Christ to be the Head of all Christian Unity or that Church to be the conservatory for ever of all Christian Truth more than any other Bishop or Church of the Apostles ordaining or planting Where I find almost as many absurdities hudled together as words For first what signifies the Bp. of Rome was not appointed by Christ Christ was not on earth when St. Peters Successors in the See of Rome sate there and when he ordained St. Peter chief of the Apostles Saint Peter was not yet Bishop of Rome Next if he meanes that St. Peter was not appointed by our Saviour as the Head of Christian Unity St. Hierom's testimony I suppose will be as good as the Doctors word who tels us Inter duodecim c. Amongst the twelve one was chosen that A HEAD being constituted the OCCASION OF SCHISM MIGHT BE TAKEN AWAY Where we see expresly Saint Peter the Popes Predecessor was advanced to be HEAD and this to take away occasion of Schism that is to be HEAD OF CHRISTIAN UNITY Thirdly hence also follows that Christian Unity is conserved by him more than by any other Bishop contrary to the Doctors assertion Fourthly he equivocates in the word Roman Church and takes in it a sence which he knowes we never mean't Our acception of it being of the Universal Church communicating with the Mother Church of Rome his of the private Diocess of Rome it selfe Fifthly it is groundless to affirm even of this private Church of Rome it selfe that she is not the conservatory of Christian Truth more than any other since the Doctor cannot but know the Fathers are of a contrary beleefe holding that the two chief Apostles dying there bequeathed to that Church as a sacred Legacy a greater vigour of Christian Tradition Again Histories and Fathers witnessing so unanimously her firm persistance above the rest objections often urged by our Authors to that purpose the Doctor might at least have afforded us one testimony of the contrary besides his own bare saying Lastly what is the Doctors intent in saying Christ did not appoint the Church of Rome conservatory for ever of all Christian truth What meanes this canting Parenthesis for ever As if Christ might perhaps appoint her to conserve truth for a while but meant after some time to discharge her of that office But this Parenthesis the Doctor reserved for a starting-hole that he might at pleasure cry out she had erred when he had found out some odd testimony which with the help of an id-est-clause might overthrow the Authority of the whole World His second Defence for relinquishing the means to preserve Unity of Faith which we charge them with is this that The way provided by Christ and his Apostles for preserving the Unity of Faith c. is fully acknowledged by their Reformation Which way sayes the Doctor is made up of two Acts of Apostolical Providence First their resolving upon some few heads of efficacy to the planting of Christian life through the world and preaching and depositing them in every Church Secondly their establishing an excellent subordination of Church-officers c. As for the first of these Acts as he calls them of Apostolical Providence if these two Heads he speaks of as thus deposited be indeed sufficient to form a Christian life in order to the attainment of Eternal bliss and that they came down certainly to us by this depository way at first in the Churches and so derived successively age by age Dr. Hammond is suddenly become a Proselyte and a plain Papist For we neither say we have any point of Faith superfluous for the Community of the Faithful nor that those we have came to us by any other meanes than seruando depositum by preserving uncorrupted those necessary doctrines thus deposited But I fear much when the matter comes to scanning Mr. Hammond in this his doctrine neither goes to Church nor stayes at home but halts very lamely in the mid-way He stayes not at home for his Church of England is so far from holding the points deposited by the Apostles in Churches a certain way to preserve Unity of Faith that nothing is more abominable to her than the name of Tradition This appeares by the sixth Article or Canon of Queen Elizabeth's female-headed General Council where the Scripture is made the sole ground of Faith and nothing affirmed as necessary to Salvation but what is built upon it whereas the Doctor here builds points necessary to salvation for sure those few heads of special efficacy to the planting a Christian life can be no lesse upon their preaching and depositing them in the Churches nay more the Unity of Faith that is Faith it self for Faith if not one is none upon this way of depositing Yet for all this he will not goe to Church neither though he stay not at home For ask him are those few Heads all that are necessary he will tell you nâ— yet which be those necessary Heads how many and why no more were thus delivered since this he sayes is A WAY TO PRESERVE UNITY IN FAITH and on the other side he sees what multiplicity is bred by the diverse interpretations of Scripture ask him I say these questions and no particular account can he give you only he had a mind to say somthing in geneneral lest he might be thought to have utterly contemned all Traditions Again these Churches in which were deposited those few Heads of such special eefficacy to plant Christian life were they infallible that is such as we may certainly trust to in their preserving that depositum if they were they might as well be infallible in other necessary points also and so the Doctor hath slipt by good hap into our Rule of Faith and though hoodwink't goes to Church again But if they be not infallible that is connot certainly tell us that they delivered us the right depositum and the same they received then the Drremaines as he is and hath brought nothing to his purpose For since Unity of Faith cannot be preserved without some efficacious meanes of bringing it down to us inerrably true unless this depositing was such as must upon necessity continue for ever which is that we call Infallibility or Indefectibility of the Church the providence of the Apostles had been very sleight and nothing at all to the Doctors purpose that is it had been no efficacious way to preserve Unity of Faith He addes afterwards And all this is asserted and acknowledged by every true son of the Church of England as zealously as is pretended by any Romanist Here again the Doctor seemes to step forwards towards the Church and to draw a great troup of backward unwilling Protestants after him For if they hold as I conceive he meanes by these words the doctrines deposited in the Church as zealously as the Romanists they must hold them as of Faith for so farre our well-grounded zeal carries us and that the depositary is so trusty as
