said of the Primacy of St. Peter and of the Prerogatives of his Chair at Rome are in formal terms most frequently found repeated to express the Primacy of the Popes their super-intendance in the Universal Church and the superiority of their Chair and of the Church of Rome to which they declare that all the rest ought to be united as Lines to their Centre and as to the source of Sacerdotal Unity And that 's the reason why we call the Universal Church the Roman-Catholick and Apostolick Church because all particular Churches of which that great body is constituted must be united in communion with the Pope of Rome their Head that so they may be Members of the true Church of Jesus Christ which is no ways one but by that union which maketh its perfect unity I have me thinks made it hitherto clear enough according to all Antiquity opposite to the novelty of our Protestants what is the belief of Catholicks concerning St. Peter and of his Successours in his Bishoprick of Rome We must now in order examine sticking close to Antiquity against all Novelty what Prerogatives and Rights that Primacy gives to Popes what it is that all Catholicks agree in and wherein it is that they differ about that point and prove by uncontroverted matters of Fact without disputation what Antiquity which ought to direct our belief in spight of all the attempts of Novelty hath believed concerning points of that importance CHAP. V. Concerning the rights and advantages that the Primacy gives to the Bishop of Rome over all other Bishops I Think that point cannot better be decided than by the Decree of the Council of Florence in the year 1439. when that famous re-union was made betwixt the Latin and Greek Churches after many celebrated conferences and great contests that happened there during the space of fifteen months betwixt the learnedst men of both Churches about that Subject and other controverted points This is the definition of the Council Item we define that the Holy Apostolick See and the Pope of Rome have the Primacy over all the world that the Pope of Rome is the Successour of St. Peter Prince of the Apostles that he is the true Vicar of Jesus Christ and Head of all the Church the Father and Teacher of all Christians and that our Lord Jesus Christ hath given him in the person of St. Peter full power of feeding ruling and governing the universal Church in the manner specified in the Acts of Councils and holy Canons For it is precisely so in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the Latin Juxta eum modum qui in Actis Conciliorum in Sacris Canonibus continetur As it is to be read in Blondus Secretary to Pope Eugenius Decad. 3. l. 10. who presided in that Council In Ekius his Treatise of the Primacy of the Pope Lib. 1. in the Bishop of Rochester's five and twentieth Article against Luther Cap. Vlt. and in Albertus Pighius his fourth Book of the Hierarchy That is to say in English To govern the Church in the manner which is found expressed in the Acts of the Councils and in the Holy Canons not as Abraham of Candie hath very ill rendered it quemadmodum etiam which gives it a quite contrary sense to the intention and words of the Council as will manifestly appear in another place of this Treatise At present it is enough that we know according to that Council that the Primacy of the Pope entitles him to the inspection of all that concerns the government and welfare of the Church in general which is more than any Bishop of what dignity soever he may be can challenge For the power that other Bishops have by Divine Right to govern the Church reaches not beyond their Dioceses but that of the Pope as Head of the Church Universal extends every where when the good of all Believers in general is concerned of whom he is to take the care And that supreme dignity gives him a great many rights which none but he alone can enjoy To him application is made to have resolutions in difficulties that may arise in matters concerning Faith Hieron ad Ageruch Ep. 2. Innoc. 1. apud Aug. Epist 93. August Epist 106. Jul. apud Athan. Apol. 1. manners or general Customs Of this we have evident proofs in the Holy Fathers and an illustrious instance of it hath been seen in our days in that famous letter which the Bishops of France wrote to Pope
Goths retained now nothing that was great besides its own ruines and name The Church of Rome Tyrannically opprest by these Barbarians was if I dare say so in the chains of the Ostrogoths who used it like a slave The Pope forced to comply under the haughty commands of Theodatus who sent him to negotiate his affairs in the East so little esteemed by that Barbarian and so poor that he was obliged to sell the Plate of his Church to raise money for this Voyage was almost all alone at Constantinople without a Court without Cardinals without Train without Equipage without support and onely upheld by his spiritual power which was not backed by any of those glorious marks that at present renders the Pontifical Majesty so venerable to all the world Nevertheless in that condition he pronounces two thundering sentences against the Patriarch Anthimius Con. sub Men. Act. 4. Marcell in Chron. Liber in Brev. c. 2. Vict. Tun. in Chron. one upon the spot whereby by reason of his manifest intrusion he deposes him from his Patriarchship and puts the Priest Mennas in his place whom he himself consecrated Bishop and Patriarch of Constantinople and the other shortly after for the Crime of Heresie of which he was strongly suspected guilty ordaining that if he cleared himself not of it by obeying the holy Canons he should also be deposed from his Bishoprick of Trabizonde And seeing the holy Pope died the same year that sentence was the year following put in execution in a Council held by Mennas at Constantinople Anno 537. where because Anthimius would never condemn Eutyches Concil sub Men. Act. 4. he was deprived of the Bishoprick of Trabizonde and of all sacerdotal Dignity according to the sentence of the Pope And which is still more wonderfull Justinian acknowledging that Supreme Authority of the Pope to which he submitted and joyning thereto his own as Protectour of the Canons for causing that to be put in execution made against Anthimius that famous constitution which is to be seen in his two and fourtieth Novel in the tenth collation of his Authenticks wherein he positively says that he hath been justly Deposed by the Pope as well because he had intruded Neque ipse abdicare auctores impiorum dogmatum qui prius à Sanctis Synodis percussi fuerant Inst Nov. 42. contrary to the Holy Canons into the Chair of Constantinople as that he would not condemn those who had been Condemned by Councils Was there ever a more admirable effect of the Spiritual Power and Authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ But before I conclude I must upon occasion of this Council of Constantinople under Mennas shew the Prodigious ignorance of Calvin in relation to the History of the Ancient Church I have said in the History of Calvinism and I say it again that that man having never entered the Schools of Divinity understood nothing at all in that Sacred Science which is a Key absolutely necessary for unlocking the sentiments and sentences of the Holy Fathers that contain the Principles of true Theology as they are to be found in a lovely order in the Master of Sentences But it is to be confessed that his ignorance appears incomparably more pitifull when he undertakes to prove his new Opinions by Church History in which he was never versed Take this as an evident proof of it This Innovatour who strikes chiefly at the Primacy of the Pope says in that place for overthrowing it Calvin Inst l. 4. c. 7. that Mennas presided in the fifth Council and that the Pope being called to it did not contest with him about the place of Honour but without difficulty suffered the Patriarch of Constantinople to preside therein Ridiculous mistake Mennas was dead long before the fifth Council was called which was held in the Seven and twentieth year of the Empire of Justinian as Calvin Consil 6. Act. 3◠had he ever read the Councils might have learned from the sixth Ecumenick Council third Action How then could that dead man have presided in that Council which was not held till five or six years after his death under his Successour Eutychius Now if it be alledged for excuse of that mistake that Calvin by that Council means the other which was held by Mennas yet that makes him but still ridiculous For besides that that particular Council is very different from that which is called the Fifth and which holds that rank amongst the General Councils the onely Pope that was at Constantinople in the time of Mennas to wit St. Agapetus was dead before that Council wherein Mennas calls him Act. 4. his Father of holy and blessed memory And had that Pope been still alive How durst Mennas have pretended to the first place in his presence he whom that Pope had made Patriarch who protests in the same Council that he is subject to the Holy See and who knows the thoughts of the Emperour Justinian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cod. l. 7. that declares publickly That the Pope is the Head of all the holy Prelates of God and who will have his Patriarch of New Rome to have the next place to the holy Apostolick See of Old Rome Novel 131. So that to what side soever Calvin turn he shall always find his Man dead in stead of alive And as it is very well known that God favour'd him not with the gift of working Miracles he can never raise him again to place him there where nothing but his extreme ignorance could put him By the same defect of knowledge accompanied with a ridiculous boldness that he may strip the Pope of his Primacy he takes Nice in Thracia for Nicoea in Bithynia Pope Julius for Silvester the first place for the last in citing Sozomene who beginning by this Man L. 1. c. 16. in the enumeration of the Patriarchs ascends in order to the first where he puts the Legats of the Pope speaking of the first Council wherein by the grossest ignorance that can be in History and which none but Calvin could be capable of he makes Saint Athanasius preside who was then but a simple Deacon waiting upon Alexander his Patriarch at that Council Athan. Apol. 2. Such was the ignorance of the head of our Protestants in Ecclesiastical History I do not at all wonder at it for that was none of his study But I am astonished to see that men of wit and learning dance to his Pipe in that they implicitely assent to his ignorance in Antiquity when in the systeme of his heresie he rejects matters that are manifestly authorised by Tradition and History which is the Court of Record of it nay even when he traces it back to the Primitive Ages of the Church wherein they are forced to confess that it was in its purity There are evident proofs of this in the History of the Fathers and Councils where setting aside some frivolous superstitions of weak people which we
were not reputed Hereticks Victori non dederunt manus Hieron Ibid. cut off from the communion of Catholicks It was about an hundred and eight years after that the great Council of Nice abolished that custome in respect that Saint John had onely allowed it for a time in these Provinces of Asia that bordered upon the Jews to give an honourable Funeral to the Synagogue and that the other practice was taken universally as transmitted from the Apostles after which there lay an obligation upon Christians to submit to that Decree and they who headstrongly refused to obey it were declared Hereticks under the name of Quartodecumans This being so it is evident to all Men that neither these Bishops of Asia and of the East nor St. Irenaeus and the Gallican Church nor the Bishops of other Countries who wrote so smartly to Pope Victor in favour of these Eastern Churches did believe the Pope to be Infallible For had they believed it it is certain on the one hand that these Asiaticks would have submitted to the Decree of the Pope as they afterwards submitted to that of a Council because they believed as all other Catholicks doe that a Council is Infallible and on the other hand it is very clear that St. Irenaeus and so many other Bishops would not have written as they did to Pope Victor and found fault with his conduct For they never questioned but that those who refused to obey an Infallible Tribunal ought to be condemned and punished It was not then believed in the Church that the Pope had the gift of Infallibility though he might make a Decree for the instruction of all believers CHAP. IX What inference is to be made from that famous contest that happened betwixt the Pope St. Stephen and St. Cyprian concerning the Baptism of Hereticks THis famous question that hath made so much noise in the Church was fourty years before St. Cyprian solemnly examined in a Council held in Africa by Agrippinus Bishop of Carthage Ann. 217. and there it was determined that the Baptism of Hereticks being null there was a necessity of Re-baptizing all those who having abjured their Heresie should return to the bosome of the Church Cypr. Epist 71. ad Quin. Epist ad Jubaian Commonit 6.9 Vincentius Lirinensis hath Written that that same Agrippinus was the first who contrary to the custome of the Universal Church and the determination of his Brethren thought that Hereticks ought to be Re-baptised But saving the honour and respect that is due to so great a Man it is evident he was mistaken For besides that the Bishops of Africa and Numidia Cypr. loc citat with common consent and in conjunction with Agrippinus decided the same thing Tertullian Ann. 203. Cap. 12. who Wrote his excellent Book of Prescriptions against Hereticks fourteen years before the Council of Agrippinus says therein very plainly that their Baptism is not valid Cap. 15. Which in his Book of Baptism he also asserts in most express terms a Book Written by him before he fell into the Heresie of the Montanists Ann. 200. Strommat 1. Clemens Alexandrinus who flourished in the same time also rejects the Baptism of Hereticks which shews that it was the doctrine and custome of the Church of Alexandria the chief and most illustrious Church next to that of Rome So that Agrippinus and the Bishops of Africa and Numidia whom he assembled in a Council to determine that Question are not the first who established that Custome and Disipline which appoints all Hereticks who return into the bosome of the Church to be Re-baptized Probably it may be objected by some that what these ancient Authours say ought onely to be understood of the Hereticks of their times who all of them blaspheming against the most Holy Trinity Baptized not in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and that therefore their Baptism was null which is most true But the reason whereupon they ground the nullity of the Baptism of Hereticks to wit that they are strangers without the Pale of the Church Ad quos vetamur accedere quis servus cibaria ab extraneo ne dicam ab inimico domini sui petat c. Tertull. de praescrip Quos extraneos utique testatur ipsa ademptio communicationis Id. de Baptis Trajicies aquam alienam c. Clem. Alex and that we are forbidden to have any commerce with them proves manifestly that what they said ought to be understood of all sorts of Hereticks both present and to come because they are all out of the Pale of the Church Now seeing some considerable time after the Council of Agrippinus Novation who was the first Anti-pope caused Catholicks who followed the party of the true Pope Cornelius to be Re-baptized the Question concerning the Baptism of Hereticks was argued afresh in Africa where it was put Whether or not the Novatian Schismaticks who returned to the Church ought to be Re-baptized Litt. Synod ad Epis ad Episc humid ap Cypr. Epist 90. Numid ap Cypr. Epist 70. Whereupon St. Cyprian having assembled a Provincial Council at Carthage it was there declared that since no body can be lawfully Baptized out of the Church there was a necessity of Re-baptizing Hereticks and Schismaticks those excepted who having been Baptized in the Catholick Church Cypr. Epist 74. ad Pomp. had afterward separated from it because Baptism once rightly administred could never again be reiterated The Bishops of Numidia who had received the Decree of the Council of Agrippinus Litt. Synod ad Epise Numid having consulted Saint Cyprian upon that new emergent received also the Decree of the Council of Carthage and that it might be rendered more Authentick Saint Cyprian assembled them together with the Bishops of his Province in a second Synod where the decision of the former was confirmed And thereupon a Synodal Letter was written to the Pope St. Stephen Cypr. Epist 73. ad Jubai informing him of what had been decided in those two Councils to wit that all those who being out of the Church Eos qui sunt foris extra Ecclesiam tincti apud haereticos schismaticos profanae aquae labe maculaeti quando ab nos venerint Baptisare oportere eo quod parum sit eis manum imponere Epist 70. Apud Cypr. ap August l. 6. 7. de Bapt. had been polluted by the profane Baptism of Hereticks and Schismaticks ought to be Re-baptised which was also confirmed in a third Council wherein were present the Bishops of Mauritania with those of Africa and Numidia Pope Stephen though his Predecessours had not opposed the Council of Agrippinus but left the Africans in the possession of their custome thought that he ought to condemn it as contrary to Apostolical Tradition And thereupon Euseb Hist l. 6. c. 5. in two Letters which he Wrote to the Africans he made a Decree quite contrary to that of St. Cyprian
