he was qualified by Jesus Christ for that Office or that he must be a very arrogant Man in taking so much upon him to the Diminution of the Honour and Esteem of his Fellow Apostles And if we put these three things together viz. 1. Christ's building his Church upon Peter giving him the Charge of feeding his Lambs and Sheep and the Power of Confirming his Brethren 2. The Evangelist pursuant to this Power not only reckoning him first amongst the Apostles but also calling him the First 3. Peter's exercising the Office and Charge of Head or Chief among the Apostles as aforesaid We shall plainly see that this Superiority is no Imaginary thing as our Adversaries wou'd make the World believe but a Real Truth grounded upon the Word of God And if this was confer'd upon Peter it is granted by all that the same Prerogative must necessarily devolve upon his lawful Successors the Bishops of Rome And indeed this was so publickly taught and profess'd by the Primitive Fathers and Councils as a necessary and fundamental Truth that many Learned Protestants have been forc'd to own it I shall instance in one Monsieur Blondel one of the most learned Protestants that ever writ against the Pope's Supremacy gives it this Testimony The Titles of the Apostle St. Peter saith he ought not to be put in debate since the Grecians and Pâ—otestants also do confess that it has been believ'd and that it might indeed be that he was the President and Head of the Apostles the Foundation of the Church and Possessor of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven Again pag. 107. Rome being a Church consecrated by the Residence and Martyrdom of St. Peter whom Antiquity has acknowledg'd to be the Head of the College Apostolic having been honour'd with the Title of the Seat of the Apostle St. Peter might without Difficulty be consider'd by one of the most renowned Councils viz. that of Chalcedon as Head of the Church Thus far this Learned Man and surely nothing but the Evidence of this Truth cou'd extort so ingenuous a Confession from an Adversary in favour of â—â—me whose Supremacy he chiefly aim'd to pull down Now how far this Title gives him Superiority and Jurisdiction over all other Bishops I will not take upon me to determine This only I shall undertake to prove that the Fathers of the Primitive Church did believe St. Peter and his Successors the Bâ—shops of Rome to be by virtue of this Prerogative St. Peter Head and Chief amongst the Apâ—stles and the Bishop of Rome the same among all other Bishops and Center of Catholic Vnity and that the Bishop of Rome did exercise Jurisdiction as occasion offer'd over the Eastern as well as the Western Bishops even in the Primitive Times such as Excommunication receiving of Appeals Confirming and Deposing of Bishops c. For the Truth of all which we have besides the general Consent of the Church as Authentic Records next to the Scripture as for any matter of Fact whatsoever happening at so great a distance I shou'd never end if I shou'd cite all the Passages of Fathers and Councils and Ecclesiastical Writers which may be brought to prove this Point I will therefore Instance in a few only but they shall be such as will by the Greatness of their Authority and Clearness of Expression I hope be abundantly sufficient to compose this Difference And 1. St. Irenaeus speaks thus of the Church of Rome ad hanc Ecclesiam propter potentierem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est eos qui undiquâ— sunt Fideles Every Church that is the Faithful on every side must have recourse to this Church by reason of her more powerful Principality lib. 3. c. 3. 2. St. Cyprian thus of St. Peter Hoc erant utique caeteri Apostoli quod erat Petrus pari consortio praediti Potestatis Honoris Primatus tamen Pâ—tro datur ut una Christi Ecclesia Cathedra una monstretur The Rest of the Apostles were the same that St. Peter was endued with a like Fellowship of Power and Honour yet the Primacy is given to Peter that the One Church of Christ and one Chair might appear lib. de Unitat. Eccles 3. St. Ambrose Andreas prius secutus est Dominum quam Petrus tamen principatum non accepit Andreas sed Petrus Andrew follow'd Christ sooner than Peter yet Andrew did not receive the Principality but Peter in 2 Cor. 12. 4. St. Jerom. Propterea inter duodâ—cem unus eligitur ut capite constituto Schismatis toâ—latur occasio One is chosen among the twelve Apostles to the end that a Head being constituted all occasion of Schism may be taken away Cont. Jovin 5. St. Chrysostom The Pastor and Head of the Church was a Fisherman Hom. 55. in Cap. 16. Mat. 6. St. Augustin In Ecclesia Romana semper viguit Apostoliâ—ae Cathedrae Principatus The Principality of the Apostolic Chair has always flourish'd in the Church of Rome Epist 162. 