ever imagin'd it a matter of Controversie needing to be manifested Whether or no King Henry the Eighth denied the Popes Supremacy The second is yet more ridiculous then the former since not even the most impudent Heretick in the World ever had the face to deny but that if the Popes Universal Authority was constituted by Christ the consequence was inevitable That it was both Schism and Heresie to reject and condem it as he confesses they did Yet is this the second thing saith he which we must manifest ere the Objection will be of any force But to make the jest compleat after telling us That we are to manifest them he out of his courtesie and to expedite the matter is pleased to grant them not requiring the pretenders farther to prove them As if he could have resisted them but had done us a great favor in saving us from a most disgraceful foil we should have sustained in maintaining That a fact was done which himself and all the world acknowledges and in being puzzled with proving that what Christ bid us do was to be done and the Authority instituted by God himself to be obeyed To what purpose was it to bring such unnecessary and frivolous distinctions and afterwards wave them But the Doctor as I have shown before and shall demonstrate more largely hereafter hath a most special gift of his own in dividing his Text and he must upon all or rather no occasion show it Which trick of his though it counterfeit an order and breed an apprehension of a methodical exactness in discourse to ordinary Readers yet when it shall be discovered to tend to no solidity being like the Philosophers dividing of Spatium imaginarium all men will see plainly it is but a meer knack to be-wonder Children and Ignorants SECT 7. Of Doctor Hammonds first Evidence against St. Peters Universal Pastorship BUt now the Question is stated this Chapter is to prove no Donation of any Primacy to St. Peter by Christ the next That no such Authority is devolv'd upon the Pope his Successor in the See of Rome And now the long-expected time of the Doctors Evidences is come I told you he had a horrible design in Lavander against the Pope now truth is come to light This this is the fatal time that the Horns of the Beast in the Apocalypse must be broken and the Walls of that Whorish-Babylon thrown down by the inevitable and unresistable Evidences of Dr. Hammond But to be serious the Doctor and I joyntly request the ingenuous Reader to bestow more attentive and deliberate diligence in examining and weighing well this part of the Controversie then what hath gone before The important weight of the truth in question now hot in pursuit and the very sound of Evidence now mainly pretended do both invite to a more particular attention The Doctor especially granting that the Question must be managed with Evidences and so concluded either on the one side or the other If the Doctors proofs conclude and manifest themselves to be indeed what they are pretended that is Evidences then I will grant the truth on his side and the controversie at an end But if all the Evidence they bring be onely that they are most evidently repugnant and most injurious to Gods Word to all Ancient Histories and to themselves that they are open Forgeries and most absurd Deductions shamefully abusing the Readers judgment and ev'n his very eyes then I hope the Reader will pardon me if I seem to bear less respect to him in telling him plainly of his faulâ—s who manifests himself to have quite cast off all respect to Truth Gods Word Antiquity his Readers and even to his own Conscience But the Doctor begins to argue have at Saint Peter then in this Chapter have at the Pope in the next His first Evidence then as he calls it is from Scripture That St. Peter was the Apostle of the Circumcision or Iews exclusively to the Uncircumcision or Gentiles Whence he insers that St. Peters authority being restrained to the Jews onely could not be Universal to the whole Church So that all his first Evidence is to evince the No-authority that Apostle had over the Gentiles or the Exclusiveness of any Apostleship in respect of them But first Mr. Hammond tells us what he means by an Apostle to wit A Commissioner of Christ endued with authority by him and this Commission given to him as to all the other Apostles indefinitely and unlimitedly not restrained by Christs words to any particular Province but equally extending to the whole World Where since he would go about to define an Apostle he might have done well to show in what he is distinguished from a Disciple However all he there says is true onely we adde That neither by any subsequent act of theirs as the Doctor imagines was this illimited Commission given to each by Christ restrained to particular sorts of men or several large Diocesses or Provinces so as to make them lose thereby their jurisdiction over other persons or places However they might agree for the better propagating the Gospel to disperse themselves into several Nations or by the provident cooperation of Gods Spirit have a more especial gift in converting some sorts of people then others and so applying more their industry where they experienced more fruit of their Preaching got thence by their particular addiction to that sort of people or that Nation the appellation of their Apostle or Doctor No Exclusiveness therefore of their ample Authority and Apostolical Jurisdiction from any Sect or Nation no hedging or fencing in the unbounded vastness of their universally-extended Mission and Commission within the Verge of any particular Province or People Yet Mr. Hammond will needs have all their Authorities limited for fear St. Peters should prove unlimited and therefore layes for his ground to conclude St. Peter Apostle of the Jews onely That they distributed their Universal great Province into several lesser ones This he evidences for you must conceive that all these Chapters are perfectly connected discourses that is manifest and noon-day Evidences out of two places in the Sacred Scripture in explicating which also his chief talent-lies These therefore we must endeavor to clear as far as our abilities will give us leave For the Reader can imagine no less but that these two places being the foundation of the Doctors future discourse must be most unconfutable Evidences and consequently must needs cost as much toil and labor in the answering The first place he alledges to prove That the Apostles had especial and peculiar Provinces exclusively to one another is that of Acts 1. 25. where the Apostles pray God to shew Whether of the two proposed justus and Matthias he had chosen that he might receive the lot of that Ministry and Apostleship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence â—udas strayed to go to his own place where he will needs have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. to
signifie a lesser Province Whereas first it is evident to common sence that the lot of an Apostleship is nothing but the charge and office of an Apostle Secondly It is most manifestly shewn to be nothing else by the whole intent and transaction of the business which was not to allot one of them a lesser Province but to chuse a twelfth Apostle Thirdly The subsequent effect of the casting lots no less manifests it delivered us in this tenor of words The lot fell on Matthias and he was numbred with the eleven Apostles nor and thereupon he got the Government of a lesser Province Fourthly It is most plainly opposite to Scripture for in the seventeenth verse of this very Chapter St. Peter useth the self-same phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. which the Doctor makes here stand for lesser Provinces to express Iudas his dignity whence he fell and in which as the very place cited by the Doctor manifests the Apostles desired another should succeed but no man ever dream'd that Iudas had a lesser Province assigned him It is therefore point-blank opposite to Scripture to writh the words to this Interpretation Fifthly This supposed the Doctor is contradictory to himself to imagine that in which St. Matthias succeeded Iudas a lesser Province since he acknowledged before That this division of Provinces was made after our Saviours Ascension and consequently Iudas who was dead ere his Resurrection had no such Province in which another might succeed him Sixthly It is most notoriously contrary to all Antiquity and consequently either manifesting a most shameful ignorance or wilful malice in so