Optatus St. Cyril of Jerusalem Saint Basil St. Austine and most Catholick Bishops of Aegypt Asia and Africa not to mention those who in the interval of almost Threescore years that was betwixt Pope Stephen and the Council had liberty to follow the party of St. Cyprian believed not in the Third Fourth and Fifth Ages of the Church that the Pope was Infallible What can be answered to that Let us now consult the Council in Question or rather the Councils which have pronounced Sovereignly concerning that point of the Baptism of Hereticks You have three of them First the full Council which is the first Council of Arles to which the Pope St. Sylvester sent four Legats in the year 314. makes this Decree in the Eighth Canon upon occasion of the Africans De Afris quod propriâ lege utantur ut Re-baptisent placuit ut si ad Ecclesiam aliquis de Haeresi venerit interrogent eum symbolum si perviderint eum in patre filio Spiritu Sancto Baptizatum manus ei tantum imponatur sic accipiat Spiritum Sanctum Quod si interrogatus non responderit hanc Trinitatem Rebaptisetur who Rebaptized all Hereticks If any Heretick return to the Church let him be asked the Question and if it appear that he hath been Baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost that hands be onely laid upon him to the end he may receive the Holy Ghost but if he answer not according to the Mystery of the Trinity let him be Re-baptized Moreover the great Council of Nice Twelve years after ordains in the Canon 19. that the Paulanists who return to the Church should be Re-baptized De Paulanistis ad Ecclesiam Catholicam confugientibus definitio prolata est ut iterum Baptisentur omnimodis Aug. de haer ad quod vult Haeres 44. because as St. Austine says these Hereticks the Disciples of Paulus Samosatanus who believed not the Trinity nor the Incarnation of the Word Can. 1. observed not the form of Baptism in Baptizing in the Name of the Three Persons of the Trinity But as to the Novatians who Baptized in the Name of the Trinity as Catholicks did the Council declares that it is sufficient to lay hands upon them In fine Can. 7. the first Council of Constantinople which is the second General ordains also the Montanists Sabellians and such other Hereticks who Baptized not in the Name of the Three Persons of the Trinity against which they blasphemed should be Re-baptized but not the Novatians the Quartodecimans nor yet the Arians and Macedonians because although these had not the true belief which ought to be had of that great Mystery yet they Baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which St. Austine who hath Written after that Council of Constantinople assures to be sufficient for the validity of the Sacrament though the Faith of him who Baptizes be not pure So that saith he Manifestum est fieri posse ut fide non integraÌ„ integrum in quoquam maneat Baptismi Sacramentum ....... Quamoâ—rem nisi Evangelicis verbis in nomine Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti Marcion Baptismum consecrabat integrum erat Sacramentum quamvis ejus fides sub iisdem verbis aliud opinantis quam Catholica veritas docet non esset integra Aug. l. 2. de Bapt. cont Donatist c. 14 15. if Marcion Baptized using the words of the Gospel in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost his Baptism was good though that Heretick under these words believed a thing quite different from what the Catholick Church teaches That being so there is no more to be done but to compare these Decrees of Councils with those of the Pope St. Stephen and of Saint Cyprian Si quis à quacunque Haeres c. manus ei tantum imponatur This Pope Decrees that if any one return from any Heresie whatsoever he shall have onely hands laid upon him without being Re-baptized Si quis à quacunque Haeresi Qui ex quacunque Haeresi c. Baptisentur c. St. Cyprian says on the contrary that if any one return from any Heresie whatsoever he ought to be Re-baptized These are two extreams directly opposite one to another The Three Councils take the middle course explaining the one and condemning the other They are not for Re-baptizing the Novatians and other Hereticks who Baptize in the Name of the Three Persons of the Trinity and they hold their Baptism to be lawfull and good according to the true Apostolical Tradition but they are also absolutely for Re-baptizing the Paulanists and all such who Baptize not in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost thereby clearly defining that their Baptism is null And therein they explain and rectifie the Decree of the Pope St. Stephen adding but in formal terms an exception which is onely understood therein They plainly then declare on the one hand how the Decree of St. Stephen is to be understood and on the other that St. Cyprian Nondum veritas eliquata declarata per plenarium concilium who expressed himself clearly enough in his was deceived but very innocently because as St. Austine says L. 1. de Baptis Contra Donatis c. 7 8 9 17. the truth was not then discovered and declared by the Council Now seeing before that Declaration one might according to that holy Father freely follow the opinion of St. Cyprian notwithstanding the Decree of the Pope and that after that of the Council one had not the same liberty it is altogether evident that it must once more be concluded that it is because the ancient Church believed that a Council is Infallible and that the Pope is not CHAP. X. The fall of Liberius THESE two holy Popes Victor and Stephen whom so many Catholick Bishops of the Ancient Church have not believed to be Infallible had notwithstanding the truth on their side and in their favours the Councils decided But there are others who according to the unquestionable testimonies of the Ancients have fallen into errour whence it may be irrefragably concluded upon better reason that Antiquity reckoned them not Infallible I shall onely alledge seven or eight of the most evident instances which will be sufficient to prove that the Ancients acknowledged no other Infallibility amongst Men but what God hath given to his Church The first is Liberius who to get himself recalled from the Exile to which the Arian Emperour had Banished him and to remount the Pontifical Throne which Felix had usurped Ann. 357. solemnly approved Arianism This he did by condemning jointly with the Arians St. Athanasius the great defender of the Faith and scourge of Arianism besides by suppressing the Term Consubstantial which distinguished a Catholick from an Arian and which was in a manner the
Character and Mark of Catholicity nay more by receiving the most obstinate Arians into his Communion and in a word by subscribing to the scandalous Formulary of Sirmium which was presented to him by the Head of the Semi-Arians And at length that it might not be doubted but that he acted as Pope who makes known to the whole Church what Men ought to believe for that was the thing the Arians pretended to who were willing it might be known that the Head of the Church was on their side He Wrote two long Letters which were made publick all over the Empire one to the Emperour Constantius the great Protectour of Arianism and the other to the Arian Bishops wherein he declares his intention in terms most significant and most advantagious for the Arians Vbi cognovi quando Deo placuit Juste vos illum condemnasse mox consensum meum commodavi sententiis vestris Lib. Epist 7. ad Episc Orientales Amoto Athanasio à communione omnium cujus nec Epistolia à me suscipienda sunt dico me cum omnibus vobis pacem unanimitatem habere ut sciatis me veram fidem per hanc Epistolam meamloqui hanc ego libenti animo suscepi in nullo contradixi c. For there he saith That having known when it pleased God to illuminate him that they had justly condemned Athanasius he presently consented to their Judgment that he had Excommunicated him that he would not so much as receive his Letters and that he would have them to know that he was perfectly united with them in mind and heart that he professes in that Letter the true Faith which Demophilus had made known unto him which they had declared and received at Sirmium and that he most willingly embraces it without the least contradiction This methinks may be said to be an Authentick Declaration for Arianism and a falling from on high into the Abyss of Heresie And it cannot be known by a more unquestionable evidence than his own that he fell so unfortunately And therefore St. Hilary In fragment à Pithaeo editis Liberius taedio victus exilii in haereticâ pravitate subscribens Romam victor intraverat Hieron in Chron. de scrip Eccles in Fortunati who lived in that time most positively calls him Heretick pronouncing three or four Anathema's against him one upon the heels of another And St. Jerome in more than one passage of his Works says That that Pope subscrib'd to the Arian impiety and that the vexation he lay under for his Banishment having made him subscribe to Heresie in a Victorious manner he again entered Rome But not to mention all the others who have spoken of that deplorable fall of Liberius Auxili l. 1. de ordinati c. 25. l. 2. c. 1. alii we need no other proof fully to persuade us of it than Rome her self and all her Clergy or to say better the Church of Rome which so abhorred that scandalous Declaration of Liberius that on the spot she deposed him from his Papacy as an Arian Heretick of publick notoriety Nor was he chosen and acknowledged of new for true Pope till that after his Successour St. Felix had suffered Martyrdom he abjured his Heresie and was again become the same Liberius that he was before his fall a wise generous and zealous Pope This being so Is it not clear that the Church of Rome her self in the fourth age did not believe the Pope to be Infallible CHAP. XI The instance of Pope Vigilius THE Second instance that I produce is that of Pope Vigilius I have already related that example upon occasion of St. Peter's being reproved by St. Paul and shall at present apply it in a few but decisive words to the subject whereof I treat in this Chapter This Pope before the fifth Council made a Constitution Vigilii Constitutum ad Justin Imper. Ex verbis Epistolae viri venerabilis Ibae rectissimo ac piissimo intellectu perspectis c. Nec quemquam hoc nostro constituto permittimus aliquando praesumere super ejusdem Epistolae negotium ..... quoquo modo aliquid temerariae novitatis inferre which he addressed to the Emperour Justinian wherein amongst other things undertaking the defence of the Letter of Ibas Bishop of Edessa he declares that according to the words of that Letter understood in the sound sense that might be given unto them it seemed to be Orthodox and strictly prohibits any whosoever to innovate any thing touching that Letter in what manner soever it might be nor to condemn it seeing Ibas had been absolv'd and received as a Catholick in the Council of Chalcedon The Fifth Council which was held sometime after Ann. 553. and at which Vigilius would never assist though he was then at Constantinople where that Synod was celebrated decides exactly the contrary For having well examined the Letter of Ibas Si quis defendit Epistolam quam dicitur Ibas ad Marim Persam scripsisse quae abnegat Deum verbum de sancta Dei genitrice semper virgine Maria incarnatum hominem factum esse dicit autem c. ..... defendit Theodorum Nestorium impia eorum dogmata conscripta Si quis igitur memoratam impiam Epistolam defendit non Anathematizat eam c. .... qui praesumit eum defendere vel infertam ei impietatem nomine sanctorum patrum vel Concilii Chalcedonensis ..... Anathema sit Synod 5. Coll. 3. c. 14. concerning which the Council of Chalcedon had pronounced nothing it solemnly declares the same Heretical and impious as containing the Blasphemies of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius against Jesus Christ and his holy Mother and pronounces Anathema against all those who Anathematise it not and dare undertake the defence thereof as if it had been approved in the Council of Chalcedon There you have two decrees quite contrary one to another Whence it must follow that either the Council in its decision or the Pope in his constitution are deceived and maintain an errour Or whether that Pope did at length consent to that Council as I have said upon the credit of very good vouchers or that he never consented to it as there are some who affirm It is certain that his Successours Pelagius II. and St. Gregory the Great have approved it and that it hath always been received since without contradiction by all the Western Church as a true Ecumenical Council which cannot err It is then most certain that Vigilius decided wrong in his constitution and that by consequent even according to the Popes and Church of Rome in the fifth Age The Popes for all they are heads of the Church are not therefore Infallible CHAP. XII The Condemnation of Honorius in the Sixth Council THE same appears clearly also in the case of Pope Honorius of whom so much hath been Written in these later times I am not for contesting with any body I shall onely produce matter of Fact
