except we will grant the Church to have had two visible Heads at once Secondly The Keys of Heaven committed to Peter and Command to feed his Sheep import no more than that common Duty laid upon all the Disciples To teach all Nations for this Duty in several respects is exprest by several Metaphors Teaching as it signifies the opening of the way to Life so is it called by the name of Keys but as it signifies the Strengthning of the Soul of Man by the Word which is the Souls spiritual Food so is it called Feeding Thus much is seen by the Defenders of the Church of Rome and therefore they fly for refuge to a Circumstance It is observed that our Saviour delivered this Doctrine to Peter alone as indeed sometimes he did in this it is supposed that some great Mystery rests For why should our Saviour thus single out Peter and commend a common Duty to him if there were not something extraordinary in it which concerned him above the rest This they interpret a Pre-eminence that Peter had in his Business of Teaching which they say is a Primacy and Head-ship inforcing thus much that all the rest were to depend from Him and from Him receive what they were to preach For Answer Grant me there were some great Mystery in it yet whence is it proved that this is that Mystery For if our Saviour did not manifest it then might there be a thousand Causes which Mans Conjecture may easily miss It is great boldness out of Causes concealed to pick so great Consequences and to found Matters of so great weight upon meer Conjectures Thirdly The Prayer for Confirmation of Peters Faith whence it came the Course of the Story set down in the Text doth shew It was our Saviours Prevision of Peters danger to relapse which danger he had certainly run into had not our Saviour extraordinarily prayed for confirmation of his Faith And the Precept of confirming his Brethren is but that charitable Office which is exacted at every Christians hand that when himself had escaped so great a Wrack to be careful in warning and reclaiming others whom common frailty drives into the like Distress These Circumstances that Peter is first named amongst the Disciples that he made the first Sermon and the like are two weak Grounds to build the Soveraignty over the World upon and that he spake Ananias and Sapphira dead argues spiritual Power but not temporal But that Peter called the first Council in the Acts is a Circumstance beyond the Text for concerning the calling of the Council there is no word all that is said is but this that the Disciples and Elders met no Syllable of Peters calling them together That Peter was 25 Years Bishop of Rome is not to be proved out of Antiquity before St. Hierom who shuffled it into Eusebius's Chronicle there being no such thing extant in his Story Yea that he was Bishop at all as now the name of Bishop is taken may be very questionable For the Ancients that reckon up the Bishops of Rome until their times as Eusebius and before him Tertullian and before them both Iraeneus never account Peter as Bishop of that See And Epiphanius tells us that Peter and Paul were both Bishops of Rome at once by which it is plain he took the Title of Bishop in another sense than now it is used For now and so for a long time upward two Bishops can no more possess one See than two Hedge-Sparrows dwell in one Bush St. Peters time was a little too early for Bishops to rise Answer to the Bishop of Romes Practice of Supremacy To the first That so many of the Bishops of Rome were Martyrs What makes that to the purpose Is Martyrdom an Argument of the Supremacy To the second That Victor indeavoured to excommunicate the Asiatick Bishops is true but withal it is as true that he was withstood for his Labour For the Bishops of Asia themselves did sharply reprove him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Words of Eusebius and Iraeneus wrote against him for it To the third That the first four Councils were called by the Popes is an open Falshood for in the two first the Bishops of Rome are not so much as mentioned save only as persons cited In the two last they are mentioned only as Petitioners to the Emperour There are extant the Stories of Eusebius Socrates Ruffinus Theodoret Sozomenus the Acts of the Councils themselves at least some of them the Writings and Epistles of Leo Bishop of Rome In all these there is not one word of the Pope farther than a Supplicant and the whole calling of the Bishops together is attributed to the Emperour Take for Example but the last of them Leo Bishop of Rome was desirous that some things done in a meeting of Divines at Ephesus should be disannulled for this he becomes a Suitor to Theodosius the junior to have a General Council but could never procure it of him After his death he continues his suit to Marcianus Successor to Theodosius who granted his request But whereas Leo had requested the Council might be held in Italy the Emperour would not hear him nay which is more the Pope upon good reason had besought the Emperour to put off the day design'd for the holding of the Council but the Emperour would not hear him So that Leo could do nothing neither for the calling the Council nor