7. The General Council of Chalcedon We throughly consider that all Primacy and Chief Honour is to be kept for the Bishop of old Rome Act. 16. This was the General Language not only of the Fathers of this Council but even of all Antiquity both in public Assemblies and private Writings the primitive Fathers and Councils always deferring the chief Honour and Primacy to the See of St. Peter as they generally phrase it And indeed tho' the Bishops of Constantinople have always been observ'd to be very ambitious to advance their own See above all others and to have procur'd in two General Councils viz. in the first Council of Constantinople and in that of Chalcedon to have that See prefer'd to Alexandria and Antioch and plac'd next after Rome yet we do not find that any Council or Father did ever dispute with the Bishop of Rome in Point of Primacy or Jurisdiction in so much was all Antiquity perswaded and convinc'd that he was the Chief and Supreme visible Head of the whole Catholic Church Thus much concerning the Primacy of St. Peter and his Successors which yet is not the one half of what may be alledg'd for this Point Now I wou'd willingly beg of any of our Adversaries to Answer me to these few Queries Whether these Holy Fathers did not believe the Primacy of St Peter and his Successors when they spoke so plainly in favour of it Whether they did not understand and were well instructed in the Doctrine of the whole Catholic Church touching this Point Whether they had a mind to flatter the Bishop of Rome or to grant him any more Authority and Power over themselves than was justly due to him And whether it be not an excess of Folly and Weekness to say no worse in the Protestants now fifteen hundred Years after to dispute that Prerogative which is so manifestly acknowledg'd by so many Eminent Martyrs and Confessors and great Doctors of the Primitive Church That the Bishop of
them in the venerable and dreadful Mysteries For shame Doctor Away with such unchristian Scandals and do not put us upon exposing your Credit and Character any farther But perhaps the Legacies left for the bireing of Priests as he odly phrases it to say Mass for the delivery of Souls out of the place of Torments will mend the matter Indeed if the Priests were allow'd to determin matters of Faith the thing comming from the Doctor wou'd not appear altogether so unreasonable for considering how very remarkable his Charity is to Priests I do not question He wou'd judge they wou'd deal well for themselves had they but the handling of these matters But it is no less evident that no simple Priest has ever yet had any Vote in declaring matters of Faith than that no other is hired as He calls it or will receive any Money for saying Masses for the Living or the Dead but the poorer or more indigent sort of Priests who have not a sufficient Patrimony or Maintenance to subsist without it And the matter being undeniably so where is the Conscience in saying that the Councils and Prelates of the Church shou'd possess the People with the fear of Purgatory only to oblige them to hire some indigent Priests to say Mass for their Souls But the Scandal is so gross and palpable that the best answer I can make it is to contemn it The Doctor has some two or three Objections more upon this Subject but they are either solv'd in the Proofs brought for this Point or coincident with those Objections already spoken to or else have no particular Difficulty And so I take leave of him for this Time CHAP. X. Of Indulgences THE Power of Indulgences is founded in the Power of the Keys wherewith Jesus Christ was pleas'd to intrust the Pastors and Governours of the Church by which Emblem of Keys is denoted the Power of opening and shutting the Kingdom of Heaven of letting in and keeping out as Christians shall be found worthy of the one or the other This Power is promis'd to Saint Peter in a special Manner and in his Person to all his lawful Successors in these Words I say unto thee that thou art Peterâ— i. e. a Rock 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 Keys 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 Mat. 16.18.19 Again the Promise of binding and loosing is made in another Place to all the Apostles in the same Words Verily I say unto you whatsoever ye bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven And whatsoever ye loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Matt. 18.18 And Christ a little before his Ascension actually confer'd this power upon them and told them wherein it consists Receive ye the Holy-Ghost whosoever Sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever Sins ye retain they are retain'd Joa 20.22 23. So that the Power of the Keys consists in remitting of Sins and retaining them that is in loosing Men from those Bands of Iniquity wherewith they tye themselves and in binding them up or keeping them bound till they have satisfied for their Sins according to the Rules prescrib'd for that purpose In a Word in opening the Gates of the Kingdom of Heaven and letting some in and in shutting the same and excluding others as they shall be found to have deserv'd it But whereas our Blessed Saviour did not intend that the Apostles and their