which being barely related will clearly determine that affair Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople being corrupted by Theodore Bishop of Pharan Lateran Synod sub Martr 1. Authour of the Heresie of the Monothelites who would not acknowledge two Wills and two Operations the one Divine and the other Humane in Jesus Christ undertook to spread that Heresie all over the East For that end seeing he had already on his side Cyrus Bishop of Phasis Histor Miscell l. 18. Cedren Zonar in Heracl who was shortly after Patriarch of Alexandria Macarius Patriarch of Antioch and Athanasius Patriarch of the Jacobites he acted so cunningly that being powerfully seconded by these three Bishops who were much esteemed by the Emperour Heraclius he drew that poor Prince in his declining Age into that Heresie So that he prevailed with him to make that famous Edict under the name of Ecthesis or the exposition of Faith whereby he commands all his Subjects inviolably to follow that Doctrine And then that Patriarch of Constantinople having caused it to be signed by all the Bishops of his Patriarchy whom he had assembled in a Council he affixed it upon the Doors of his Cathedral Church at the same time that Cyrus planted the same Heresie in Aegypt Now seeing Sophronius Patriarch of Jerusalem vigorously opposed it he caused that pernicious Doctrine that came near the Errour of Eutyches who confounded the two Natures in Jesus Christ reducing them singly into one to be condemned in his Synod as the Council of Chalcedon had condemned the other Sergius finding himself attacked in this manner Sect. Syn. Act. 12. wrote a long Letter to Pope Honorius wherein he accuses Sophronius of troubling the Peace of the Oriental Church by introducing a new Doctrine by these new terms of Two Wills and Two Operations which had never been heard of before neither in the Fathers nor Councils Cyrus failed not to second his Collegue in Impiety complaining as he had done of Sophronius to the Pope And that Patriarch also on his part did what he ought in defending himself well and in making known to Honorius the extreme danger they were in in the East of seeing errour triumph by power and by the Artifices of these Hereticks if a speedy course were not taken It was never more apparent than on this occasion that when the Catholick Faith is to be declared one must never biass nor dissemble and conceal part of truth for reconciling both parties and bringing back to the Church those Sext. Synod Act. 12. who through Heresie or Schism have separated from it Honorius who was a very peaceable Man and so zealous for the peace of the Church that he endeavoured to accommodate all matters and content both parties Wrote back to Sergius in a manner whereby that Patriarch and his party took great advantage publishing in all places and persuading many by the reading of these Letters That the Bishop of Rome owned at that time by the Greeks for Head of the Church and Ecumenical Pope approved their Doctrine which rendered the party of the Monothelites more powerfull than ever The Successours of Honorius Hist Miscel Cedr Zonar who in the interim died took a conduct quite contrary to his for quenching that great conflagration that spread over all the East John the IV. in his Council of Rome annulled all the Decrees which these Monothelites had made in their Synods Pope Theodore condemned and deposed Pyrrhus Anastas in Theodor who succeeded Sergius and maintained his Heresie and after him his Successour Paul the most furious of all those Hereticks who as a foaming and raging Bear ravaged the Vineyard of our Lord For he grew to that height of more than Barbarous fury as to cause the Popes Nuncio's sent to Constantinople for remedying these disorders to be scourged The Illustrious Pope Martin Auct Vit. S. Mart. Pap. Successour to Theodore acted more vigorously than his Predecessour For in a Council of an Hundred and five Bishops which he held at the Lateran where the Writings of the Monothelites were examined with the Petitions that were presented against them he declared their Doctrine Heretical Anathematised Theodore of Pharan Cyrus of Alexandria Sergius Pyrrhus and Paul Patriarchs of Constantinople who had always maintained it Exhorted the Gallican Church Epist Mart. Pap. ad Amand. Trajectens which hath always vigorously defended the Catholick Faith against all Heresies to thunder against this as he had done and solemnly condemned the Ecthesis or Edict of the Emperour Heraclius Hist Misc l. 19. Auct Vit. S. Mart. Anastas in S. Mart. Cedr Zonar in Constante This put the Emperour Constans Grandson of Heraclius and a great Protectour of the Monothelites into such a rage that he caused the Holy Pope to be carried away from Rome and having most outragiously used him Banished him into the Chersonesus where being overwhelmed with miseries and poverty he gloriously accomplished a long Martyrdom which shortly after was followed by the deplorable death of that Tyrant His Son Constantine Pogonatus a great Catholick by his prudent conduct repaired all the faults of that unhappy Prince For having settled the Empire by the great Victories which he obtained over all his Enemies he resolved also to give Peace to the Church which his Father had troubled near Fifty years by the Monothelites Anno 680. Hist in Miscel Cedr Zonar Anastas in Agath Id. Synod 6. Act. 9. For that effect with consent of Pope Agatho he called the sixth Council at Constantinople where the business of the Monothelites was sifted to the bottom and sovereignly determined to their shame In that Council there were above Two hundred Oriental Bishops four Legats of Pope Agatho Theodore and George Cardinal Priests John a Deacon who was afterwards Pope and Constantius Sub-deacon and on the part of the Council of Sixscore Bishops held for the same purpose at Rome Three Bishops the Deputy of the Archbishop of Ravenna and many other Learned Church-men and Monks who were sent thither from the Western Church The Writings that had past on both sides upon that subject Concil 6. Act. 12. were read there and particularly the Letter of Sergius to Pope Honorius and the Pope's Answer to that Patriarch And after they had been well examined this is the Judgment which the Council in the following Session solemnly pronounced against them and is the same which we have in all the Editions and particularly in the last of Paris Act. 13. Has invenientes omnino alienas existere ab Apostolicis dogmatibus à definitionibus Sanctorum Conciliorum Cunctorum probabilium Patrum sequi verò falsas doctrinas haereticorum eas omnino abjicimus tanquam animae noxias execramur Honorium qui fuerat Papa antiquae Romae eo quod invenimus per scripta quae ab eo facta sunt ad Sergium quia in omnibus ejus mentem secutus est impia dogmata confirmavit
Having found the Epistle of Sergius to Honorius and that of Honorius to Sergius wholly contrary to the Doctrine of the Apostles the Definitions of Councils and the Judgment of the Holy Fathers and that they were conform to the false doctrine of Hereticks we absolutely reject and abhor them as pernicious to Souls We have moreover Judged that the names of Theodore Sergius Cyrus Pyrrhus c. ought to be blotted out of the Church and that with them Honorius heretofore Pope of ancient Rome ought to be Excommunicated because we have found by his Letters to Sergius that in all things he hath followed the mind of that Heretick and that he hath confirmed his impious Doctrines The holy Council repeats that Condemnation in the definition of Faith that was made in the Eighteenth Session and again Anathematises him as also the Heretical Patriarchs Sergius Pyrrhus Paul and Peter of Constantinople Cyrus of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch Ad haec Honorius Antiquae Romae Papa hujusmodi haereseos confirmator Sext. Syn. p. 1084. Edit Paris in the thanks that were given the Emperour at the end of the Council And that Emperour in his Edict whereby he Banishes the Heresie of the Monothelites out of his Empire declares the same against the Heretical Bishops and against Honorius whom he calls the confirmer of that Heresie The Council being ended the Legats brought an Authentick Copy of it to the Pope St. Leo II. who succeeded Agatho that died during that Council And this Pope Leo who understood Greek very well took the pains himself to Translate it into Latin such as we have it Afterwards Writing to the Emperour to whom he sent his Approbation of all the Acts of the Council he Anathematises Honorius Necnon Honorium qui hanc sedem Apostolicam non Apostolicae Traditionis Doctrinâ lustravit sed immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est T. 6. Concil Edit Paris p. 1027. who enlightned not says he the Apostolick Church by the Doctrine of Apostolical Tradition but who on the contrary endeavoured to destroy the Faith And in the Letters which he Wrote to the Bishops of Spain and to the King Ervigius to whom he sent the Definition of the Council to be signed he expresses himself as to that point in words at least as significant and weighty Qui immaculatam Apostolicae traditionis regulam quam à praedecessoribus suis accepit maculari consensit Ibid. p. 1252. saying That that Pope hath been smitten with an Anathema with Theodore Cyrus and Sergius for having consented that the Immaculate Rule of Apostolical Tradition which he had received from his Predecessours should be corrupted What this Pope who had Read Examined Translated and Approved that Council said of Honorius other Popes his Successours have also said in the following Ages For in the ancient Diurnal-book which is a kind of Ceremonial of the Church of Rome the Confession of Faith which all the new Elected Popes did make is to be seen and wherein they declare That they receive the Sixth General Council where Sergius Pyrrhus Paulus c. Vnà cum Honorio qui pravis eorum assertionibus fomentum impendit inventers of the Heresie of the Monothelites are say they condemned with Honorius who favoured and countenanced their wicked Doctrines Adrian II. in his Epistle that was read and received with applause in the seventh Action of the Eight Ecumenical Council confesses That the Orientals pronounced Sentence of Anathema against Honorius accused of the Heresie of the Monothelites And that great Eighth Council which so strongly maintained the Primacy of the Pope against Photius yet for all that with consent of the Popes three Legats who presided in that Council in the definition of Faith they Anathematised Theodore of Pharan Sergius Pyrrhus c. and with them Honorius Bishop of Rome Cyrus of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch These are matters of fact to be read in the Councils and in the Books which I cite and they are so strong and decisive against the Infallibility of the Pope that Baronius Bellarmine Pighius and the other modern Authours who will absolutely have the Pope to be Infallible have been forced to deliver themselves from the persecution of those troublesome matters of fact to alledge forgery in them and boldly to say that the Acts of the Sixth Council have been corrupted by Theodore of Constantinople who in hatred to the Popes foisted in immediately after the Council all that concerns Honorius and that the Epistles of St. Leo are false and have been forged by some Impostour an enemy of the Holy See For say they what likelihood that after the Letter of Pope Agatho had been read in the fourth Action wherein he sayth That the Apostolical Church hath never swerved from the truth they would have condemned one of his Predecessours and that Leo his Successour should doe the same But they who yield not to that reason nor to some other conjectures which they find to be weaker object reasons against them which they think can never be answer'd For say they if that wicked Patriarch had corrupted the Acts would not the Popes Legats who presided in the Council and brought a Copy of them to Rome have clearly seen the Imposture and that what was inserted concerning Pope Honorius was no Act of the Council which had not mentioned him Would they not have complained to the Emperour of that horrid Cheat Would they not have told Pope Leo that these Acts were falsified Would they have suffered without speaking one word that he should have Translated them in that manner to impose upon the whole Church And would the Emperour who was himself present at the Council put into his Edict that Honorius had been condemned there or at least would he have suffered that Edict to be falsified in his presence Now if any one to excuse the Legats and Pope Leo should think fit to say That these Acts were not corrupted till long after their death Might not his mouth be stopt with this Reply To what end then was that Imposture Was there not to be found in the Records of the Vatican the true Copy of that Council the Translation of it made by Pope Leo and besides a Thousand Copies of it elsewhere which might have been opposed to those Falsaries for discovering their Cheat Would not Pope Adrian very far from Writing to the Fathers of the Eighth Council that Honorius had been condemned in the Sixth have advertised them that their Copies were corrupted Durst the Fathers have renewed the Anathema against Honorius and Adrian's three Legats never have opposed it Yet they did no such thing and there was no complaint made at that time that the Acts of the Sixth Council were falsified because there have never been any other Copies of these Acts either in Writing or in Print except those which we have wherein Honorius is condemned with Sergius and Pyrrhus and the other heads of the Monothelites
the Pope was infallible The same may be said of the Bull of Sixtus V. which he caused to be printed with his Bible and whereby he declares to the whole Church That that Bible is corrected according to the Primitive Purity of the Vulgar Translation And nevertheless because it was afterwards clearly seen that it was not Clement VIII suppressed that Bull and caused another to be printed wherein all the Faults of the former are very well corrected and so it may very well be concluded that Clement VIII was persuaded that his Predecessor instructing all Believers in a point that regards even the Principle of Faith might be deceived However I will not say so because I will not at all enter into Dispute with some Modern Doctors who to slip the Collar have bethought themselves to say That it is true the Bull was printed with the Bible Tannerus disp 1. de Fide q. 4. dub 6. n. 263. Thom. Comptonus in 2.2 dis 22. de sum pontif sect 5. which is still to be seen in many Libraries but that it was not affixed upon the Gates of St. Peter's Church and on the Field of Flora so long as it ought to have been according to the Laws of the Chancery of Rome As if the Truth or Falshood of the Contents of a Bull depended on the time that is to be taken in publishing it and as if the Pope who makes it became not Infallible but at the precise Minute of the Accomplishment of the time that it should have been affixed Let us leave that Instance then of Sixtus V. that we may not engage into that Sophistry of Disputation which to me seems not altogether so serious in a matter of that Importance CHAP. XIV The Instance of Pope John XXII I Shall produce no more Instances but that of Pope John XXII That Pope in his extream old Age of near fourscore and ten Years took a Conceit that as a certain and constant Truth the Opinion of some ought to be established in the Church Contin Hangii who had heretofore taught that the Souls of those who died in Grace and had been entirely purged from all the remaining dreggs of their Sins did not see the Face of God till after the Resurrection He did all that lay in his Power to have it pass He taught it publickly in Conferences and Congregations which he held upon that Subject he preached it himself he obliged by his Example the Cardinals and Prelates of his Court and other Doctors openly to maintain it He caused a learned Jacobin named Father Thomas de Valas Ibid. Gobel persona in Cosmodr aet 6. c. 71. Paul Langius in Chron. Citizen to be put in Prison who not doubting but that Opinion was an Error contrary to the express Word of the Son of God who said to the good Thief This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise preached the contrary even in Avignon where the Pope held his Court. In fine I find a Doctor of very great Authority Hadrian 6. in 4. sentent art 3. de Minist Confirm 22. whose eminent Virtue and singular Learning with a consummated Prudence in the management of Affairs raised him afterwards to the highest Dignity of the Church that says very plainly Publicè docuit declaravit ab omnibus teneri voluit quod animae c. That he obliged all men to hold that Doctrine for the future Be as it will it is certain that he did what lay in his Power to bring into his Opinion the Sacred Faculty of Theology and University of Paris which was by all men reverenced as the Mother of Sciences that for that end he sent thither two Doctors with the General of the Cordeliers who publickly maintained that Doctrine and preached the same which stirred up all Paris against them Whereupon King Philip de Valois caused all the Bishops and Abbots that then were at Paris Continu Hangii to assemble with the Doctors of the Faculty who in his Presence confounded those of Avignon and proved to them that what they had preached by order of the Pope was heretical That Prince who would suffer in his Kingdom no Novelty of Doctrine wrote to his Holiness with a great deal of Force and Respect beseeching him to retract that wicked Opinion Quatènus sententiam Magistrorum de Parisiis qui melius sciunt quid debet teneri credi in fide quam Jurista alii Clerici qui parum aut nihil sciunt de Theolâ—gia approbaret Ibid. which caused so much Scandal in the Church Nay he prayed him to send a Legate into France who in his Name might approve and confirm the Decree of the Doctors of Paris who knew far better what was to be believed as a matter of Faith than his Canonists and other Clergy of Avignon that were no great Divines The Pope who would neither wholly retract nor yet on the other hand provoke the King whose Protection he stood in need of took a middle Course which he thought would not be disagreeable unto him and prayed him to be satisfied Epist Joan. ad Philip 14. Calend. Decemb Pontif. 12. that every one might continue in their Opinion and Say Teach and Preach what they thought good upon that Subject As to that Proposition the King would again have the Advice of the Faculty Joan. Gerson Serm. in die Paschat coram Rege Petr. de Alliac prop. de toll sc coram Rege An. 1406. Gob. Perso Langius Odor Rayn ad An. 1334. whom he there assembled and the Faculty by a Decree of the Second of January One thousand three hundred and three at the Mathurins declared of new That the Opinion in question was Heretical and that by consequent it could neither be Preached nor Taught After that Philip proscribed it by Sound of Trumpet prohibiting all his Subjects to teach or maintain it and then that he might oblige the Pope to condemn it he wrote to him a second time in so forcible and extraordinary Terms that at length the Pope retracted it a little before his Death which hapned the Year following I have said all that I could in my History of the Fall of the Empire to excuse him even so far as to affirm with some that that Doctrine which he would have established by his own Authority was not as yet condemned as it was afterwards by Benet XII his Successor There are some notwithstanding who say that it had been long before rejected by the Roman Church as appears by the Confession of Faith that Clement IV. sent in the Year Two hundred threescore and seven to the Emperour Michael Paleologue whereof I have spoken in my History of the Schism of the Greeks However it be it is certain that it is an Error condemned not only by Pope Benet but much more solemnly above an hundred Years after in the third Article of the Definition of Faith which the Council of Florence made for reuniting the two