mistaking it For whosoever gave but a glance into those studies will plainly discern That the Apostles distributing themselves into several Provinces was done a long time after the coming of the Holy Ghost whereas this installing of St. Matthias into his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he will have lesser Provinces was manifestly before the coming of the Holy Ghost as whoso reads the end of this Chapter and the beginning of the next will clearly discover Lastly It is against your own translation which expresses that The room of this Ministration and Apostleship from which Judas hath gone astray which your special gift of interpreting Scripture makes signifie St. Matthias his lesser Province So that all accounts made up concerning this place alledged the result is That this first Evidence or rather the Ground of Dr. Hammonds future Evidences is so strong and unmovable that it alone resists the whole World being evidently opposite to common sence repugnant expresly to Scripture injuriously contrary to all Antiquity prevaricating from the translation of their own Church and lastly contradictory to the Doctor himself But Humanum est errare No man but is subject to Error he will make amends doubtless for this mistake in the next Testimony SECT 8. The Examination of Doctor Hammonds second Evidence That the Apostles had distinct Provinces so to prejudice St. Peters Universal Pastorship HIs next Ground from Scripture to put it out of doubt that the Apostles had even then particular Provinces exclusively to one another That St. Peter calls the going to those lesser Provinces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to go to his proper place or assignation Good Reader view but the place alledged and wonder St. Peter speaks there of Iudas his prevaricating from the Apostleship and going to Hell which is there cal'd his proper place to receive his eternal damnation and the Doctor calls it Going to his proper place or assignation for the witnessing the Resurrection and proclaiming the Faith or Doctrine of Christ to the World So as now the Doctor hath found Iudas a Diocess amongst the Devils and by his blasphemous interpretation would have St. Matthias succeed him So blinde is Schism when it is grown to an inveterateness that a proof of Quidlibet è quolibet is a sufficient Argument nay an Evidence to legitimate disobedience of which these two Testimonies the Ground of this Chapter are most pitiful proofs And now can any man that entitles himself a Preacher of Gods Word have the face to appear in the Pulpit to interpret those Sacred Oracles after he hath been challenged and discovered to have so wilfully and shamefully abus'd and corrupted them And alas kinde Readers and dear Countrymen how tender a sence of your misery it must forcibly breed in any charitable heart to think upon what slender reeds your present Faith by which alone you hope for salvation depends and relies These are the men for no priviledge is annext to your first Reformers and Teachers more then to Mr. Hammond these I say are they to believe whose interpretations of Scripture you have left the sence and faith of the whole world to follow whose false call you have abandoned and forsaken the cherishing and gathering wings of your tenderest Mother the Catholick Church to stray up and down in a disordered wilderness of distractions That Church under whose care your prudent and pious Ancestors for so many hundreds of years were brought up in a secure unanimity and settledness of belief That Church in whose bosome they died and from whose holy Arms they quietly delivered their happy Souls into the hands of their Redeemer her ever-blessed Spouse That Church whose Authority was under-propt with the strongest supports which can possibly be imagin'd to strengthen the frailty and settle the fickleness of humane belief in a most firm and constant adherence to supernatural truths such as are the Motives of a never-interrupted Apostolical Succession Universality Sanctity Unity in Faith Uniformity in Practice the ever-constantly-self-like Order in Hierarchical Government the exactness in Discipline the Possession of and Skill in the Sacred Writ the Conversion of all Nations and ours amongst the rest the Splendor and Reverence she observes in her Ceremonies and Administring the Sacraments the long-enjoy'd continuance of the Belief of Infallibility the learning and multitude of her Doctors and Fathers the unmoved constancy of her Martyrs the Angelical Purity and Seraphical devotion of her religious Sons and Daughters the higher and more elevated strain of piety in those Cherubins in flesh her sublime and Heaven-soaring Contemplatives the eminently good and charitable acts proper fruits of that Tree many remainders whereof our thankless and ungrateful Countrey still enjoys And lastly all these with many more by a conspicuous visibleness to the eye easie to be known and most of them actually acknowledged by our very enemies This Church I say and all those pregnant Motives greater then which the world cannot afford nor mans wit invent to oblige to a secure belief you have slighted and suffer your dear Souls to lie at stake under the most dangerous accusation of a grievous Schism without having any better game to play or any other excuse to alleage in counterpoize of so many weighty Motives then onely the bare fidelity and skilfulness of some few private men such as is this Doctor who pretend to
be wiser in interpreting Scripture then all the world besides and who will not stick when they want better shifts to delude your eyes with obtruding their own forgeries and sillilycritical explications as doth this Doctor for most absolute EVIDENCES Awake then as you tender your Souls endless good or misery awake and let these gross-absurdities with which they impose upon you rouze you from the Lethargy of such an easie credulity Wisely bethink your selves in time how unsafe it is to relie on the bare Authority of their slippery interpretations and relinquish the sence of the whole Catholick world Which both possesses a thousand Motives they dare not lay claim to and even in their own pretence which is the right interpreting of Scripture ought in all reason to have infinite advantages Of this dear Reader I thought good to admonish thee by the way in which if I may seem to have said too much the Doctor will make my words good in the process of this work and if I have now complain'd for nothing he will give me cause ere he ends this Chapter to complain for something But ere I proceed I desire the Reader to heed attentively what is in question and what is granted It is granted that Saint Peter preach'd to those of the Circumcision or Jews and for the more particular fruit which by Gods especial assistance he found and the more pains he took amongst them was called their Apostle As also that St. Paul preached to the Gentiles and for the greater cooperation he experienced of Gods assistance in that work which made him more particularly addict himself to them he thence had the appellation of the Apostle of the Gentiles as he himself clearly explicates himself in the place the Doctor alleages Gal. 2. 