for the Place nor for the Time And all this appears by Leo's own Epistles If the Popes could do so little well near 500 years after Christ how little could they do before when their horns were not yet so long The Plea of the Protestants concerning the Corruption of the Church of Rome which by them is confessed sometimes to have been pure is no more prejudicial to Christs Promise to his Church that the Gaits of Hell shall not prevail against her than the known corruption of the Churches in Asia in St. John's time or of other Churches after The Close of all is a Demonstration A Word unfortunately used by your Author to bewray his Logick For indeed a Reason drawn from so poor and empty a sign falls many bows wide of demonstrative Proof First it is false that all the rest of Patriarchal Sees are extinct The See of Constantinopel yet stands and shews her Succession of Bishops from St. Andrew till this day as well as the Church of Rome can from St. Peter The See of Alexandria yet subsists and the Bishop of that place calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judge of the World as my self have seen in some of his Letters a Title to which he hath as good Right as the Bishop of Rome hath to be the Worlds Sovereign If any reply they are poor in misery in persecution and affliction this can make no difference since with Christ there is neither rich nor poor but a new Creature And again their case now is as good as was the Bishops of Rome under the Ethnick Emperors for their Lot then was no other than those Bishops is now But grant that it had lasted longest what then Some of them must needs have consisted longer than the other except we would suppose that they should have fallen all together Peradventure the reason of her so long lasting is no other but that which the Cyclops gives Ulysses in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ulysses should be eaten last of all However it be this Vant seems but like that of the wicked Servant in the Gospel tardat Dominus venire and we doubt not but a day of the Lord shall overtake him who now eats and drinks and revels with the World and beats his fellow Servants FINIS * Plin. Nat. Hist l. 28. c. 10.
your heaping up of Interrogatories and your pressing of Ligaveritis vos and telling me what I never knew that Solvere and Ligare be Actives yet in this part of our Power all your Activity is lost and there remains nothing for you but to report upon good evidence what you find done by your betters to your hand Half your Jurisdiction then is fallen and if I had no other Medium but this I might with good probability conclude against you for the other part For if the one half made in the same Form in the like phrase and garb of speech yet enforceth no more but Declaration and Denouncing then why should you think the other half which in likelyhood is homogeneal to the former to be more Nay there is far more natural Equity that you should be here only Declarative than in the other Politicians tell us That it is Wisdom for Princes who desire to gain the love of their Subjects to administer themselves all Favours and Graces but to leave action of Justice and Harshness to be performed by others Sir No Prince can be so ambitious of the Love of his Subjects as God is of the Love of Mankind why then should I think him so ill a Politician as to make himself the administrator of the Rough Unpleasing Love-killing Offices of Binding Shutting Retaining and then pass over to the Priest the dispensation of the Fair Well-spoken Ingratiating Offices of Remitting Loosing and Opening But I will leave this kind of Topick and Dialectical arguing because you are a pretender to convincing Reasons I will directly enter even upon that part of your power of Opening and Remitting being the other part of your Territory and by main strength take all activity from you there too Give me leave to ask you one Question you may very well favour me so far for you have asked me very many The Conversion of a Sinner is it an act of the Keys yea or no By your Principles it is not for you make the power of the Keys to be judiciary and therefore the Conversion of an Infidel pertains not to them The Church of Rome will help you with a Medium to make this Argument good Do we not judge those that are within for those that are without God shall judge saith Paul Whence she infers That a converted Infidel not yet admitted to the Church is a Stranger to the Judiciary Power of the Keys but being once admitted into the Church he is now become the Church's Subject and so fit matter for the Priest to work on upon his next Relapse What think you of this Reason Do you take it to be good Take heed or else it will give you a deadly stripe For the Conversion of an Infidel out of question is a most proper act of the Keys For since the opening of the Kingdom of Heaven is confess'd to belong unto the Keys and Heaven which was shut against the Infidel in time of his Infidelity upon his Conversion is acknowledged to be opened unto him certainly whoever converted him used the Keys or else he must pretend to have either a Pick-lock or the Herb Lunaria which they say makes Locks fall off from