but with the Holy Ghost according to those high Words which contain all the Force Authority and Soul of Oecumenical Councils Visum est spiritui sancto nobis This is so true that if after the great Council of Nice for example defined by Plurality of Voices that the Word is consubstantial to the Father the Pope St. Sylvester had not received that definition and believed the Consubstantiality of the Word as the Arians did not he would have been reckoned an Heretick as well as they And therefore he failed not to consent to the Decrees of that Council by approving and confirming them by his own Assent and by the Assent of the Bishops whom he had assembled at Rome upon that occasion I offer you says he in his Epistle to the Fathers of Nice if that Letter be true as Cardinal Baronius thinks I offer you my Hand and that of my Disciples Meum chirographum discipulorum meorum in vestro sancto concilio quicquid constituistis unà parem dare consensum T. 1. Concil for consenting with you to all that ye have determined in your holy Council And it 's that precisely which in the Ancient Church is called the confirming of a Council to wit to consent by Vote and an authentick Act to what hath been established in it That appears evidently by the Letters of two great Popes St. Leo and St. Martin The Council of Chalcedon made Decrees concerning the Faith for condemning the Heresie of the Eutycheans and the Remains of that of the Nestorians and by the eight and twentieth Canon thereof to honour the Imperial City the second place among the Patriarchs was given to the Patriarch of Constantinople which is contrary to the Council of Nice that disposed of it otherways and to which St. Leo also would never condescend what Instance soever the Fathers of Chalcedon made to him for it He was nevertheless apprehensive that this might have a bad Effect and that because of that Refusal it might be thought in the World that he would not consent to the determinations of that Council which had so well asserted the Faith against the Heresie of Eutyches therefore he wrote to them in these terms Ne per malignos interpretes dubitabile videatur utrum quae in Synodo Chalcedonensi per unanimitatem vestram de fide statutae sunt approbem haec ad omnes fratres Coepiscopos nostros scriptae direxi Vt fraternitas vestra omnium fidelium corda cognoscant me non solum per fratres qui vicem meam executi sunt sed etiam per approbationem gâ—storum synodalium propriam vobiscum iniisse sententiam in sola fidei causa c. St. Leo Ep. 61. Syn. Chalced. Lest by malign Interpreters of my Intentions it might seem doubtful whether or not I approve what you have with unanimous Consent determined concerning the Faith in the Council of Calcedon I write to all my Brethren and Fellow-Bishops these Letters which the most glorious Emperour as he hath desired will deliver unto you to the end your Fraternity and all Believers may know that not only by the Approbation of my Legates but also by my own I have joyned my Judgment to yours but only in those Points which concern the Faith for the sake of which this Universal Council hath been celebrated by the express Order of the Emperours and the Consent of the Holy Apostolick See You see then that to approve a Council according to St. Leo is to conform in Judgment to that of the Fathers and to consent to the Definitions that have been made in it This is still more clearly apparent by the circulatory Letter which the Pope St. Martin wrote to St. Amand Bishop of Vtrecht and to all the Bishops of France sending them the Acts of the Council of an hundred and five Bishops whom he had assembled at Rome against the Monothelites Ann. 549. and exhorting them to subscribe to them in a Council of the Gallican Church Secundum tenorem Enclyticae à nobis directae scripta unà cum subscriptionibus vestris nobismet destinanda concelebrent confirmantes consentientes iis quae pro orthodoxâ fide destructione haereticorum vesaniae nuper exortae à nobis statuta sunt Mart. 1. Ep. ad Amand. Traject ext post Act. Concil Later sub Mart. and to send them back to him with their Subscriptions whereby we may see That they confirm and consent to all that hath been defined in the Council of Rome for the Catholick Faith and for overthrowing that furious Heresie which of late hath risen against the Church He desires that the Bishops of France may confirm the Decisions of Rome concerning a Point relating to Faith it is not for all that to be said that the Gallican Church is superiour to the Roman and there would be no reason to say so because to confirm Definitions is nothing else as St. Martin explains himself but to consent unto them by Vote and Suffrage So that every Bishop who subscribes to the Decrees of Council approves and confirms it in consenting to it by his hand-writing which perfectly agrees with what St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote to the Bishop of Meteline whom some would have made believe Ne credat hoc sanctitas tua scripsit ènim consona sanctae Synodo omniaque nobiscum confirmavit nobiscum sentit Cyril Alex. Epist ad Acacium Meliten Episc that the Pope protected Nestorius Believe it not said he to him for I assure you that the Pope hath written to us conform to the Decisions of the Council of Ephesus that he hath with us confirmed all the Acts and that he agrees with us in one and the same Judgment This it is then which the Popes themselves call confirming a Council and it is never to be found in the Ancient Church that Councils by their Synodal Letters directed to the Popes have demanded any other Confirmation of their Decrees relating to the Faith than their Consent and Approbation which they were obliged to give For in fine if the Holy Ghost speaks by a Council lawfully called when they pronounce concerning a matter of Faith and that they say Visum est spiritui sancto nobis the Pope must needs approve and obey what the Holy Ghost hath said And if the Holy Ghost speak not by the Council until the Popes have given their Approbation to it then might they alone by refusing that have been the cause that the Holy Ghost who is to teach us all Truth might never have instructed us and that Arianism and all other Heresies had only been tolerable Opinions which in my Judgment no Man dares to say CHAP. XVIII That Ancient Councils have examined the Judgments of Popes that they might pronounce the last and definitive Sentence upon them THough Councils have always had a great Respect for the Popes and that in great Controversies which have given occasion for calling them for giving a supreme
the King protests before God Innoc. III. in l. 3. Regest 15. Ep. 104. ad Philip. Reg. Franc. Non auderemus in hujusmodi casu de nostro sensu pro te aliquid definire that if he could in Conscience grant what he demanded he would do it with all his Heart but that tho he would stand by that which the Queen had answered Cardinal Robert Cortzeon in favour of the dissolution of that Marriage who had interrogated her judicially yet he could not of himself determine any thing about so important an Affair as that and that Si super hoc absque deliberatione Concilii determinare aliquod tentaremus praeter divinam offensam mundanam insamiam quam ex eo possumus incurrere forsan ordinis officii nostri periculum immineret If he offered to do it without a Council besides offending of God and the Disgrace that he should draw upon himself in the World he might perhaps be in danger of being deposed and of losing his Pontifical Dignity There was a Pope and one of the most learned that ever sat in St. Peter's Chair who twice and in few Words confesses with much Sincerity that the Council is above him once by saying that he could determine nothing in that Affair proposed to him without the Definition of a Council and then if he offered to do so that he should run a hazard of being deposed from the Popedom By whom Without doubt by a Power that was superiour to his which as it is evident could be none other upon Earth but that of a Council Pope Agapetus long before said the same upon an occasion where the Question however was not about a matter of so great Importance as this and of which it is fit I should give my Reader an Account in few words In one of the Councils which Pope Symmachus held at Rome there was a prohibition made That no Pope for ever should alienate the Goods of the Church and especially of the Church of Rome which at that time were not Cities and Provinces as they were after the Donations of the Kings of France but some Lands and Farms which it held of the Bounty of Believers besides the Oblations which in those days made up the greatest part of it I give you here the most considerable terms of the Decree which prohibits that Alienation Ann. 500. We ordain in the Presence of God Mansuro cum Dei consideratione decreto sancimus ut nulli Apostolicae sedis praesuli à praesenti die donec disponente domino Catholicae Fidei manserit doctrina salutaris liceat praedium rusticum quantaecunque fuerit magnitudinis vel exiguitatis sub perpetuâ alienatione vel commutatione ad cujustibet jura transferre nec cujusquam excusentur necessitatis obtentu by this Decree that from this present day so long as the Doctrine of the Faith continues in the World by the Disposition of divine Providence that it be never lawful for any Pope to alienate any farm great or small nor to transfer the same by way of Exchange to any whosoever under pretext and excuse of any necessity that may happen Now seeing about thirty six years after there was a Permission desired of Pope St. Agapetus to alienate some of these Lands Concil Rom. sub Symmach de bon Eccles non alien c. 4. under a very specious pretext of relieving the poor he made Answer that the venerable Constitutions of his Predecessors that had prohibited such kinds of Alienations tied him from granting it that he thought they would not take it ill that he did nothing contrary to those Decrees whatever the occasion might be for any Respect in the World Nor would I have you think adds he in his Epistles to Caesarius Bishop of Arles Nec tenacitatis studio aut saecularis utilitatis causâ hoc facere vòs credatis sed divini consideratione Judicii necesse nobis est quicquid sancta synodalis decrevit authoritas inviolabiliter custodire that I do so out of Covetousness or any temporal Interest But considering the strict Account that I must give at the last Judgment I think my self obliged to observe inviolably what the holy Council hath enjoyned us Yet all this while this was but a National Council of Italy which had made that Decree to which Pope Agapetus says that he was obliged to submit upon stronger Reason without doubt would he have said the same if it had been a Decree of an Oecumenical Council There are a great many Popes who have expressed themselves as plainly as these that they were subject to a Council I 'll mention no more but one who delivers his Mind upon that Subject in such a manner as no man is able to reply to And that is the famous Gerbert Silvester II. who filled three Sees successively of Reims Ravenna and lastly of Rome and was a most Learned Pope whom I have characterized in some of my Histories For that purpose he makes use of this passage in the Gospel where our Saviour says to his Disciples That if your Brother offend you reprove him privately and then in presence of two or three Witnesses and if he amend not tell the Church of him and if he obey not the Church let him be as a Publican and as a Heathen Defensor p. c. c. 29. The famous and learned Tostatus Bishop of Avila employs that Passage to prove that the supreme and highest Tribunal of the Church is that of a Council to which Jesus Christ referred all his Disciples and by conquent St. Peter who is therefore subject to it as to his lawful Judge from whom he is to expect the Justice that he may demand against his Brother Pope Silvester makes use of it in another manner but for the same end for he pretends what is true that these Words spoken to St. Peter by our Saviour in relation to his Brethren were also spoken to the same Brethren in regard St. Peter as well as of the rest Whereupon that Pope writing to Seguinus Archbishop of Sens Constanter dico quod si ipse Romanus Episcopus in fratrem peccaverit saepiusque admonitus Ecclesiam non audierit hic inquam Romanus Episcopus praecepto Dei est habendus sicut Ethnicus Publicanus Sylvest 2. Epist ad Seguin Senon hath made no difficulty to express himself in these very pithy and significant Words I say it boldly that if even the Bishop of Rome offend against you and that being often admonished he obey not the Church that Bishop of Rome I say ought to be look'd upon by the Command of God himself as a Publican and as a Heathen Could that Pope have expressed himself more clearly That he thought the Popes for all they are Heads of the Church are still subject to a Council that represents it CHAP. XX. That the ancient Popes have believed That they were subject to the Canons IT is another invincible Argument that Antiquity hath always