Successors shou'd bind Sinners so as finally to exclude them from the Kingdom of Heaven but only to keep them under Discipline for a Time till they had fulfill'd the Terms of the Covenant upon which he offers them Salvation which consists in Obedience to His Laws in Repentance and Satisfaction for their Sins and Amendment of Life for the Time to come so the Church in all Ages never retain'd the Sins of Men for any other End than to keep them in a wholesome and saving Discipline till by penitential and laborious Works they had given Marks of their Sorrow and Repentance in Proportion to the Greatness of their Sins And as the Apostles and their Successors are commission'd by Christ to retain Sins so likewise are they to loose them And therefore may remit abate or alter these penitential and laborious Works as their Prudence and Wisdom shall judge it most expedient Now Indulgence is nothing else but a Relaxation or Remission of some part of or all these penitential Works to which a Sinner is lyable by the Canons of the Church which Remission is granted by the Pastors but especially by the Chief Pastor of the Church upon some weighty Considerations for the greater Benefit and Advantage of the Faithful in general Which that we may the better understand it will be requisite to lay open some part of the Discipline of the Primitive Church with Respect to this Matter We have 50 Canons that go under the Name of the Apostles which if not of them are undoubtedly of some Apostolical Bishops of the first or second Age their Use and Authority being very great since that Time We have likewise the Canons of several Provincial Councils of the third and fourth Age which have been in great Esteem and Veneration among the Ancients and for the pure and wholesome Discipline contain'd in them have been inserted in the Codex Canonum or Book of Canons of the Vniversal Church as the Ancient Writers term it These Canons among other Matters of Discipline prescribe the different Penances which were to be impos'd upon Sinners in proportion to the greatness of their Sins whence came the Name of Penitential Canons so famous in Antiquity Some Canons prescribe seven Years Penance to certain Sins others eight Years to other sins some prescribe ten Years some fifteen some to the Hour of Death Some Penitents by order of these Canons fasted three Days every Week during the Time of their Penance using no other Sustenance during that Time but Bread and Water others stood cover'd with Sackcloath at the Church Doors sub dio in the open Air on Sundays and Festivals while their Penance lasted others stood within Doors cloathed in the same Raiment weeping and lamenting their sins some lay prostrate upon the Floor begging and praying their Brethren to intercede for them others were admitted to hear divine Service in the Weeds of Penitents after they had gone thro' the foremention'd Stations whence the Names of Hyemantes Flentes Prostrati Audientes so often mention'd in the Canons Now these Rigorous Penances very Rigorous I am sure they wou'd appear in our Days or Exomologeses as some of the Fathers call them were sometimes abated and remitted partly upon Account of the Fervor of the Penitents who before they had gone thro' all their Stations gave such Marks of sincere
the Canon of the Council of Nice by which it was provided That there shall be but one Metropolitan in each Province made a Pragmatic Sanction whereby he Constituted the Bishop of Berithum Metropolitan in the same Province and submited a great many of the former Metropolitan's Suffragans to him which when the Bishop of Tyre expos'd to the Council it was unanimously Decreed That the said Bishop of Tyre should be restor'd to all his Privileges and Jurisdiction notwithstanding the Emperor's Sanction which the Council declar'd to be of no Force or Virtue against the Canons of the Church So that it is evident this General Council knew nothing of any such Ecclesiastical Power vested in the Emperor tho' Lord of almost all the World much less in a Prince of a few Provinces 'T is true there is a Canon of a Council held long after in Constantinople called Quinisexta-synodus which provides that if the Emperor shou'd Erect or raise any City to the Dignity of Metropolis of a Province the Ecclesiastical Power ought to follow the Temporal The Sense of which Canon I conceive must be this that either the Bishop of the City thus dignifi'd was to have the Jurisdiction of a Metropolitan over all the Bishops in the Province the former Metropolitan being reduc'd to the condition of a private Bishop or that the same Province ought to be divided into Two and Governed by two Metropolitans with distinct Limits and Jurisdictions Whether of the two be the Sense of those Fathers 't is manifest this Canon does not exempt the one or the other from the Jurisdiction of the Patriarch much less from that of the Pope as Head of the Church And indeed to give it the most rigorous Interpretation it is impossible to stretch it any