7 8. where he gives the reason why the Jews more particularly belonged to St. Peter and the Gentiles to him in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For he that wrought with Peter for the Apostleship of the Circumcision wrought with me also â—…mongst the Gentiles Where the particle Forâ—… manifestly renders the reason why these tâ—… Apostles were more properly particularized 〈◊〉 these two parts of the world to wit by 〈◊〉 other designation then the more especial câ—â—operation of Gods efficacious assistance as 〈◊〉 yet more plainly shown in the ninth Verse 〈◊〉 the same Chapter This therefore is evideâ—… and out of question That St. Peter more peculiarly applied himself to the Jews and St. Paul to the Gentiles at least in the beginning of the Church That which is in question thâ—… is whether the Jews were so particularly St. Peters Province that his Authority was limited to them so that he neither did nor coulâ—… intermeddle in the conversion of the Gentileâ—… that is had no jurisdiction over them anâ—… the contrary of St. Paul This is the Doctoâ—… Position from whence he takes his first Evidence against St. Peters Universal Pastorship That this Apostle was Apostles of the Circumcisiâ—… or Iews Exclusively to the Uncircumcision or Gentiles Which Assertion is so shamelesly false sâ—… expresly-opposite to all Scripture and ancient History that it was not possible for a man to invent a Paradox so totally unwarrantable and improbable as this Nay more I promisâ—… the Reader and Mr. Hammond too That if amongst those many Testimonies he produces to prove it there be but found any one sentence line word syllable or letter which excludeâ— St. Peters Authority from the Gentiles more then what this man puts in his of own head I will be content to yeeld him the whole Controversie And may not a Doctor of Divinity be asham'd such a proffer should be made him in those very proofs of his which he would bear the Reader in hand are most perfect Evidences And first his pretended place of Scripture â—al â— 7. which we have before explicated â—nely says That the Apostleship of the Iews or Circumcision was committed to St. Peter but â—hat it was of the Iews onely or none but them â—o as by the particular Commission to convert â—â—em he lost or was excluded from any jurisdiction over the Gentiles which is the Doctors â—ffertion and can onely advantage his cause â—…ere is neither in that place nor any where â—…se the least syllable Whereas it is impossible 〈◊〉 should not see that the contrary to wit that 〈◊〉 Peter both had Authority and did preach 〈◊〉 the Gentiles was as manifest in Scripture as 〈◊〉 Sun at Noon-day half the eleventh Chapâ—… of the Acts being employed in a most exâ—…ss Narration of St. Peters vision exhorâ—…ing â—…n to preach to the Gentiles which he accordingly did and went immediately by an espeâ—… Mission of God to convert Cornelius a Genâ—… where he preached to him and his whole â—…se As also St. Peter in the Council at Ieruâ—…m affirmed saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath chosen amongst us that the Gentiles should hear the â—…d of the Gospel by my mouth and believe What 〈◊〉 we think now of this Doctor who puts â—…vident out of Scripture that St. Peter had no authority to preach to the Gentiles where as the Scripture expresly says He was chose out of the rest and particularly authorized so that end Is this man fit to be accounted 〈◊〉 expounder of Gods Word who thus wilfull perverts and purposely contradicts it Besides if St. Peter were made Apostle 〈◊〉 the Jews Exclusively to the Gentiles by the same reason St. Paul was made Apostle of 〈◊〉 Gentiles Exclusively to the Jews For the woâ—… alleaged Gal. 2. 7. The Gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me as the Gospel of 〈◊〉 Circumcision was to Peter upon which onâ—… the Doctor builds this Tenet equally inserâ—… Exclusiveness of jurisdiction in one as in 〈◊〉 other over his fellow Apostles Province as 〈◊〉 Particle As signifies and the Doctor himâ—… confesses Section seven unless the word peculiar must lose its signification Yet it is 〈◊〉 evident that St. Paul where ever he caâ—… preached first to the Jews as appears most evidently Acts 13. 5. 14. 1. 17. 1 2 3. whâ—… it is said That it was St. Pauls manner or câ—… to go into the Iews Synagogue and preach Châ—… Faith Also Acts 20. 18 21. where St. Paul sâ—… of himself That ever since he came into Asia witnessed both to the Iews and Grecians the 〈◊〉 pentance towards God and Faith towards Châ—… Likewise Acts 19. 8. 21. 21. where the formation against St. Paul was That he tâ—… all the Iews such and such things that follâ—… there So Acts 22. the whole Chapter alâ—… being a Sermon of his to the Iews Again 〈◊〉 24. 24. 28. 23. where we finde that 〈◊〉 at Rome St. Paul preached to the Iews 〈◊〉 And now let the Reader judge if this be â—… most steel'd impudence thus point-blank and diametrically opposite to the whole stream of Scripture and onely upon his bare word to impale and confine the Authority of the Apostles to mutually-exclusive
greater Authority in Iames did St. Peter vote the contrary and St. Iames his sentence oversway or would not the advice of commanding them to abstain from the things there prohibited have been voted and accepted of by the Council though the proposition had been made by one of inferior dignity unless perhaps the Doctor imagines the Apostles and Elders of the Church assembled in the Council were such weak passionate and partial men that they did not decree things because they were reason and fitting but because St. Iames spoke them whose greater Authority the Doctor seating him in the principal place they were you must think somewhat afraid of But any thing serves this Doctor for an Evidence His all swallowing faith makes that seem a demonstration against the Pope which to us poor men because of our unbelief bears not so much as the least show of a probability And he imagines from the particle Then in the two and twentieth verse which he misunderstands that he who gives his sentence after another hath an Authority above him Though in reason one should rather think after such debate as had been concerning this matter Verse 7. it argued some greater Authority in him who should first break the Ice and interpose his judgment in such a solemnly-pronounced Oration as did St. Peter But the Doctor will have the contrary a demonstration and who can help it The up shot then of this Paragraph is that the Doctors concluding against St. Peters Primacy from St. Iames his being first named is a prejudice to his own cause from his principal place in the Council the Doctors own fiction from his giving the sentence and on it grounding the Rescript two fine little diminutive frauds and abuses of Scripture from his instalment a frivolous peece of affected ignorance and thus you have a perfect account cast up of the Doctors sixth Paragraph in his fourth Chapter of Evidences Ere I remove to another I desire the Reader whose little curiosity has not invited him to look into languages not to be amazed at the large Greek citations which here swell the Margin I can assure him they are nothing at all to the Question but of indifferent matters acknowledged by our selves And I will be bound both at this time and hereafter for the Doctors innocency in this point That he is never tedious nor over large either in Citations or Reasons which tend directly to the thing in controversie as hath heretofore in part been declared and shall more particularly be manifested hereafter In the seventh Paragraph to omit what hath been answered already he tells us That St. Paul had no Commission received from nor dependence on St. Peter citing for it Gal. 1. 