in the Council of Constance even before and after the Sermon of John Gerson Besides after that Assembly wherein all that the Cardinals who were sent from the Pope objected had been convincingly refuted it was so well examined that all the four Nations acquiesced in the Point I know very well there were great Debates about it and that the Cardinals opposed it I even grant him what he hath found in his Manuscript and which he confesses had never been known before and which perhaps is not true that the Cardinals nay and the Ambassadours of France made a private Protestation in the Chamber of Presence that it was only for avoiding of Scandal that they assisted at the fifth Session and not for consenting to what they knew was to be defined in it What can he conclude from thence Hath not he read the History of the Conclaves where after a thousand Intrigues a thousand Oppositions and a thousand other things more than I can tell at length a lawful Election is made to which all the Cardinals who were so divided before consent Let him read the Histories of the Council of Trent written by Fra. Paolo and Cardinal Pallavicini there he will find a great many Debates about Points that were to be decided in the Sessions and nevertheless the Holy Ghost which unites all minds into one Judgment made all the Decrees of that Council to pass with the unanimous Consent of all the Fathers who had been so divided before It is just so with this Council of Constance I grant there may have been Oppositions Contests private Protestations and whatever M. Schelstrate pleases to inform us of from his Manuscripts yet when all is done these Cardinal and all they who debated and protested privately were present at the fifth Session and seeing the Holy Ghost unites all minds in a Council to the end they may say Visum est spiritui sancto nobis the two Decrees of that Session past by common Consent as the Acts say to which M. Schelstrate has nothing at all in his Manuscripts that can be objected Quibus articulis sive constitutionibus lectis concilium cos cas uniformiter approbavit conclusit This is the Language of the Acts These Articles and Decrees having been read the Council with a common Consent approved them In fine the third Argument he makes use of to weaken the Authority of the Decrees of these two Sessions is that the Council being then only made up of those of the Obedience of John XXIII could not represent the Universal Church Now to convince him of the Insignificancy of that Argument which without doubt is the weakest of all I need only tell him in two words that what he supposes after Bellarmine who hath supplied him with all his weak Objections is very false For almost all the Cardinals of the two Obediences of Gregory XII and Benet XIII were united in the Council of Pisa where these two pretended Popes who by Collusion played upon all Christendom were declared Schismaticks and Antipopes and Alexander V. chosen who was acknowledged for true Pope by most Churches without any Competition and especially by the Church of Rome Now the same Cardinals and Bishops who constituted that numerous Council continued it at Constance as Pope John XXIII owned by the same Council for true Pope declares in express terms in the Bull whereby he calls that Council according as it had been decreed at Pisa five Years before So that the Obedience of John XXIII besides the Concurrence of almost all the Kingdoms of Christendom nay and of the Church of Rome also was over and above composed of the greater and sounder part of the two other who were re-united at Pisa and continued that Council at Constance If M. Schelstrate pretend that the Absence of those who held for the one or other of those two who had been declared Schismaticks and Antipopes hinders the Council from being Oecumenical he must know that his unjust Pretence would ruine most of the Oecumenical Councils for the Hereticks that have been condemned in them might say that those of their Party who had right to be present in them either were not there or would not own them for lawful and Oecumenical Councils And Protestants might say the same especially of the Council of Trent where neither the Bishops of the Church of England nor of Denmark Norway Sweden and that part of Germany who followed the Confession of Ausbourg nor the Bishops of Greece of the East and of Egypt who own not the Pope for Head of the Church and who are no more of his Obedience than those at the time of the Council of Constance who held for Pietro de la Luna or Angelo Corario were present All these Bishops I say of so great a part of the Christian World were absent from the Council of Trent when it made its Decrees and would not own it Is there any thing more certain And nevertheless M. Schelstrate is obliged to confess with all other Catholicks that their Absence could not hinder that Council from being Oecumenical because for making it universal it is enough that all be invited to it as they were and that they might be present there if they pleased or if the Princes on whom they depend gave them leave So that the Absence of the Prelates who were the Dregs of those two Obediences hinders not but that the Decrees of Constance are the Definitions of an Universal Council and that they have an infallible Authority But there is still somewhat that presses more home for if it were not so and if it were to be approved which Bellarmine says before M. Schelstrate that these Decrees have no Authority by reason of that Absence and that there was no Pope in Council when they were made strange things would follow from thence In the first place the Condemnation of the Errors of Wicleff and John Huss would be null because they were condemned in the fifteenth Session Sess 15. before the Union of the remnant of those two Obediences and when as yet there was no Pope there in the Council Secondly that detestable Proposition of John Petit that any private man might meritoriously kill a Tyrant any way whatsoever would not be lawfully condemned of Heresie by the same reason And lastly that the Condemnation and afterwards the Deposition of John XXIII Sess â— which happened long before the Union of the two Obediences must have been made without any lawful Power Cardinal Julian who presided in the Council of Basil for Pope Eugenius wrote this to him to take him off of his design of dissolving it because of the Decrees of the second Session And would to God Cardinal Bellarmine and M. Schelstrate had read and considered that Letter before they made an Objection that draws after it so dangerous Consequences Nam â—quis dixerit decreta illius concilii non esse valida neâ—essâ— babet sateri privationem oliâ—â— Joannis
History of Monothelism Pope Honorius willing to agree both parties writes Letters to Patriarch Sergius which the Monothelites made use of for Authorising their Heresie The Popes John IV. Theodore and St. Martin follow a contrary conduct to his The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus with consent of Pope Agatho calls the sixth Council The History of that Council The Letters of Sergius and Honorius are examined there They are condemned of Heresie and that Pope is Anathematised He is also condemned in the Emperors Edict in the Letter of Leo II. to the Emperor In the Ancient diurnal Book of Rome in the Ancient Breviaries and in the VII and VIII Councils Convincing Arguments that the Acts of the sixth Council have not been falsified and that it cannot be said that the Fathers of that Council understood not well the meaning of Honorius All Antiquity which hath received that Council as we have it hath believed that the Pope is not infallible p. 143 CHAP. XIII Of the Popes Clement III. Innocent III. Boniface VIII and Sixtus V. THE Error of Clement in his Decretal Laudabilem recalled by Innocent III. The Error of Innocent concerning the secret of Confession He condemns that Error in the Council of Lateran That of Boniface in his Bull unam Sanctam recalled at the Council of Vienna That of Sixtus V. in the Edition of his Bible A ridiculous Answer of some Moderns p. 165 CHAP. XIV The instance of John XXII WHAT he did for Establishing his Error concerning the beatifick vision The sacred Faculty of Paris declares the Doctrin of that Pope heretical It had been condemned by Clement IV and was since in the Council of Florence King Philip of Valois obliges that Pope to recant p. 173 CHAP. XV. The tradition of the Church of Rome as to that THE Popes themselves have acknowledged that for ending difference in Religion by a Sovereign and infallible sentence there was a necessity of a Council The Heresies which Popes have condemned without a General Council have been so condemned by the consent of the Church Popes who have confessed that they had not the gift of Infallibility p. 179 CHAP. XVI The state of the question concerning the Superiority of the Council over the Pope or of the Pope over a Council WHether after a Council is lawfully Assembled the Pope being present in it or not that Council has or has not Supreme Authority over the Head as well as over the other Members of the Church or whether or not all its Authority depends on the Pope p. 187 CHAP. XVII That it is the Holy Ghost which in the definitions of Faith pronounces by the mouth of the Council WHAT is to be concluded from that Principle What it is according to the Doctrin of Antiquity to approve and confirm a Council p. 190 CHAP. XVIII That the Ancient Councils have examined the Judgments of Popes to give a last and definitive sentence upon them THE History of the Patriarch Flavian and the Pope St. Leo who submits his Judgment to that of a General Council An instance of the fifth Council that rescinds a sentence solemnly pronounced by the Pope and of the sixth which examines the sentences of Martin I. and Honorius I. approves the one and rejects the other The History of Constantine of the Donatists and of the first Council of Arles which examines the sentence given by Pope Melchiades in his first Council of Rome p. 199 CHAP. XIX That the Ancient Popes have always acknowledged and protested that they were subject to Councils THE History of Pope Sicicius and of the Council of Capona Of St. Leo in the case of St. Chrysostom against the Patriarch Theophilus Of Innocent III. in the case of the Marriage of Philip the August Instances of Pope St. Agapetus and Silvester II. p. 213. CHAP. XX. That the Ancient Popes have believed that they were subject to the Canons PRoofs of this from the conduct and protestations of the Popes Celestin I. St Leo St. Martin St. Gregory the Great John VIII Eugenius III. and Silvester II. What the Council of Florence hath defined as to that The true sense of these words against a false interpretation that hath been made of them Popes are obliged to govern the Church according to the Canons In what case they can dispense with them That they may abuse their Power Of an Appeal to a Council and of an Appeal as abusive to a Parliament p. 225 CHAP. XXI What General Councils have decided as to that Point THE History of the Council of Pisa where that question was first canvassed The debates that arose upon that Subject in the Council of Constance which is a continuation of that of Pisa The Decrees of that Council of Constance and of that of Basil upon the same Point The approbation of these Decrees by the Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV. p. 241 CHAP. XXII Of the Writing of the Sieur Emmanuel Schelstrate against the two Decrees of the Council of Constance THE Declaration which the Clergy of France met in the Year 1682. made of their Opinion touching these two Decrees which they hold to be of infallible Authority approved by Popes and for those times when there is no Schism as well as during a Schism The Sieur Emmanuel Schelstrate undertakes to refute these three Articles in the three Chapters of his Dissertation p. 256 CHAP. XXIII A Refutation of the first Chapter of the Dissertation of M. Schelstrate THE Decree of the fourth Session hath not been falsified by the Fathers of Basil The Manuscripts of M. Schelstrate are defective and ours are true A demonstration of this Truth by two Sermons of John Gerson who rehearses that Decree before the whole Council of Constance word for word as we have it The Manuscripts by which these two Sermons have been reviewed and the other places were Gerson relates the same Decree An other demonstration of that truth by Pope Eugenius IV. and even by the Manuscripts of M. Schelstrate That question was sufficiently examined The Council consisted of the greatest and soundest part of the three obediences and the absence of others hinders not the Council from being lawful p. 261 CHAP. XXIV A Refutation of one of the two other Chapters of M. Schelstrate PRoofs of the approbation of these two Decrees of Constance The true interpretation of that word Conciliariter The abuse that may be made of the Appeal to a Council is condemned but not the Appeal it self All the Authority of Councils proceeds not from the Pope but chiefly from the Catholick Church p. 297 CHAP. XXV A Refutation of the other Chapter of M. Schelstrate THese two Decrees of the Council of Constance are for all times whilst there was a Schism and when there is none An Ecumenical Council is a whole whereof the Pope is but a part The Pope is the Head but not the Master of the Church The difference betwixt the Power of Popes and of Kings An authentick act of the Superiority of a
into this which comprehends the Faith of the Divinity of Jesus Christ the confession of that Faith and the person who made that confession Now seeing the Church is the Society of true Christians and that the first object of the Faith of Christians as Christians Ephes 2. is Jesus Christ by the same it is that Jesus Christ is the first foundation of the Church and that no other than he can be laid for grounding and establishing the Faith of Christianity Moreover as it is not enough to be a true Christian to believe in Jesus Christ Rom. 11. and to preserve that Faith in the heart if we do not also confess that we believe in him therefore it is that the Church again is founded upon the confession of the Divinity of Christ In fine besides Faith and the publick profession of it the Church also which is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ must be well governed For that purpose he hath appointed in it Apostles Ephes 4. v. 11.12 Prophets Evangelists Pastours and Teachers that they may labour in perfecting the Saints according to the functions of their Ministery for edifying of the body of Jesus Christ And thence it is that because of that illustrious confession of the Divinity of the Son of God which St. Peter made in name of all the Apostles he established him the foundation of the Ministery and Government of the Church by giving him the oversight and authority over all the rest who are subordinate to him in their functions and inferiour Ministeries as to their Head Wherefore Jesus Christ immediately after said to him giving him that supream power and authority in his Church I will give unto thee the Keyes of the kingdom of heaven and whatever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shalt be loosed in heaven And that promise which could not fail of being accomplished was then fulfilled when the Son of God after his resurrection said to him thrice Feed my sheep John 20. I know that according to the sentiment of the Fathers and principally of St. Augustine he spake these words unto him as to one who was the Figure of the Church with relation to all the Apostles and their Successours the Bishops who are also the foundations and pillars of the Church according to St. Paul and to whom Jesus Christ hath said Cypr. Ep. 27. de laps Hier. l. 1. cont Jovin August Con. 2. in Psal 30. in Psal 86. that whatsoever they shall bind upon Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever they shall loose upon Earth shall be loosed in Heaven But there is this difference betwixt Saint Peter and all the rest that when he speaks to all in common he gives them that which is common to all the Apostles and wherein they are all equal as the power of administring Sacraments teaching all Nations baptizing forgiving sins and what belongs to the other Apostolical functions And when he applies himself particularly to Saint Peter Cypr. lib. de unit Eccles Ep. 55. 73. Hieronym adv Jovinian l. 2. Optat. cont Parmen l. 2. he gives him that which is proper to himself speaking to him in the singular number for setling in his Church the unity whereof he makes him the principle and foundation to which all the rest must have a reference that they may be but one by the union which they ought necessarily to have with their Head without which they neither are nor can doe any thing For as St. Peter was the first that publickly confessed the Divinity of Jesus Christ which he had by revelation and that the rest knew it not but by his means and that they answered onely by his mouth joyning with him on that great occasion So Jesus Christ in consideration of that primacy of Confession hath given him the primacy over all the rest making him their head and that one that original foundation and principle of unity upon which he hath built the Church in regard of its government So that although all the rest received Immediately from Christ the power of binding and loosing and of governing their Churches yet they cannot exercise it but by virtue of the union which they have with St. Peter without which they would continue no longer in unity nor by consequent in the Church And it is upon that that the Primacy of Saint Peter is founded and that he is next to Jesus Christ and not as he is by his own power and virtue but by commission the foundation and head of the Church The Protestants who by a deplorable Schism not without Heresie have gone out of the unity of the Church by making separation from the Chair of St. Peter which is the principle original and centre thereof have in vain disputed this Doctrine with all their force untill this present I shall not here undertake a refutation of their objections whereby they pretend to overthrow it and whereof the weakness hath been made appear in a vast number of great and learned Answers that have been made to them But to avoid disputing which is unseparable from the opposing of arguments to arguments for refuting adversaries and that I may onely make use of that great maxime which alone I am to employ in this Treatise I shall onely say in one word that if we consult Antiquity we shall find by tracing it to the first Ages of the Church that it hath ever constantly believed that Primacy of St. Peter This is easily proved by the testimonies of almost all the holy Fathers Hippolyt Martyr de consum mundi Tertul. de praes c. 22. Iren. Origen in Ep. ad R. c. 6. Cypr. lib. de unti Eccl. Epiph. in Anchor Amb. in Luc. c. 10. Greg. Naz. or 26. Hilar. in Matth. c. 16. Hier. adv Jovin l. 2. Optat. Melev cont Parmen l. 2. Cyrill Alex. in Joan c. 12. August in Joan. tr 11.36 Ep. 161. who in an infinite number of places in their Works say That he is the Rock and Foundation of the Church that his Chair is the chief Chair to which all the rest must unite that he hath the Supreme power to take care of the flock of the Son of God that he hath received the Primacy to the end that the Church might be one that he is the first the chief and the head of the Apostles that he is the inspectour of all the Universe he to whom Jesus Christ hath committed the disposition of all things Chrysost hom 13. in Matth. in Joan. hom 87. de beat Ignat. St. Leo Serm. in Anniversar su Assumpsit to whom he hath given the rule over his brethren who is preferred before all the Apostles and who governs all Pastours with many other encomium's of that nature all which magnificently express his Primacy and which have been often repeated and approved in General Councils And that supereminent dignity of St. Peter was so well known even
