Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A64463
|
The texts examined which papists cite out of the Bible to prove the supremacy of St. Peter and of the Pope over the whole church.
|
Scott, John, 1639-1695.
|
1688
(1688)
|
Wing T826; ESTC R6438
|
34,807
|
58
|
to reply but only this whch is meerly a bold Affirmation and as absurd as all the rest they were indeed all of them the Heads Governors and Pastors of the Church universal but not after the same manner as Peter was of * Bellarm. l. 1. de Pontif. Rom. cap. xi Why so For they had the highest and most ample Power as Apostles and Ambassadors but Peter also as an ordinary Pastor As much as to say They had indeed the highest Power in the Church and as large as he but not so high a Power as his Let any Man try if he can make any other Sense of those words that is find any Sense at all in them For was this Power of being an ordinary Pastor greater than that of the Apostles or no If it were greater then it is not true which he affirms that the Apostles had the highest Power †Habuerunt summam Potestatem If it were less than the Power of the Apostles then they were all greater than he as he was an ordinary Pastor and then it is non-sense to say they so had a plenitude of Power as that St. Peter was notwithstanding the Head of them and they all depended on him For he rather depended on them as an ordinary Pastor if that was less than the Power of the Apostleship and if it were not but greater than it then as I said it is false that the Apostles had the highest Power This is sufficient to shew into what Absurdities Men run when they go about to maintain a Falshood and what wretched shifts they devise to obscure the clear Truth which shines in their Eyes Which when they have done they walk as in Darkness and cannot be perswaded to see or acknowledg their Error Nay one Error grows out of another and having begun to wrest the Holy Scripture they go on to strain it so far as to extend it to any purpose they have to serve by it For having presumed that Peter and he alone is promised to be made the Governour of the whole Church by these Words of our Saviour they immediately presume without the shew of a proof that the Bishops of Rome succeed him in this Authority Which is a very large Step or rather Leap from Peter to the Popes of Rome between whom there is such a vast distance that it is impossible to make out the Claim to which they pretend from him For there is no evidence that St. Peter was Bishop of Rome but only that he founded that Church and setled a Bishop there For if he was Bishop of Antioch it was against all antient Rules to leave that and go to another See. The truth is he was properly Bishop of neither but planted a Church in each and first at Antioch before he came to Rome And who can think he did not settle one to take care of that Church of Antioch when he left it who may be called his Successor as well as he whom he is supposed to have placed afterwards in Rome Which two things being allowed as unquestionable Matters of Fact there is no reason can be given why all the Power and Jurisdiction which is claimed upon the account of Succession should not devolve by the Right of Primogeniture upon the Bishop of Antioch since it is confessed he first fat there and sat there seven Years which is more than can be proved he did at Rome where he was not when St. Paul came thither Act. xxviii nor when he first answered before Nero nor when he was ready to be offered 2 Tim. iv 6 11 16. nor can any certain time be assigned when he was there as we are sure St. Paul was who is acknowledged to be a Founder of that Church and had as much or rather more right to leave a Bishop to succeed him there as St. Peter who could transfer to no body neither there nor any where else what was personally vested in him as all the Priviledg here granted him was Or if he was to have any Successor in his supposed Dominion there were others had a better Title to it than the Bishop of Rome particularly St. John who it is certain survived St. Peter L. 1. de Pont. Rom. c. ix Therefore all that Bellarmine dare say in this matter is that the Apostles being dead the Apostolical Authority remained in Peter 's Successor alone For which he gives us not one word of proof but only this notorious Falshood that the Roman Bishop alone is called by all the Apostolical Bishop and his See simply the Apostolical See. When all the World knows Jerusalem Constantinople and divers other Places are called by the same Name of Apostolical Sees or Churches and their Bishops called not only Apostolical but Catholick and said to be Bishops of the Catholick Church The meaning of all which is nothing else but that they held the Catholick Religion and Faith Epist pars 1. ad Franciscum Bonum as Launoy most ingenuously confesses and maintains the Roman Bishops themselves intended no more when they subscribed themselves Bishops of the Catholick Church Nay Bellarmine himself in the place now named is constrained to acknowledg that the Supreme Ecclesiastical Power was given not only to Peter but to other Apostles also For they might all say that of St. Paul 2 Cor. xi 28. My daily business the Care of all the Churches But it was given to Peter as an ordinary Pastor who should have perpetual Successors to others as Delegates who should have no Successors Which is a meer Invention a pure Figment of his own brain without the shadow of a ground for it in the Book of God or any ancient Authority and against his own Confession that all the Apostles had the highest Power which includes all Power both ordinary and extraordinary and a Power to appoint their Successors in the Places they converted There have abundance of other things been said by our Writers to shew that whatsoever may be supposed to have been promised in these Words the Bishops of Rome can thence derive no lawful Claim to the like Authority And yet as if there were nothing plainer than that Christ spake to the Roman Bishops when he said these Words to St. Peter they have the confidence from hence to entitle the Pope to the Priviledg of Infallibility as well as to a Supreme Dominion over the Church So Bellarmine who elsewhere alledges these Words L. iv de Rom. Pontific c. 3. to prove that the chief Bishop i. e. theirs when he teacheth the whole Church in things belonging to Faith can in no case err But this depends upon his former Suppositions that Peter is the Rock of the Church as its Supreme Governour and therefore every one of his Successors in like manner is the same which having no Foundation all his Superstructure upon them falls to the Ground And indeed it is so sandy that honest Men among themselves are ashamed to build any thing of this nature