12 17. Which words may import a double sence either that the manner of conferring upon him the power of an Apostle was not by means or dependence on St. Peter and so far indeed the Scripture is clear and we acknowledge it or else that this power given him was not dependent on or subject to St. Peter as the cheif of the Apostles which is the question here treated denied by us nor contradicted at all by the place alleaged But he proceeds in his fundamental absurdity that those two great Apostles wherever they came the one constantly applied himself to the Iews the other to the Gentiles Where if by constantly he means most commonly or even always yet so as they retained jurisdiction over the others Province then to omit that it hath been shown contrary to Scripture it makes nothing against us But if it signifie exclusively or so That neither had any Authority over the others Province in which sence onely it can limit St. Peters Universal Authority which as he expresses Section six is his aim then I refer the Reader to my eighth Section of this Chapter where he shall see the contrary manifested to the eye by nine or ten most express places of Scripture yet the Doctor goes on to evidence it by Testimonies which obliges us to address our selves with new vigor to bear the shock of so terrible an encounter His first testimony is his own knowledge Thus we know saith he it was at Antioch where St. Peter converted the Iews and St. Paul the Gentiles But puts down no testimony at all to confirm the weaker ones of his own We know which yet had been requisite that we might have known it too But he tells us that certainly St. Paul was no ways subordinate to St. Peter as appears by his behavior towards him avowed Gal. 2. 11. that is From his withstanding him to the face Yet wiser men then Mr. Hammond to wit St. Cyprian and St. Austin thought otherwise who interpreted St. Peters bearing it so patiently not as an argument of his less or equal Authority but of his greater humility that being higher in dignity he should suffer so mildly the reprehensions of an inferior Quem saith St. Cyprian quamvis Primum Dominus elegerit super eum aedificaverit Ecclesiam suam tamen cum secum Paulus disceptavit non vindicavit â—ibi aliquid insolenter aut arroganter assumpsit ut diceret se Primatum tenere obtemperari à novellis posteris sibi potiùs oportere nec despexit Paulum quod Ecclesiae priùs persecutor fuisset sed consilium veritatis admisit c. Whom though our Lord chose to be the first of the Apostles and upon him built his Church yet when Paul contended with him be did not challenge and assume to himself any thing in an insolent and proud manner as to say That he had the Primacy and so should rather be obeyed by newer and later Apostles neither did he despise Paul because he had formerly been a persecutor of the Church but admitted the councel of Truth Thus that ancient learned and holy Father St. Cyprian yet Mr. Hammond hath certainty of the contrary SECT 10. The Examination of ten dumb Testimonies which Dr. Hammond brings to plead for him THe next Testimony begins thus ACCORDINGLY that is to the Doctors own WE KNOW in Ignatius his Epistle to the Magnesians We read that the Church of Antioch was founded by St. Peter and St. Paul After which follows another of the same Author in his Epistle to the Antiochians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You have been the Disciples of Peter and Paul What then These Testimonies are stark dumb in what concerns the Doctors purpose for the founding the Antiochians Church and teaching them might have been done by the promiscuous endeavors of those Apostles Here is not the least news of distinction much less exclusion of Authority and Jurisdiction True indeed the Testimonies are defective and to blame but the Doctor knows how to mend them by his Interpretation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You have been the Disciples of Peter and Paul ID EST saith the Doctor converted and ruled by them the Iewish part by one and the Gentile by the other Was ever such an ID EST
readest this Answer whether thou be'st Catholick Protestant Puritan nay even the Doctor himself it is impossible but thou shouldst manifestly see that the Doctor hath not said one syllable to the purpose there being neither in any of the former nor following Testimonies either out of Scriptures Fathers or Histories any the least restrictive or exclusive sentence particle or syllable for him To say nothing that all both Scriptures Fathers and ancient Histories are most expresly against him What a most unfortunate man is this Doctor to vent these for EVIDENCES and how unfortunate they who hazard the eternal loss of their Souls upon such mens writings But to return to our six Testimonies By what means think you does he make them speak to his purpose Not by torturing and screwing the words to confess what they never intended that were impossible in such stubborn allegations and perfectly-silent in what concerns him Nor by intermingling words of his own to prompt them and make them speak out which is the old and often-discover'd trick of his fellows nor by criticizing his former unsuccessful art but by pinning a Paper of his own forging to the Testimony alleaged and gulling the Reader to his face that the Author sayes it So as the device is the same onely the method altered for the said necessary Paper-which he used to pin behinde the Testimony now he pastes before it beginning the ninth Paragraph which introduces the formerly-recited Testimonies thus The same is as EVIDENT at Rome where these two great Apostles met again and each of them erected and managed a Church St. Peter of Iews and St. Paul of Gentiles Hold Doctor the Testimonies should have told us that why do you forestal them And then as in the eight Section after his own bare WE KNOW he used the transition of ACCORDINGLY to bring in his Authors So now after he had straw'd the way with his own evident as he pleased himself he ushers in the modest Testimonies with so many Soe 's So Irenaeus so Epiphanius so the Inscription so Gaius whereas indeed the following Testimonies are no more So or like his Preface to them and to the question they are produced for then as the Proverb says the running of the Wheel-barrow is to the owing of six pence The Doctor shall put the Similitude in form and the Reader shall judge Just as I say saith the Doctor That St. Peter and St. Paul each of them erected and managed a Church one of Iews the other of Gentiles with exclusion of St. Pauls authority over St. Peters and St. Peters over St. Pauls Congregation Even SO St. Irenaeus says That they built the Church there St. Epiphanius That they were Apostles and Bishops there c. The Reader may perceive the fitness of the rest by applying them at his leasure Onely ere I take my leave of these Testimonies I would gladly learn of the Doctor why in his preamble to them he maintains a distinction of Churches belonging to St. Peter and St. Paul and then brings in St. Prosper with a So to witness it whereas himself in the nineteenth Section of this very Chapter makes the same St. Prosper testifie the quite contrary and a promiscuous Jurisdiction over the Gentiles saying expresly That Peter and Paul at Rome Gentium Ecclesiam Sacrârunt consecrated the Church of the Gentiles Were ever such mistakes incident to any other man as are natural to this Doctor But it seems he wants a good memory a necessary qualification for him that says any thing at random without ground authority or reason to maintain a false cause or rather indeed foreseeing the danger he made the Testimony whisper softly in English lest it might be taken notice of translating Ecclesia Gentium The Church of the Nations because the word Gentiles would be too much reflected on being that which throughout this whole Chapter he hath absolutely