Innocent X. He alone hath the right of calling Councils for Spiritual Affairs and to preside in them personally or by his Legates I say he hath that right without speaking of matter of Fact which is under debate in respect of some Councils and cannot prejudice his Primacy For though he hath not presided in the first Council of Constantinople which perhaps neither did he call and that it be most certain that he did not call the fifth nor presided in it though he was at Constantinople where that Council was held yet it is not to be doubted but he might have done both the one and the other if he had pleased seeing that in the Letter which the Patriarch Entychius wrote to him for obtaining of that Council Concil 5. Act. 1. he prayed him to preside in it and that he onely presided therein upon his refusal For thus it is in the Original praesidente nobis vestrâ beatitudine and not residente nobiscum as the Minister Junius hath corrupted it by a correction made of his own head against the clear sense of the following words Besides is it not past all controversie that the Pope presided by his Legates in the Council of Chalcedon as he hath done in almost all the others which have been held since For I speak not here of the great Council of Nice nor of that of Ephesus because as I conceive I have elsewhere proved by invincible Arguments not onely against our Protestants but also against the sentiments of some Catholick Doctours that the Popes by their Legates presided in them nay and that they called them as to what relates to the Spiritual Authority which they have over the Bishops as the Emperours to whose rights Kings and Christian Princes have succeeded may call Councils in regard of Temporals by that sovereign power which they have received from God over their Subjects in virtue whereof they may oblige their Bishops to assemble in a certain place either within or without their Territories there to treat of matters purely spiritual wherein they meddle not but as protectours of the Church in causing the Decrees and Canons of these Councils which strike not at the Rights of their Crown to be put in execution It is certain then that the Popes as Heads of the Church have right to call general Councils and to preside in them Moreover seeing the Pope in that quality Concil Sardic Can. 3.4.7 Gelas Epist ad Epis Dardan Innoc. Epist ad Victric St. Leo. Ep. 82. Cap. Car. Mag. lib. c. 187. Hincmar ad Nicol. 1. Flodo Hist Eccl. Rom. l. 3. Gerson de Protestant Eccl. Cons 8. is without dispute above every Bishop of what Dignity soever he may be and above all particular Churches and Synods Appeals may be made from all these Bishops and Synods to his Tribunal It belongs to him to judge of greater Causes such as those which concern the Faith and that are doubtfull universal Customs the deposing of Bishops and some others which I have observed elsewhere the decision whereof belongs and ought to be referred to him In that manner the Inferiour Judges appointed by Moses according to the advice of Jethro Exod. 18. judged of causes of less importance and the greater were reserved to that great leader of the People of God Hence it is also that the Pope hath right to judge yet always according to the disposition of the Canons of the causes of Bishops Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs This appears clearly by the judgment in the case of St. Athanasius Athan. Apol. 2. Theodoret. l. 2. Socr. l. 2. c. 15. Sozom. l. 3. c. 81. Paul Patriarch of Constantinople Marcellus Primate of Ancyra Asclepas Bishop of Gaza and Lucius Bishop of Adrianople whom Pope Julius restored to their Sees from which they had been illegally Deposed and by the case of Denis Patriarch of Alexandria who being accused Athan. de sent Dionys defended himself in writing before the Pope in a word by an infinite number of other instances in all ages of the Church which may be seen in my Treatise of the judgment of the causes of Bishops I shall onely mention one which wonderfully sets off that supreme Authority of the Pope After the death of Epiphanins Liberat. c. 10. Patriarch of Constantinople the Empress Theodora one of the wickedst Women that ever was and above all a great Eutychian in her heart and a great enemy to the Council of Chalcedon prevailed so far by the great power that she had got over the mind of the Emperour Justinian her Husband who could not resist her Artifices that Anthimius was made Patriarch though he was Bishop of Trebizonde by that means possessing at the same time two Episcopal Chairs against the manifest constitution of the holy Canons without any Precedent and without lawfull dispensation Besides that naughty man was both a frank Heretick and great Cheat. For though he was not onely Eutychian but also the head of those Hereticks Justin Nov. 42. Niceph. l. 17. c. 9. yet he always professed that he might deceive the Emperour who at that time was a good Catholick that he received the Doctrine of the four Councils but without ever condemning Eulyches who had been condemned by the holy Council of Chalcedon That occalioned a great deal of scandal and trouble in the East and seeing when matters were in this state Concil Constant sub Men. Act. 1. St. Agapetus the Pope was come from Rome to Constantinople whither Theodatus King of the Goths had obliged him to go that he might endeavour to obtain of Justinian the peace which the Goths demanded The Monks of Syria and many other zealous Catholicks presented him Petitions against that Intruder and Heretick This without doubt is one of the most illustrious marks and one of the strongest proofs of the Authority of the Holy See and of the Primacy of the Pope that ever was seen in the Church The Emperour who loved Anthimius and thought himself obliged in honour to protect him as being his Creature solicited on his behalf and by his earnestness in the Affair made it apparent that he intended to maintain him Theodora who was more concerned still than the Emperour in the preservation of her Patriarch employed all her Artifices and spared neither offers prayers nor threats to shake the constancy of a Pope whom she saw resolved to make use of the power which he had received from Jesus Christ for the good of the Church The Empire was then in a most flourishing state the Emperour shining in glory After the defeat of the Vandals in Africa Constantinople in great splendour Anthimius most powerfull through the favour of his Prince and the Grandeur and Majesty of the Patriarchal See of the Imperial City where he thought himself too well fixed to fear that he could be turned out Rome on the contrary being no more the Seat of the Empire since it was fallen under the Dominion of the Herules and
condemn it may be seen that the ancient Church believed and did what Catholicks believe and practise concerning the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the seven Sacraments the Consistency of Grace with Free-will the Authority of Tradition the Invocation of Saints Churches dedicated and consecrated to God in memory of them the Veneration of their Relicks and Images Prayer for the dead the Fasts of Lent and of the Ember weeks the distinction of Holy days and working days that of the Habits of Lay-men and Church-men the single life of the Clergy Vows Sacred Ceremonies in the administration and use of the Sacraments and in publick Worship Divine Worship in Greek all over the East and in the Latine Tongue in the West though in most Provinces this was not understood but by the Learned in a word concerning all that distinguishes us from Protestants but especially Calvinists This the famous Cardinal Perron made out by unquestionable testimonies in his Reply to the King of Great Britain where he shews the conformity of the Ancient Catholick Church with ours in the Eighteenth Chapter of the first Book and throughout the whole Third Fourth Fifth and Sixth Books of that Learned Work And to which also David Blondel a Man incomparably more able than Calvin especially in the knowledge of Antiquity thought it not fit to make an Answer in that overgrown Volume which he wrote against the Reply and wherein he thought it convenient to begin his pretended refutation onely at the Three and twentieth Chapter of the first Book and to end it with the Four and thirtieth of the same Book But to pass by the Protestants against whom I pretend not to Dispute It is enough to me that hitherto without any disputation I have proved by Antiquity alone the Primacy of St. Peter and of the Popes his successours in the Chair of Rome and the Prerogatives and Rights which are inseparable from that Primacy wherein all Catholicks agree However it is very well known that at present they are not all of the same mind as to certain other Prerogatives which some grant and others will not allow to him and especially these four which are Infallibility Superiority over a General Council the Absolute Power of Governing the Church independantly of the Canons and the Direct or Indirect Power over Temporals And therefore I must now without deviating from my Principle drawn from Antiquity make appear without disputing and reasoning but as a bare Relater of the sentiments of the Councils and Fathers nay and of the Popes themselves what venerable Antiquity hath always believed concerning these points CHAP. VI. The Question stated concerning the Infallibility of the Pope THE Question here is not to know whether the Pope as a private Doctour and onely giving his opinion and thought of a point of Doctrine concerning Faith and Manners may be deceived for it was never doubted but that in that quality he speaks onely as another Man and that by consequent through the weakness and infirmity which is incident to all Men he is subject to Errour according to the saying of the Psalmist Omnis homo mendax Nor is it the question neither to enquire whether he be infallible when he pronounces from the Chair of the Universal Church jointly with the Members that are subject to him as to their head whether it be in a General Council where he presides in person or by his Legats or with the consent of the greatest part of Catholick Churches and Bishops For as we all allow that Jesus Christ hath given the gift of Infallibility to his Church and to a Council which represents it for determining Sovereignly by the Word of God the differences that might arise amongst Catholicks concerning these points of Doctrine so we do confess that when the Pope speaks and decides in that manner according to which he may say Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis his words and decisions are Oracles and he can in no ways be deceived As to this there is no disagreement amongst Catholicks The question then that may be debated is to know whether when he speaks from his Chair of Rome as the Master and Teacher of all Believers and having well examined the point in hand in several Congregations his Consistory or his Synod of his Suffragans of his Cardinals and Doctours nay and having consulted Universities and by most publick and solemn Prayers begg'd the assistance of the Holy Ghost he teaches all Christians defines proposes to the whole Church by a Bull or Constitution what Christians are to believe whether I say when he pronounces in this manner he be Infallible or not and whether his Judgment given and declared in that manner may not be corrected by an Universal Council And this methinks is all that can be said in clear and formal terms as to the state of this formal question And it is the very same about which all Catholick Doctours do not agree For most part of the Doctours on t'other side of the Alpes especially the famous Cardinals Cajetan Baronius and Bellarmine and all the Authours who have followed them will have the Pope in that case when he declares solemnly to all Believers by his Constitutions what they are to believe as to any controverted point to be no ways liable to a mistake On the contrary an infinite number of the most noted Doctours of their time as Gerson Major Almanus the Faculty of Theologie of Paris so often and so publickly praised by the Popes and all France as it is even acknowledged by the Doctours Navarr Victoria and John Celaia Spaniards Denis the Carthusian Tostatus Bishop of Avila in his Commentaries upon St. Matthew and in the second part of his Defensorium Thomas Illyrius a Cordelier in his Buckler against Luther which he dedicated to Pope Adrian VI. The Cardinals of Cusa of Cambray and of Florence the Bishops of France in their Assembly representing the Gallican Church Aeneas Sylvius before he was Pope Pope Adrian VI. when he was Professour at Louvain in his Commentary upon the Fourth of the Sentences which he caused to be reprinted at Rome when he was Pope without any alterations and a thousand other most Catholick Doctours of the Universities of France Germany Poland and of the Low Countries who have all very well defended the Primacy of the Pope all these I say maintain that he is not Infallible if he do not pronounce in a General Council or with the consent of the Church The diversity of Sentiments amongst Catholicks about that Subject is then a matter of fact not to be question'd But what part are we best to take in this dispute as the most rational and best grounded that 's a question which I ought not to answer according to the design I have taken and the method that I have proposed to my self in this Treatise I shall onely then barely relate what hath been believed as to that in Antiquity and I shall do it without touching at the