further than this That when a City is made Metropolis or Head of a Kingdom the Bishop of that City ought to have Jurisdiction over all the Bishops in the same Kingdom But this does not give the least colour to any Exemption from the Ecclesiastical Power to which this Kingdom was subject before Besides this same was not enacted by the Emperor or any Secular Prince but by a Council of Bishops in favour doubtless of the Episcopal Dignity because it was proper that the first Bishop or Metropolitan shou'd have his Seat in the Metropolis of the Kingdom and take his Denomination from thence And yet we see this never took place in the West otherwise the Bishops of Paris in France of London in England of Edenburg in Scotland and others might as justly pretend to a Primacy in these several Kingdoms which I am confident the Archbishop of Canterbury wou'd as much oppose as any of the Rest Now that the Church of England did wilfully separate from the Pope from their own immediate Heads the Bishops of England and from the Communion of all the Bishops in the World besides Stow Baker Dr. Heilen Dr. Burnet is plain matter of fact equally attested by all Writers as well Protestants as Catholics K. Henry VIII did separate from the Pope and assum'd to himself the Title of Head of the Church of England persecuting and putting to death all such who oppos'd his Supremacy After the Death of Queen Mary in whose Reign the Church of England was again reconcil'd to Rome Queen Elizabeth call'd a Parliament in order to settle Matters of Religion In this Parliament all the Bishops of England were depriv'd of their Episcopal Seas some cast into Prison others banish'd the Country all violently forc'd away from their Flocks and Pastoral Functions Nor will it at all relieve the Protestant Cause to say which yet is their only plea that the Bishops were depriv'd because they wou'd not take the Oath of Supremacy reviv'd by that Parliament For beside that it is an unheard of Thing that any Society of Laymen shou'd take upon them to determin Spiritual Matters for such was the Tenure of that Oath and to impose them upon Bishops to whom it chiefly belong'd to determin such matters This Proceeding was contrary to the Ordinary Methods of Parliament both before and ever after that Time For all things relating to Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Matters are first determin'd and agreed upon in the Convocation of the Bishops whose province and care it is to declare what is Spiritual and what not and then refer'd to both Houses of Parliament to pass into Law But here is a Spiritual Matter past into a Law which vests the Supreme Spiritual Power in the Queen and which all the Bishops in the Kingdom solemnly protest against as a thing as monstrously absurd as it was ever before unheard of And yet they must be all depriv'd because they wou'd not swear to the Truth of nor assert this Spiritual Power lodg'd in a Person whose very Sex rendred her incapable of Indeed they might as well deprive them for not believing and swearing to the truth of the Alcaron But this is too absurd to need a Confutation That the Church of England separated from the Communion of all other Bishops in the World is evident even to this day since they never were able to shew as much as one single Bishop in the whole World who professeth to be of their Communion Now if all this be not Schism I confess I know not what is To separate from the Pope and all in Communion with him To separate from their own Bishops and raise Altars against their Altars or rather to pull down all Altars as they have done to separate from all the Bishops in the World If this be not in the highest degree Schismatical farewel Reason and Religion And here I may justly make the same Intercession as St. Paul calls it against the Church of England with that of Elijah against the Schismatical Church of Israel whose perfect Image I am sorry they bear Lord they have killed thy Bishops and Priests and digged down thine Altars and we poor persecuted Sheep are left alone and they seek our lives to take them away 4. As to the Roman Catholics I need not urge any more Reasons than what has been already offer'd to prove that this Society of Christians is the True Catholic Church For since it is manifestly prov'd that neither the Nestorian nor the Eutychian nor the Greek nor yet the Church of England is the Catholic Church it remains that the Roman Catholics must necessarily be it However I shall lay down some Notes agreed on by all sides to pertain to the Catholic Church which upon Examination will be found to be peculiar to the Roman Catholic Church 1. The Roman Catholic Church is a Great Body of the Faithful spread over all the known parts of the World there being but few Kingdoms known where some Believers in communion with the Bishop of Rome are not to be found Hence She justly claims the Title of Catholic 2. If we except the Protestants there are but few material Points in which all other Sects differ from Her