Doors and the Fetters from Horses heels If then the Conversion of a Sinner be an act of the Keys and by the Argument of the Church of Rome it be not judiciary it follows then That all Acts of the Keys are not Judiciary and if not Judiciary then Declarative only For betwixt these two I know no mean But because to dispute against a Man out of his own Principles which perchance are false for this oft we know falls out that by the power of Syllogisms Men may and do draw True Conclusions from False Premises because I say thus to do in the judgment of Aristotle leaves a Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I am willing not only to perswade you but to better you I will draw the little which remains to be said in this Point from other Places First In all the Apostles practice in Converting Jews and Gentiles find you any thing like unto the act of any Judiciary Power They neither did nor could use any such thing That they did not appears by Philip who having Catechized the Eunuch and finding him desirous of Baptism immediately upon profession of his Faith admitted him into the Church That they neither did nor could appears by Peter and the rest of the Apostles in the Acts who could never in the space of an afternoon being none but themselves have converted three thousand Souls had they taken any such way as you seem to misfancy Again imagine with your self all circumstances you can which are of force to make a power judiciary apply them all to the practice of the Apostles in the Conversion of Infidels and if you find any one of them agree to that action let me be challenged upon it and be thought to have abused you with a Fallacy To conclude then since your Ligaveritis which is the one half of your pretended Jurisdiction pretends to nothing above Declarative And since your Solveritis in so great an act as is the Conversion of Infidels lays claim to no more what act of the power of the Keys is it wherein we may conceive hope of finding any thing active or judiciary I see what you will say There yet remains a part you think wherein you have hope to speed and that is the reconciling of relapsing Christians As you fancy that in every sinning Christian there is a duty binding him to repair and lay his sin open to the Minister of the Gospel and him a power to consider of the sins of such as repair unto him to weigh particulars to consider circumstances and occasions and according to true Judgment either upon penance imposed to absolve sin which you call remitting of the sin or to with-hold him for a time from participation of holy duties with Catholick Christians which you call retaining of sins supposing that God doth the like in Heaven as it is written What you bind in Earth is bound in Heaven and what you loose in Earth is loosed in Heaven Now the Rock on which you labour to found so extravagant a Conceit is no other than the Words which I have quoted out of Scripture you press earnestly the Ligaveritis vos all which can yield you small relief for if they help you not at all in those weighty parts of the Power of the Keys which but now were laid before you by what Analogy can you expect they should afford you any assistance here As is Ligare so is Solvere as is the Conversion of an Infidel so is the reconciling of a relapsing Christian for any thing you can make appear Either all is Declarative which is very possible and in many cases necessary or all Judicative which in some cases is impossible and in none necessary so that to fit the Scripture to your Fancy you are constrained to
hence have proceeded publick Temples Altars Forms of Service appointed Times and the like which are required for open Assemblies yet whilst Men were truly pious all Meetings of Men for mutual help of Piety and Devotion wheresoever and by whomsoever celebrated were permitted without exception But when it was espied that ill affected Persons abus'd private Meetings whether Religious or Civil to evil ends Religiousness to gross impiety as appears in the Ethnick Eleusmia and Baecchanalia and Christian Meetings under the Pagan Princes when for fear they durst not come together in open view were charged with foul imputations as by the report of Christians themselves plainly appears and Civil Meetings many times under pretence of friendly and neighbourly Visits sheltered treasonable Attempts Against Princes and Commonweals Hence both Church and State joyned and jointly gave order for Forms Times Places of Publick Concourse whether for Religious or Civil Ends and all other Meetings whatsoever besides those of which both Time and Place were limited they censured for Routs and Riots and unlawful Assemblies in the State and in the Church for Conventicles So that it is not lawful no not for Prayer for Hearing for Conference for any other Religious Office whatsoever for people to assemble otherwise than by Publick Order is allowed Neither may we complain of this in Times of Incorruption for why should Men desire to do that suspiciously in private which warrantably may be performed in publick But in Times of manifest Corruptions and Persecutions wherein Religious Assembling is dangerous private Meetings