contradiction which that great Cardinal had not leisure to mind For the Patriarch Denis speaks onely here of what these Bishops had done under the Pontificate of Pope Cornelius and he prays Stephen the Successour of that Pope not to use them harshly for the Judgment they are of that the Baptism of Hereticks is null Them says he who under his Predecessour condemned the Heresie of Novatian Is there any thing clearer than that Baronius without minding it hath taken the Counter-sense and besides Denis of Alexandria would have had care not to call an opinion which he believed to be true an Heresie Firmilian then and the Asiaticks persisted still in their opinion as well as St. Cyprian the Africans and their successours till the decision of a General Council as may be clearly seen in an hundred passages of the Books of St. Austine which he Wrote concerning Baptism against the Donatists I know that St. Jerome says in the Dialogue against the Luciferians that the Bishops of Africa returned to the ancient custome saying What do we doe and that abandoning St. Cyprian they made a new Decree conform to that of Saint Stephen But all the Learned agree that that holy Doctour who Wrote that Dialogue before the most part of his other Works had taken that out of some Apocryphal Writings such as that which bears for Title The Repentance of St. Cyprian and was declared false and supposititious in a Synod held at Rome Threescore and fourteen years before the death of St. Jerome For to be short the quite contrary is to be seen in the Books of St. Austine that I have just now alledged in the Letter of Saint Basil to Amphilochius and in the Eighth Canon of the first Council of Arles Now if during the life of Saint Stephen there were so many Bishops who refused to obey his Decree there were as many that opposed it after his death For the Patriarch Denis of Alexandria Wrote in a high strain to Pope Sixtus the Successour of St. Stephen Euseb l. 7. hist c. 4. exhorting him to follow a conduct contrary to that of his Predecessour and not to break as he had done with so many Bishops for a constitution contrary to his own since it had been approved in several Councils Hic in Cypriani Africanae Synodi dogma consentiens de Haereticis Re-baptizandis ad diversos plurimas mifit epistolas quae usque hodie extant Hieron de script Ecclesias in Dionys and St. Jerome himself in his Treatise of Ecclesiastical Writers which he made long after his Dialogue against the Luciferians assures us that that great Man declared openly for the Doctrine of Saint Cyprian and African Bishops and that he thereupon Wrote many Letters which were still extant in his time That was the cause that the Successours of Sixtus entertained Peace with the African and Asiatick Bishops every one freely following their custome and opinion as to that Point without being blamed for it untill that a General Council had pronounced Supremely in the matter This we learn from St. Austine in his Books of Baptism against the Donatists These August l. 1. de Bapt. contra Donatis c. 7. who began their Schism against Cecilian Bishop of Carthage in the year Three hundred and two alledged continually the example of St. Cyprian and of his fellow Bishops to justifie the conduct which they held as well as those in Re-baptizing all Hereticks It is most evident that they durst not have made use of that instance if St. Cyprian and those Bishops had retracted For St. Austine would have confounded these Schismaticks upon the spot by saying that all these Bishops had condemned their former opinion Yet he never did so On the contrary he confesses that they always believed that Hereticks must be Re-baptized but he adds that it was lawfull for them to believe it and for all who have succeeded them to doubt of that point which was then in controversie and to dispute about it As indeed there were many conferences great disputes and debates on Church decided that difference and all submitted to that Sovereign Authority Cui ipse cederet si jam eo tempore quaestionis hujus veritas eliquata declarata per plenarium concilium solidaretur Ibid. c. 4.89 as St. Cyprian would have done without doubt saith St. Austine if the whole Church in a full and general Council had in his time pronounced concerning that point And because the Donatists would not submit to the Decree of that Council in that they added Heresie to their Schism Now before we come to shew what that General Council decided as to that point we must make a serious and solid reflexion upon what we have now said which will suffise to make it clearly out to us what Antiquity hath believed concerning the Infallibility of the Pope Here then we have a Pope of famous memory in the Church who makes a Decree whereby he instructs all Believers concerning a point of highest importance where the question is about the validity or nullity of Baptism without which one cannot be saved and by that Decree he pretends to oblige the whole Church to believe that Hereticks who are converted ought not to be Re-baptized and does so pretend it that he cuts off from his communion great Bishops who would not submit to his Decree And nevertheless St. Cyprian all the Bishops of Africa Mauritania and Numidia those of Cappadocia Cilicia Galatia and Phrygia Denis Patriarch of Alexandria and the Bishops of his Patriarchate will not receive that so solemn a Decree of Stephen Pope of Rome Besides St. Austine and all the African Catholicks united with that great Doctour of the Church against the Donatists say that before the decision of the Council that came not till long after that Decree of the Pope it might freely without making a separation from the Church be held what St. Cyprian had believed concerning the Baptism of Hereticks In fine St. Athanasius St. Optatus Melevitanus Athanas Or. 3. contra Arian St. Cyril of Jerusalem Optat. l. 4. Cont. Parmen St. Basil and some others Cyril Hieros praef in Catech. who have Written as well as they after that General Council Basil Epist 3. Con. 47. whereof St. Austine speaks and before that of Constantinople have believed that all Hereticks who have not the true Faith of the Trinity ought to be Re-baptized who in those first Ages of the Church were incomparably more numerous than the other Hereticks who believed that great Mystery These are not bare conjectures that may be doubted of but uncontroverted matters of fact A Man needs no more but eyes in his head to prove them by Reading the testimonies alledged It must necessarily then follow seeing they submitted to a Council because they knew it to be Infallible which was not done in regard to the Pope St. Stephen that St. Cyprian Firmilian of Caesarea Denis of Alexandria St. Athanasius Saint
declared in relation to the same Controversie in his Epistles to Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople one of the chief Authors of that Heresie The Judgment of St. Martin was approved in that Council and that of Honorius so severely censured that the Pope was there anathematised Whether these Letters were well or ill understood it makes nothing to our present purpose The Council passes Judgment upon him and no body ever objected against it in Antiquity This is sufficient to conclude invincibly that the Council is superiour to the Pope But is there any thing more convincing and decisive for fixing of this Truth than what was done in the case of the Donatists who by their Schism troubled all the Church of Africa Optat. Milevit l. 1. contr Parmen Euseb Eccles hist l. 10. c. 5. They applied themselves to the Emperour Constantine who was then in Gallia and desired of him Judges chosen from among the Bishops of the Gallican Church against Cecilian Bishop of Carthage because they would shun the Judgment of the Pope whom they distrusted August Ep. 162. ad Gelor Eleus Ep. 165. ad Generos 166. ad Donatist 167. alib saepe The Emperour nevertheless having protested that it belonged not to him to meddle in Ecclesiastical matters sent them back to the Pope to whom as Head of the Church it belongs to judge of greater Causes Pope Miltiades took for Assessors in this Judgment fifteen Bishops of Italy to whom he joyned three famous Bishops of the Gallican Church Maternus of Cologne Rheticius of Autun and Marinus of Arles whom the Emperour had sent him to be of the number of the Judges that the Donatists might not have cause to say that every thing had been refused them That Cause was solemnly judged in that Council of Rome Donatus Head of the Schismaticks appeared there with ten Bishops of his Party and alledged all that he had to say against gainst Cecilian who appeared also accompanied with ten other African Bishops and defended his Cause and that of the Church so well against the Authors of that Schism that they were condemned They were very willing to be judged by this Council imagining as St. Austin observes Ep. 162. that either they might gain their Cause by Artifices and Calumnies or that if they lost it yet they might still maintain their Party by complaining loudly in all places that the Pope and his Bishops who were prejudiced against them had judged partially The truth is they did so and pressed the Emperour so hard to give them new Judges and in greater number that that good Prince overcome by their extream Importunity Orabida furoris audacia Opt. loc cit which he called extream Fury granted their desine and seeing he passionately desired to restore Peace to the Church and utterly to abolish so fatal a Schism by a supreme Sentence that might for ever put an end to that great Contest he called the great Council of Arles Apud Arelatum eandem causam diligentius examinandam terruinandamque curasse August Ep. 162. Euseb l. 10. c. 5. August Ep. 167. ad Fest which St. Austin calls a full and universal Council because as Eusebius assures us and after him that holy Doctor there was there an infinite number of Bishops of all the Provinces of the Empire Ex omnibus mundi partibus praecipue Gallicanis Concil Arelat 11. Ganls The Legates of Pope Sylvester with the eighteen Bishops who had been at the Council of Rome were present there The Cause of the Donatists was examined there afresh with the Judgment which Pope Melchiades the Predecessor of St. Sylvester had given against them and they were again condemned by a definitive Sentence and without appeal in regard of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal for the Appeal which these Schismaticks who observed no measures brought to the Tribunal of Constantine August Ep. 162. was most unjust as was frankly acknowledged by that Emperour who said that if he at length took cognizance of that Cause to stop the mouth of these Hereticks and arrest the course of their Fury he humbly begg'd pardon of the Bishops whose Authority in what concerns the spiritual he should invade Whereupon St. Austin answering the Complaints that the Donatists of his time always made of Pope Melchiades Quae vox est omnium malorum litigatorum cum fuerint etiam manifestissimâ veritate superati Ibid. as their Ancestors had done jeered them pleasantly saying that they acted like bad Lawyers who having lost their Cause blame their Judges and complain to all men that they have been unjustly condemned when they have even been convicted by the most manifest discovery of the Truth Ecce putemus illos Episcopos qui Romae judicarunt non bonos Judices fuisse restabat adhuc plenarium Ecclesiae Vniversalis concilium ubi etiam cumipsis judicibus causa posset agitari ut si male judicasse convicti essent torum sententiae solverentur Ibid. Then to confound them he adds these great Words which plainly decides the Question that we examine and to which nothing can be replied Suppose that the Judges who condemned your Ancestors at Rome had judged amiss was not there still the full Council where that Cause might be again examined with the same Judges who had already judged it that if it had been found that their Judgment was not just their Sentence might have been rescinded I freely confess that I cannot see how it can be better made out that the Pope's Tribunal is subject to that of a full and general Council which may confirm or rescind a Sentence past at Rome as a supreme Court can confirm or rescind the Judgment of an inferiour So when the same St. Austin says in another place speaking of the Pelagians Jam enim do hac causâ duo concilia missa sunt ad sedem Apostolicam inde etiam rescripta venerunt causa finita est August Serm. 2. de Verb. Dom. c. 10. We have Rescripts come from Rome the Cause is ended that 's to be understood that it is ended at Rome whither these Hereticks after they had been condemned in the Councils of Africa appealed to the Pope and thought to have gained their Cause by their Artifice which had once succeeded with them It was not judged supremely but in the Council of Ephesus We must then of necessity conclude that it cannot more clearly he seen than in those Instances which I have now alledged of universal Councils which have judged the Sentences of Popes That it was believed in the ancient Church before Saint Austin and in his Time and after him without the least doubting that a general Council is above the Pope And that 's the thing I was to prove CHAP. XIX That the ancient Popes have always acknowledged and protested that they were subject to Councils BUT that I may farther prove it upon as solid a ground and which ought to be the more plausible and
assembled by order of the Cardinals to consult about that matter were all unanimously of the Judgment of the University of Paris and he affirmed that besides the Universities of France it was also the Judgment of the famous University of Bologna 1 June from which they had Letters and of that of Florence who had given it in writing under the Hands of sixscore Doctors Six days after the Process that was brought against Gregory and Benet having been proved and made out in a judicial manner the Council past a definitive Sentence whereby it declares Pietro de la Luna and Angelo Corario heretofore called Popes Benet XIII and Gregory XII obstinate Schismaticks and Hereticks convicted of enormous Crimes of Perjury Impiety and of Collusion to deceive Believers and to keep up the Schism which so long had rent the Church and as such deposes them from the Papacy This the Council did pursuant to the Decree whereby it had before determined that that Council represented the Church universal and that it was the only supreme Judge upon Earth to whom the Judgment of that Cause belonged though it was most certain that one of these two Pretenders was the true Pope After wards they chose Alexander V. who was acknowledged by the Universal Church except those two wretched Remains of Obedience who held out still for the two Antipopes and that Pope approved all the Decrees of the Council even a moment before his Death which was most holy and precious in the sight of God I have heretofore proved according to the Judgment of almost all the Churches of Christendom of that of Rome in particular nay and of the Universal Church represented by the Council of Constance which was but a continuation of this that it ought to be reckoned without contradiction lawful But since on the one hand it hath pleased some Doctors beyond the Alpes to doubt of it and that on the other I decline all dispute in this Treatise I will only stick to matter of Fact which cannot be contested to wit that this Council of Pisa hath been one of the greatest Assemblies that was ever seen in the Church For there were in it five and twenty Cardinals four Patriarchs six and twenty Archbishops an hundred fourscore and two Bishops either in person or by Proxy two hundred fourscore and ten Abbots amongst whom were all the Heads of the Orders the Generals of the Carthusians and of the four Mendicant Orders the great Masters of Rhodes of the Holy Sepulchre and the Teutonick Knights the Deputies of the Universities of Paris Tholouse Orleans Anger 's Montpellier Bologna Florence Cracovia Vienna Prague Cologne Oxford and Cambridge and of some others and those of the Chapters of above an hundred Metropolitan and Cathedral Churches above three hundred Doctors of Divinity and of the Law the Ambassadors of the Kings of France England Poland Bohemia Sicily and Cyprus of the Dukes of Burgundy and Lorrain Brabant Bavaria of the Marquess of Brandenburg Lantgrave of Thuringe and of almost all the other Princes of Germany besides that the Kings of Hungary Sweden Denmark Norway and in a word those of Spain except Arragon shortly after adhered to that Council and by consequent all these Prelates all these Doctors all these Orders all these Universities all these Kingdoms all these States that 's to say in a word almost all Christians in the beginning of the fifteenth Century when that Dispute was started concerning the Superiority of the Council or of the Pope believed conform to the Belief of Antiquity That a Council is above the Pope But you are to take notice of somewhat more particular and convincing still When five years after the Council of Constance was opened for continuing that of Pisa as it had been decreed in that Council which was rather interrupted than concluded the Dispute concerning the Superiority of the Pope or of the Council was started again with greater Heat than before For some Cardinals being arrived from Scaffhausen whither the Pope who had escaped from Constance had retired attempted in full Assembly where Sigismund the Emperour was present to prove that the Council was dissolved because John XXIII who had abandoned it being owned for true Pope by all that were present was above the Council which could have no Authority without him Then was there a general murmuring in the Assembly and many of those who had greatest Authority and Reputation by reason of their Dignity and Knowledge Et iis responsum fuit alacriter per plures de ipso concilio viros magnae authoritatis scientificos scilicet quod Papa non esset supra Concilium sed sub concilio facta est illie contentio magna hinc inde Niem in vit Joann J. Gers Serm. coram Concil undertook to refute them and to prove on the contrary That the Council was superiour to the Pope conform to the Sermon that the famous John Gerson had made to the Council a few days before wherein he had made it out in twelve propositions That a general Council representing the Universal Church is above the Pope not only in the doubt whether or not he be true Pope but also in the Assurance that is to be had whether he be lawfully chosen or not Etiam ritè electi as they did undoubtedly hold John XXIII to have been Wherefore that Question both before and after the Sermon of Gerson having been examined in the Conferences of Nations according to the Order appointed by the Council a Report of it was made in the fourth Session Act. Concil Constan t. 12. con Ed. Paris Anton. tit 22. c. 6. §. 