them all and Christ promising nothing but what he performed he gave therefore the highest Power to them all which is contained in the Keys Here they are at a great loss and cannot agree how to bring themselves off from this difficulty which strips Peter of his Supremacy Therefore some have devised the above-named Conceit that Peter alone had the Keys given him as their Ordinary and they as his Legats But this seems too gross unto others who acknowledg they all had the Keys immediately from God as much as Peter if they be considered as Apostles but not if they be considered as Bishops and Pastors for these two Offices they fancy they had the Apostolical and the Pastoral Dignity the first immediately from Christ the other by and under Peter But this is in a manner the same thing in a little finer dress which was said before Therefore others unsatisfied with this that the Apostles should receive their Jurisdiction from Peter have ordered the matter on this fashion that Peter might use the Keys alone but they not without him But Sixtus Senensis cannot digest this and therefore hath devised a threefold Power in Peter of Apostleship of Order and of the Kingdom * Biblioth Sanct. l. v. Annot. clxix With respect to the first he grants Paul was equal to Peter because he had the Office of Preaching the Gospel not from Peter but from God as much as Peter himself had With respect to the second also he acknowledges the truth of what St. Jerome writes against Jovinian that all the Apostles equally received the Keys let the Catholick Scripturist mind that and firmly laid the Foundation of the Church and of what he says to Evagrius All Bishops are equal because all the Apostles were so But then with respect to the last viz. the Power of the Kingdom and Authority over all Bishops and Churches Peter was Head of all That is Peter must some way or other be above all the rest but how they do not know For Cardinal Baronius †Ad An. 34. n. ccv will have it that all the Apostles had the use of the Keys equally with Peter by the ORDINARY Power of remitting Sins and by this distinction expounds the fore-named words of St. Jerome But his Brother Cardinal Bellarmine being aware that if Peter had the Keys more than the rest by an EXTRAORDINARY Power his Authority would not descend upon his Successors says quite contrary that the Apostles had the Power of the Keys after an EXTRAORDINARY manner and Peter only by an ORDINARY * L. 1. de Rom. Pont. c. xii Thus what one builds up his Fellow pulls down There is a Confusion of Tongues in this Babel which they labour to erect They cannot agree so much as about the Terms wherein they deliver this new Doctrine For it is a pure Invention without any Reason or any Authority for it but it must be so though they know not how because it is their pleasure As all the rest is which they draw from the last place Feed my Sheep In which they say Christ gave the Power which he had promised and therefore since he promised it to all he gave it to all if any thing was given here And yet against such clear demonstration they will have this to be a peculiar Grant to Peter no body knows how or why but because it seems good to them For this is so little approved by others that they fairly grant the ancient Opinion was and make it theirs that these Words were not spoken to Peter in a Personal but in a Publick Capacity as he represented all the Apostles Insomuch that they can find nothing peculiar to him in the word FEED because of that of St. Austin's †De Agone Christ c. 30. When Christ said to Peter he said to all Feed my Sheep nor in the word SHEEP because St. Ambrose saith in the Place before named Those Sheep not only Peter received but he received them with us and we received them with him Which things are so evident that it hath brought some in that Communion to this Conclusion that out of none of these three Places nor all of them together can be gathered so much as the bare Primacy of St. Peter ‖ Du Pin de antiqua Eccles Discipl dissert iv P. 311. after that manner which Bellarmine collects it but it must be gathered thus that in those places Peter bears the Person of the Church speaks for the rest of the Apostles and is himself spoken unto by Christ in their Name as the first and principal Behold then the UNITY of which they boast in that Church and how little CERTAINTY there is among them even of the main point of their Faith and as Bellarmine * Praefatio in L. de Poutifie Rom. makes bold to call it the Sum of Christian Religion It stands upon such a tottering Foundation that finding how little these Texts in the New Testament avail them they ransack'd the Old to fetch some feeble support unto it from thence And the late Catholick Scripturist fancies the Old Testament helps them thus far in this Point that it teaches †Seventh Point n. 1 3. That among the Priests of the Old Law one was chosen successively to be the highest and chief Priest Commanding all such Causes as are Ecclesiastical Causes to be brought to the Tribunal of the High Priest and his Sentence to be obeyed even under pain of Death And for this he alledges Deut. xvii 8. But this only proves how ignorant such Catholicks as he are in the Holy Scriptures Where it is impossible for him to find that the High Priests were chosen successively for they had that Dignity by Inheritance in one certain Family and not by Election And as for the Power which he ascribes to them though he promises us in his Preface to produce loud speaking Texts for all the Points we mislike in their Religion there is not so much as a whisper of it in the place he alledges The words of which he did wisely not to quote but only the Chapter and Verse Which we that have liberty to read the Bible can easily discern speak loudly against him and confute that Doctrine which he would confirm by them If there arise says Moses in that Text a Matter too hard for thee in Judgment between Blood and Blood between Plea and Plea and between Stroke and Stroke being matters of Controversy within thy Gates then shalt thou arise and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose And thou shalt come unto the Priests the Levites and unto the Judg that shall be in those days and enquire and they shall shew thee the sentence of Judgment And thou shalt do according to the Sentence which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee c. I need not recite the rest at large to the end of the 12th Verse For every understanding Reader