howsoever besides publick Order are not only lawful but they are of Necessity and Duty else how shall we excuse the Meetings of Christians for publick Service in time of danger and persecutions and of our selves in Queen Maries days And how will those of the Roman Church amongst us put off the imputation of Conventicling who are known amongst us privately to assemble for Religious Exercise against all established Order both in State and Church For indeed all pious Assemblies in times of persecution and corruptions howsoever practised are indeed or rather alone the lawful Congregations and publick Assemblies though according to form of Law are indeed nothing else but Riots and Conventicles if they be stained with Corruption and Superstition MISCELLANIES How to know the Church MArks and Notes to know the Church there are none except we will make True Profession which is the Form and Essence of the Church to be a Mark. And as there are none so is it not necessary there should be For to what purpose should they serve That I might go seek and find out some Company to mark This is no way necessary For glorious Things are in the Scriptures spoken of the Church not that I should run up and down the World to find the Persons of the Professors but that I should make my self of it This I do by taking upon me the Profession of Christianity and submitting my self to the Rules of Belief and Practice delivered in the Gospel though besides my self I knew no other Professor in the World If this were not the Authors end in proposal of the Title it is but a meer Vanity To the Description of the Church The Church as it imports a visible Company in Earth is nothing else but the Company of Professors of Christanity wheresoever disperst in the Earth To define it thus by Monarchy under one visible Head is of novelty crept up since Men began to change the spiritual Kingdom of Christ to secular Pride and Tyranny and a thing never heard of either in the Scriptures or in the Writings of the Ancients Government whether by one or many or howsoever if it be one of the Churches contingent Attributes it is all certainly it is no necessary Property much less comes it into the Definition and Essence of it I mean outward Government for as for inward Government by which Christ reigns in the Hearts of his Elect and vindicates them from spiritual Enemies I have no occasion to speak neither see I any reference to it in all your Authors Animadversions How Christ is the Head of the Church From the Worlds beginning till the last hour of it the Church is essentially one and the same howsoever perchance in Garment and outward Ceremony it admits of Difference And as it was from the beginning of the World so was it Christian there being no other difference betwixt the Fathers before Christ and us but this As we believe in Christ that is Come so they believed in Christ that was to Come Jesus Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever Reference unto Christ is the very Essence of the Church and there neither is nor ever was any Church but Christ's and therefore the Church amongst the Jews was properly and truly Christian quoad rem as we are Now as this Church at all times is Christ's Body so is Christ the Head of it For it is as impossible for the Church as for the Body to be without its Head it is not therefore as your Author dreams Christ came not to found a New Church or to profess a Visible Headship of it That Relation to this Church which we express when we call him the Head of it is one and the same from the Beginning to all Eternity neither receives it any alteration in this respect because the Person in whom this Relation is founded is sometimes Visible sometimes not 'T is true indeed the Head of the Church sometimes became Visible but this is but contingent and by Concomitancy For Christ the second Person in the Trinity becoming Man to Redeem this Church and manifest the way of Truth unto it It so fell out that the Head of the Church became Visible Of this Visibility he left no Successor no Doctrine no Use as being a thing meerly accidental I ask Had the Church before Christ any Visible Head if it had then was not Christ the first as here our Teacher tells us If it had none why then should the Church more require a Visible Head than it did from the Beginning To speak the Truth at once All these Questions concerning the Notes the Visibility the Government of the Church if we look upon the Substance and Nature of the Church they are meerly Idle and Impertinent If upon the End why Learned Men do handle them it is nothing else but Faction Of Peter's Ministerial Headship of the Church In your Author's Paragraphs concerning the visible Encrease or Succession of the Church there is no Difference betwixt us As for the Proofs of Peters Ministerial Headship this first concerning his being the Rock of the Church that cannot prove-it For Peter was the Rock then when our Saviour spake but then could he not be the visible Head for Christ himself then was living and by our Teachers Doctrine supplied that room himself Peter therefore howsoever or in what sense soever he were the Rock yet could he not be the visible Head