interdicted St. Peter to have any thing to do with Alas poor man SECT 11 The Examination of Dr. Hammonds Irrefragable Evidence and other silent Testimonies produced by him BUt now we are come to his EVIDENCE of EVIDENCES the Seals of the Popes which the Doctor here calls an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE I know the Reader will expect some most express and unavoidable Testimony out of some ancient Writer beyond all exception and of the first Class witnessing as the Faith of that Age the contradistinction and contralimitation of St. Peter and St. Pauls Jurisdiction The Testimony is out of Matthew Paris which I will transcribe word by word together with the Doctors Comment upon it In the Bull of the Pope stands the Image of St. Paul on the right hand of the Cross which is graven in the midst of the Seal and the Image of St. Peter on the left And this onely account saith the Doctor given for St. Pauls having the nobler place Quia c. because he believed in Christ without seeing him Here on Earth addes the Doctor in a Parenthesis Here is all that belongs to this Testimony transcribed to a word without any more either Explication or Application to the matter before or after than is here put down And now for Gods sake Reader tell me what canst thou discern here of St. Peters being Apostle of the Iews onely and exclusively to the Gentiles which may deserve it should be called an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE My eyes are dazel'd it seems with striving to see a thing at such an unproportionable distance for I can espie nothing at all in it Had the Question between us been Whether St. Paul believed on Christ without seeing him or no it might have served to some purpose but to our case it hath no imaginable relation Yet this Eagle-ey'd Doctor in the bare pictures of St. Peter and St. Paul on a Seal can discern clearly an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE that their Authorities are exclusively-limited St. Peters to the Iews St. Pauls to the Gentiles which none living could see without his colour'd and insincere spectacles to wit blackest hatred and rancor against the Pope While he looks through these any thing appears an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE which may seem possible in his perverse imagination to be detorted to the Popes prejudice and to wound him though through the sides of St. Peter After this Testimony or IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE follows immediately in the Doctor And all this very agreeable to Scripture which onely sets down St. Peter to be the Apostle of Circumcision and of his being so at Rome saith he we make no question What means his All this For neither in any Testimony nor yet in the Popes Seal is there any the least expression of St. Peters being onely the Apostle of the Circumcision save in his own words onely yet he says that all this is in that point agreeable to Scripture it is then of his own words he means which how disconformable and totally repugnant they are to Scripture hath already been shewn Nor are they less dissonant in this
very place to Sacred Writ for neither doth the Scripture onely set down Saint Peter as Apostle of the Circumcision but James and John also Gal. 2. 9. Nor is St. Peter any where exprest as Apostle of onely the Circumcision but expresly particulariz'd the contrary as hath been manifested out of Acts the fifteenth and seventh So as that ONELY is your own forgery pin'd here to the Scripture as before to your too sober Testimonies Neither your Authors then nor Scripture speak a word of Saint Peter being at Rome the Apostle of the Iews onely The onely proof of it is your own unquestionable certainty of it exprest here that of his being at Rome you make no question So that your onely grounds and proofs of your position is WE MAKE NO QUESTION and WE KNOW And I here again confirm my former promise to you That if you can shew me the least syllable either in Scripture or your other Testimonies expresly and without the help of your ID ESTS and scruing deductions restraining St. Peters Jurisdiction to the Iews onely and exclusively to the Gentiles I will yeeld you the Laurel and quit the Controversie His twelfth Testimony for his IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE from the Popes Seal was the Eleventh is brought in with another So. So the Scripture affirms of St. Paul that he preached at Rome in his own hired house receiving them which came unto him Acts 28. 30. which the Doctor most fitly applies to the Gentiles of thâ— City the Iews having solemnly saith he departeâ—… from him Vers. 29. But looking into the Teâ—… I finde no such word as solemnly which he after his accustomed manner pinâ— to the Testimony nor any sign of a solemnity of departure buâ—… rather the contrary there being in that placâ—… no expressions either of absolute relinquishing him nor pertinacity nor contempt but onely that after he had spoken They departed and hâ—… much discourse or debate amongst themselves which is rather a sign of hoveringness and unsetledness in the business not indisposing them tâ—… a return then of a fixed and solemn rejectioâ—… of his society and rather a solemn disputeâ—… whether they should return or no than so solemn a departure as Master Hammond imaginâ—… Next the Doctor might have seen in Acts 13 46. both Paul and Barnabas tell the Jews boldly saith the Text That they would turn to the Gentiles and depart more solemnly shaking off thâ—… dust of their feet against them Vers. 51. Another manner of parting then this was and yet many times afterwards did they preach to the Jews notwithstanding their so solemn departure Lastly What became of the Jews which aâ—… is manifest in this eight and twentieth Chapter and twenty fourth verse were converted by St. Paul Must they necessarily quite fall ouâ—… with St. Paul and never see him more because he had perswaded them to believe in Christ. Yet the Doctor upon authority onely of the word solemnly which was of his own coyning thinks he hath evidenced that St. Paul at Rome treated with none but Gentiles the Text it self not admitting so much as a probability of it But all is good Corn that the Doctors Mill grinds His fourteenth Testimony is out of St. Ignatius I will first cite the words as I finde them in the Author in the place quoted by him and then let you hear the Doctors Comment upon them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Ignatius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What are Deacons but imitators of the Heavenly Powers exhibiting to him the Bishop a pure and blameless Ministery as holy Stephen did to blessed James Timothy and Linus to Paul Anacletus and Clement to Peter This is all And now good Reader pardon me that I am forced to trouble thee so often I intreat thee as thou lovest truth and honesty to take this Testimony and sift it well over and over and then give in thy verdict what thou canst discover in it which in the most far fetcht construction can be said to evidence That St. Peter was onely over the Iews and St. Paul over the Gentiles Here to an ordinary eye nothing seems to be said but onely that St. Peter had such two Deacons and St. Paul other two which are there named wherefore I say sift it well and that with the disquisitive exactness as men do Riddles and when thou hast spent all thy industry in vain I will bring thee Doctor Hammond who will cure both thine and my blindness by his Exposition beginning his eleventh Section thus ACCORDINGLY observe the old transition in Ignatius Ep. ad Trall we