2. where nine Cardinals and two hundred Bishops were present with the Emperour Sigismund the Ambassadors of the Kings of France England Poland Norway Cyprus Navarr and many Princes of Germany and there seeing it had been already declared in the preceding Session that the Council subsisted and still retained all its Force and Authority tho the Pope had withdrawn himself it was by common Consent thus concluded and defined That the Holy Council lawfully assembled and representing the Church Militant hath received immediately from Jesus Christ a Power which all and every one even the Pope himself are obliged to obey in all that concerns the Faith the extirpation of Schism and the general Reformation of the Church of God in its Head and Members And to the end that it might not be said what some have said since without having carefully read the Council of Constance that that is only to be understood during the time of a Schism it is added to the Decree in the following Session That whatever Pope refuses to obey the Decrees not only of this Council but also of any other that shall be lawfully called ought to be punished if he amend not The Council afterward exercises its sovereign Authority over Pope John XXIII acknowledged by them for true Pope by the Church of Rome and by all Christian
that the contrary opinion has not so much as the least appearance of any rational ground in Scripture For of all the passages that are cited for maintaining it there is not so much as one that is interpreted by the Church in Councils nor by any of the Holy Fathers in that most erroneous sense that they put upon them Wherein these Modern Authors who in that manner do interpret them act directly contrary to the Decree of the Council of Trent fourth Session and against the Confession of Faith enjoyned by Pius IV. which will have Scripture never to be interpreted but according to the sense that Holy Church gives it and according to the common Interpretation of the Fathers These new Doctors in that most dangerously follow the conduct of Hereticks who for maintaining their Errors interpret as they please and not as the Church pleases the Scriptures that they may wrest them to their sense Bellar. l. 5. de Rom. Pont. c. 7. Suarez l. 3. de Prim. Sum. Pont. c. 3. l. 6. de form Jur. fidel c. 4. Becan Anglico contr c. 3. qu. 3. This appears manifestly in those two passages upon which Bellarmin Suarez and after them Becanus and all the others who as these have copied or abridged them chiefly ground their opinion John Last The first passage is that where Jesus Christ saies to St. Peter Feed my Sheep Feed my Lambs Is there so much as one of the Holy Fathers who hath understood these words of the Power which St. Peter hath received over the Temporal of Princes There is none of them who hath not expounded them as they ought to be of the Spiritual Pasture which Popes are bound to give to Believers by Doctrin Example and good Government and never one of these Doctors and Masters in the Church ever let it enter into his Head to wrest them to a Temporal meaning as these new Divines have done And more Ambres l. de dig Sacer c. 2. Chrys hom 79. in Matth. c. 24. August de Agen. Christian c. 30. Tractat. 47. in Joan. in Ps 108. alii most part of these Holy Fathers having said what is most true that Jesus Christ applies these words in the person of St. Peter to the whole Church in general and to all its Pastors in particular if the new sense that these new Doctors give to them were to be followed it must be said that all Bishops and all Curates had right to dispose of the Temporals of those who by their bad Doctrin or scandalous deportment do injury to the Spiritual good of their Churches And as to that comparison which they make betwixt the Shepherd in respect of the Wolf which he may dispatch omni modo quo potest and the Pastor of the Church in regard of a Prince who may have fallen into Heresie it is not only a base Sophism contrary to the rules of right Logick but also impious and detestable which leads Men in a full career to Parricide and for which the Books that contain it have been justly condemned to the fire The second passage is taken out of St. Matthew Chapter sixteenth where the Son of God saies to St. Peter That whatever he shall bind upon Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatever he shall loose upon Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Whence these new Rabbies conclude that the Successors of St. Peter have Power to dissolve the obligation that binds Subjects to their Prince by the Oath they have made to him and by the tie of Allegiance which binds them in fidelity to him Is it not strange that Catholicks should take this liberty of wresting the sense of Scripture to what they list without any respect to the common interpretation of the Fathers to which the Council of Trent obliges them For of all the Holy Fathers who have expounded that passage there is not so much as one to be found who hath so understood it all of them have interpreted it of the Power that that Apostle received of loosing and absolving Penitents from their sins Nor do the Popes themselves expound it otherways Paul 1 Ep. â—0 ad procem Fran. Adâ—i Ep. 1. ad Carol Magn. as it may be seen in the Epistle of Pope Paul I. to the French Lords and in that of Adrian I. to Charlemagne To absolve Men from their sins is it to absolve them from their Allegiance And that whatever which signifies only any sort of sin and censure and some obligations that are not of Divine Right can that Power I say be extended to ths Temporal and to the duty that Subjects owe to Kings To persuade us of the contrary we need only read the words that go before these I shall give thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven saies Jesus Christ and not of the Kingdoms of the Earth for deposing of Kings And those that follow comprehend the use of the Power of the Keys that he giveth him for opening the Kingdom of Heaven by forgiving Men their sins or for shutting it by not absolving them John 20. as he in another place expresses himself speaking to all the Apostles after his Resurrection But that we may not swerve from the words in question we need no more but read the Eighteenth Chapter of the same Gospel of St. Matthew There it is to be seen that Jesus Christ repeats them to all his Disciples and gives them the whole Power that they import by saying to them Verily I say unto you that whatever ye shall bind upon Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatever ye shall loose upon Earth shall be loosed in Heaven If these words comprehend the sense that the new Authors give them and that their meaning is also of the Temporal it must needs be said that all the Bishops who are the Successors of the Apostles nay and all Priests who have the Power of binding and loosing may depose Kings and dispence their Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance which is the highest extravagance Or else let these Gentlemen tell us by what Authority of the Church or Holy Fathers they find that when they were said to St. Peter they have a different meaning from that which they ought to have when they were spoken to St. Peter and to all the Apostles Now that is a thing they 'll never be able to find out Miss Rom. An. 1520. Paris apud Francis Renaud Miss Rom. à Paulo III. nefar Ann. 1543. Diurn Monast Congrez Cassin à Greg. XIII confir Venet. ap Juris And this is so true that the Church of Rome her self sticking to the sense wherein all the Holy Fathers have expounded these words which Jesus Christ said to St. Peter will not understand them but of the Power which he hath given him of binding and loosing Souls For in all the ancient Missals Breviaries and Diurnals in this manner was read that Prayer which is said in the Feastival of St. Peter's Chair at Antioch Deus qui
recessara sit The first That it is not the Doctrin of the Faculty that the Pope hath any Authority over the Temporal of the most Chrishian King that on the contrary it hath always opposed even those who would have that Authority only indirect The other That it is the Doctrin of the same Faculty that the most Christian King hath no other Superior in Temporal affairs but God alone and than that is the ancient Doctrin of the Faculty from which it will never swerve After all these Decrees of the Gallican Church and of the sacred Faculty have always been powerfully supported by the Edicts of the Kings and the thundring sentences of Parliament against all such as ever durst in France maintain and teach that pernicious Doctrin condemned by these Decisions and Censures Of 2 Decemb. 1561.4 Januar. 1594. 7 10 Jan. 1595. 27 May 26 Nov. 1610. 27 July 1614. 2 Jan. 1615. c. which in this Kingdom are reverenced as proceeding from God upon whose word they are grounded So that a Doctrin so well established and which all France look upon as the chief foundation of our Liberties can never be shaken much less overturned by Novelty which whatsoever effort it may make shall never amongst us prevail against Antiquity to which we will always stick close as to the Principle and solid Foundation of true Tradition And therefore also it is that the King as Protector of the Canons of the Councils received in France and of the Gallican Church in particular by his perpetual Edict registred in all the Parliaments not only prohibits all his Subjects and all strangers within his Kingdom to teach or write any thing contrary to the Doctrin contained in the Declaration of the Clergy of France but also commands all secular and regular Professors to submit to and teach it Wherein it is most evident that his Majesty does no more but what many Generals of Orders do who for preserving the uniformity of Doctrin in their Congregation as to Points which they look upon to be of great importance for the good and reputation of their Body oblige their inferiours to maintain and teach certain Opinions which the whole Order hath adopted against others who dispute them Much more ought it to be lawful for so great a King so zealous for Religion and for the Ancient Doctrin upon which are founded the inviolable rights of one of the most August Crowns of Christendom and liberties of the Gallican Church to oblige his Subjects for preservation of Uniformity of Opinion within his Kingdom as to Points of that importance to maintain and teach the Doctrin of the Clergy of France in all things conform to that of the Ancient Church And so much I had to say in this Treatise wherein always following that Principle which both Catholicks and Protestants equally agree to I have held a mean betwixt the two extremes that ought to be shunned One is of those who blinded by the hatred which they have conceived against the Church of Rome from which they have separated would take from the Pope the Prerogatives which Antiquity hath believed were given him by Jesus Christ as Successor of St. Peter The other of those who through a zeal not according to knowledg nay and if I dare say with those Cardinals of Paul III. through a too great compliance with Popes attribute to them what Antiquity instructing us by the Fathers the Councils and even by the most Ancient and most holy Popes themselves have believed they never have received from Jesus Christ Seeing the mean is the place of Virtue and Truth I think one cannot mistake the way when he follows Antiquity for his guide which placing us with it self in that lovely mean will make us condemn our Protestants who are in the first extreme and abandon those who abandon themselves to novelty under the conduct whereof they are fallen into the other extremity Now if it be said to me that these new Authors who have fallen into that which I call the second extreme have only done so out of the great zeal which they have for Religion It will be easie for me to answer with the great Pope St. Leo That many times Men carry on their private interests under a specious pretext of Piety Privatae causae pietatis aguntur obtentu câ—piditatum quisque suarum Religionem habet velut pedissequam St. Leo Epist 25. ad Theodos Imper. and that every one maketh Religion to be the handmaid of his lusts and desires The truth is it may very well be that the lustre of the Purple wherewith at Rome the three Authors who have most highly exalted the Power of Popes by raising it beyond all the bounds that Antiquity prescribed to it were cloathed may have dazled the Eyes of that croud of Modern who have followed them and who for all that what ever they may have expected never received a like reward But not to Judge of the secret motives of their Heart which it belongs to God alone to dive into I had rather Answer with Vincentius Lirinensis one of the most zealous Defenders of the true Doctrin Mos iste semper in Ecclesiâ viguit ut quo quisque religiosior foret Vincent Lerin l. 1. Commonit c. 3. eo promptius novellis adventionibus contrairet It hath always been the custom in the Church that the more of Piety and Religion any one had the more ready he was to oppose all new inventions in Doctrin And to conclude my Work with the excellent words of the same Author I should be glad that Men would think that in composing it I have had no other design but to discharge the duty of a good Catholick by doing what he enjoyns me when he says Christianus Catholicus providebit ut Antiquitati inhaereat quae prorsus non potest ab ulla Novitatis fraude seduci The Catholick Christian will have great care to stick close to Antiquity which cannot be deceived by the artifice of Novelty FINIS Books Printed for and sold by Joseph Hindmarsh at the Black Bull in Cornhill over against the Royal Exchange THE famous History of Auristella Translated from the Spanish The whole Art of Converse Cicero's three Books touching the Nature of the Gods done into English A Breviary of the Roman History written in Latin by Eutropius Translated into English by several young Gentlemen privately Educated in Hatton-Garden The Countermine by Dr. Nalson History of Count Zosimus done into English Love Letters between a Noble Man and his Sister The Doctors Physitian or Dialogues concerning Health Translated out of French The Prerogative of Primogeniture by David Tenner B. D. Navigation rectified by Peter Blackborough The Works of Mr. John Oldham together with his Remains A Discourse of Monarchy as it Relates to the Succession of his Royal Highness James D. of York Seneca's Morals by way of Abstract by Mr. Lestrange Beaufions or a new discovery of Treason in an Answer to the Protestant Reconciler Familiar Epistles of Col. Hen. Martin The Rampant Alderman a Farce Dame Dobson or the Cunning Woman a Comedy Jovial Crew or Merry Beggar a Comedy Venice preserved a Tragedy Sir Hercules Buffoon a Comedy The disappointment a Play An Essay upon Poetry Choice new Songs never before Printed by Tho. Dirfey Gent. The Malecontent being the sequel of the progress of Honesty Vivat Rex a Sermon Preach'd at Bristol on the 9th of Septemb. 1683. by Mr. Kingston The History of the Civil Wars of France Written in Italian by H.C. D'Avila Translated out of the Original The Second Impression whereunto is added a Table FINIS