read of Linus and Clement that one was St. Pauls the other St. Peters Deacon both which afterwards succeeded them in the Episcopal Chair Linus being constituted Bishop of the Gentile Clement of the Iewish Christians there And there he stops Where all that any way makes to the purpose is subjoyned by the Doctor out of his own head There is no dealing with such a terrible adversary who though he should chuse out his Testimonies blindfold and at all-adventures yet hath such a perilous faculty that nothing can come wrong to him but he will ere he hath done with it make it speak pat to his purpose What follows in this Section is onely a vain-glorious conceit that he hath found out a way to enucleate a difficulty in History concerning Linus and Cletus which all the Historians in the world never dream't on before and this onely forsooth out of his own wrong laid erroneous grounds But because the Doctor says that this rare and unheard-of discovery or as he calls it his Scholion is UNQUESTIONABLY true as also because it is built onely upon the slippery sand of his own saying already proved to be false I will forbear to vex him or trouble my self unnecessarily by vouchsasing it any farther confute His twelfth Section proceeding upon the grounds of his own Scholion lately brought to light to teach the world new History never heard of before tells us That in Pope Clemens the Union of the Iewish and Gentile Congregations was first made and not in St. Peter So that the Doctor first upon his own giddy imagination â—ancied them distinct and now because he saw no more but one Bishop succeed in the Roman Chair fancies them united without any word from History to countenance the former or any thing but his own Scholion to make good the latter And surely it were very strange that whereas the difficulty about the succession of Clemens was so ventilated and the opinions so various amongst the ancient Fathers Ignatius Tertullian Ierome c. no man could ever understand the business aright till this happy age in which Dr. Hammond was born whose Glow-worm fancy evidenced more then all the former lights of the Church could discover Many evasions they found out to solve the difficulty As that Anacletus and Cletus were the same that Clemens who as Tertullian says â—ate
the fourth and yet was ordain'd by St. Peter refused the Office till the successive death of Linus and Cletus to which solution recur S. Epiphanius Ruffinus c. but none ever dream'd of Dr. Hammonds facile all-solving Scholion That Linus was the first Bishop of the Gentile-Christians after S. Paul Clemens the first of the Iewish after St. Peter which had been very obvious to those that lived so neer those times but the reason why they did not is evident because they never dream'd of a distinction of Iewish and Gentile Church and Bishops whereas the Doctor dreams of nothing else The Fathers and ancient Writers were alas in a great mistake imagining that all the endeavors of the Apostles as far as they could without scandalizing either part tended to reduce both the Iews and Gentiles to Unity and Uniformity in one Church and to unite them in him whom they taught and preacht to be the Head Cornerstone Christ Iesus in whom is no distinction of Iews and Gentiles till one Mr. Hammond a Protestant Minister came with his Scholions and Id ests to teach them contrary doctrine In the beginning of the thirteenth Section he affirms stoutly That for another great part of the world it is manifest that St. Peter had never to do either mediately or immediately in the planting and governing of it If it be so manifest Master Hammond it had been easier for you to make it manifest to us and was requisite you should it being your proper task otherwise to cry it is manifest and yet bring nothing to prove it is as much as to say It is manifest because I fancy it so But as before you brought the invincible Testimonies of WE KNOW and WE MAKE NO QUESTION for EVIDENCES so now onely with an authentick IT IS MANIFEST you think the deed done and your cause evinced In his fourteenth Section he tells us That St. John had the dignity of place before all others in Christs life time even before St. Peter himself This he proves plainly he says from his style of beloved Disciple and leaning on Christs brest at Supper As if because Iacob loved Ioseph more then all his other Brethren and therefore out of particular favor might have let him lean on his brest at Supper it must needs mean plainly that yong Ioseph was the highest of his Brethren in dignity had due to him the birth-right and inheritance c. And who sees not that the posture of leaning on Christs brest at Supper was not an orderly and ordinary manner of sitting but onely a peculiar grace and familiarity used towards him by his Lord yet the Doctor is certain of it and for more security gives us a gallant instance That leaning on Christs brest signifies the first place next to Christ as being in Abrahams bosom plainly signifies saith this All-explaining Doctor being in dignity of place next to the Father of the Faithful From which instance of his if true it follows that Lazarus who was in Abrahams bosom was above all the Patriarchs and Prophets except Abraham as also that none was in Abrahams bosom except Lazarus onely since there can be no more NEXTS but one But it is no wonder to see the Doctor trip now who hath stumbled nay faln down flat on all-four so often In the rest of this Paragraph he tells us That the Jews in the Lydian Asia were St. Iohns peculiar Province in the next that the Gentiles there were St. Pauls and when he hath done destroyes both the one and the other with a Testimony out of St. Chrysostom concerning St. Paul which says that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A whole entire Nation that of Asia was entrusted to him To which joyn what is manifest all over in the Acts that St. Paul preached to the Jews in Asia it is palpable that this Testimony affirms St. Paul to have had Jurisdiction over all in Asia both Jews and Gentiles Again since the Doctors groundâ— make the Jurisdictions of the Apostles exclusive to one another and this place tells us that the whole entire Nation of Asia was under St. Paul it must follow out of his doctrine of Exclusive Iurisdiction that poor St. Iohn had not so much as the place of a Parish-Priest allow'd him of his own but what he was beholding to St. Paul for What an unpardonable blindness was this to prove St. Paul over the Gentiles onely by a Testimony which entitles him to the whole entire Nation SECT 12. Another dumb show of Dr. Hammonds Testimonies to prove St. Peter over the Iews onely AFter such invincible Testimonies alleaged the Doctor begins to triumph and tells us That we cannot say any thing in any degree probable for St. Peters Universal Pastorship over the Churches in the Lydian Asia And the reason he gives is because they were so early famous as that Christ honored them with an Epistle in the Revelations It must be a wonderful acuteness in Logick which can make this conclude Christ wrote an Epistle to those Churches therefore St. Peter had nothing to do with them As if the same reason did not as well exclude all the rest of the Apostles as St. Peter from their Jurisdiction But the Doctor says they were early famous I ask him were they earlier than our Saviours chusing twelve Apostles and Simon Peter the first if not their earliness will not hurt us nor help you His next two demands concerning St. Iohns and St. Pauls Jurisdiction there are already answer'd out of his own Testimony from St. Chrysostom It follows Doth not â—t Paul give him meaning Timothy full instructions and such as no other Apostle could countermand or interpose in them leaving no other Appeal nor place of Application for farther directions save Onely to himself when he shall come to him And then to make the Reader believe that all this is Scripture he quotes for it immediately 1 Tim. 3. 14 15. Doctor Doctor play fair above board In the place you quote there is not one word of all this long rabble but the bare word Come as is evident even in your own translation where I finde it thus These things write I unto thee hoping to come unto thee shortly But if I tarry long that thou maist know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the House of God the pillar and ground of truth Where in the fifteenth Verse there is nothing at all of this rambling story which the Doctor talks of in the fourteenth Verse onely the word Come So as out of this seemingly-barren Monosyllable Come the Doctor hath miraculously caused a fruitful harvest of Testimonies arise for his purpose to wit That St. Paul gave him such instructions as NO OTHER APOSTLE COULD COUNTERMAND OR INTERPOSE IN THEM that he left NO APPEAL or place of Application for further directions save ONELY TO HIMSELF c. Where are all those quarrelling and exceptive terms But the Doctor seems willing not onely to limit the Apostles
undeniably evident For it was never said to Iames Iohn Philip c. in particular by name and in the singular I will give thee the Keys much less after such a solemn manner as was to St. Peter First With a particular blessing and encomium of him Blessed art thou in the singular Simon Bar jona for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven Then alluding to his name in particular And I say unto thee again the singular that Tu es Petrus c Thou art Peter and super hanc Petram upon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Then follows And I will give unto thee still in the singular the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven c. Necessarily therefore it must be granted That something was said to St. Peter in particular and that solemnly and upon particular occasion sprung from St. Peters own person Vers. 16. which was not said to any other Apostle in particular And since this saying was a promise it follows That a promise of some thing was made to St. Peter in particular Wherefore seeing this thing promised was the giving the Keys of Heaven it follows that the promise of giving the Keys of Heaven was made to St. Peter in particular Neither will the Doctors proving that they were given afterwards in common to the rest prejudice this at all for there is no difficulty but the same thing may be given to many in common and yet to some one of those many in a more particular manner Now then this promise being made not onely to all the Apostles in general but also to St. Peter in particular it is most consonant to reason and worthy our Saviour not onely to perform his promise but also to perform it according to the tenor and manner in which he promised But the Doctor cannot or will not finde any performance in particular but wholly omits it and indeed it was dangerous for it was our best and most express Testimony and instead of it produces onely a performance to them all in general Whereas Iohn 21. 15 16 17. he might have seen it expresly recommended and encharged upon St. Peter particularly and by name once twice thrice with as many repetitions of his name particularizing him over and over Feed my Lambs Feed my sheep feed my sheep And least such an one as Mr. Hammond should after so many expresly-peculiar designations doubt yet there might be an equality our B. Saviour asks St. Peter Amas me plus his Dost thou love me more then these which manifestly puts a particularity comparison and inequality in Saint Peter from and above the rest of the Apostles in the interrogatory and therefore the inference upon its resolution Feed my sheep encharged upon him as an argument of this greater love and the cause of this trust must in good consequence of reason be unequal and particular in Saint Peter in comparison of the other Apostles These and some others are the Testimonies from Scripture which to speak with the least every impartial man will see that even taken in themselves they sound much to our advantage and the prejudice of our Adversaries but interpreted by the Catholick Church according to her never-erring rule of Faith give us an infallible certainty that they express a Primacy in St. Peter whatever the Doctors private judgment imagines or ghesses to the contrary In a word the result of all Dr. Hammonds Answer is That our Saviour promised indeed in particular but did not perform as he had promised that is particularly but in common onely That is by such a solemn and singularly applied promise he made good St. Peter expect great matters as any man in reason would by such a carriage and then when it came to performance quite deluded his expectation giving him no more then the rest of his fellows It follows in the Doctor The applying the words particularly to Saint Peter hath one special energy in it and concludes That the Ecclesiastical power of Oeconomy or Stewardship in Christs house of which the Keys are the token Isa. 22. 21. belongs to single persons such as St. Peter was and not to Consistories or Assemblies That whatsoever St. Peter acted by virtue of Christs power thus promised he should be fully able to act himself without the conjunction of any other and that what he thus did clave non errante no one or more men on Earth could rescind without him which is a just ground of placing the power Ecclesiastical in the Prelate not in the Presbytery c. This is Master Hammonds Corollary out of the former Texts out of which ploughing with our Heiser he concludes against the Presbyterians But first since those words are particularly applied to St. Peter all that is implied in those words are particularly also appliable to him and this being the Donation of the Keyes it follows That the Donation of the Keys and whatever is consequent out of that Donation or signified by those Keys is particularly applied to him but the Keys are the token saith the Doctor of Ecclesiastical Oeconomy or Stewardship in Christs house This Office therefore must be particularly applied to St. Peter and seeing those words were no otherwise particularly applied to St. Peter then by our Saviours speaking them to him in the singular and in a singular manner as he did it follows That our Saviour told St. Peter in the singular and in a singular manner that he should be steward of his house Also since all particularizing is a kinde of exception from an universality or community and the universality or community before whom our Saviour spoke it and from whom any kinde of exception could be imagin'd to be there made was the other Apostles it follows That St. Peter was particularized out of that community for the office of Steward in Christs house Again since the Keys are the token as the Doctor proves of the Ecclesiastical Oeconomy and Stewardship in Christs house and however we read that the effect of the Keys that is power of binding and loosing was given to others yet it is no where exprest in Scripture that the Keys themselves the badge of that Office were given to the rest even in common for it s no where read â—â—bis dabo claves it follows manifestly That if our Saviour kept his word to St. Peter since he promised him the signal token of that Office of Steward he performed it to him making him Steward of his house and by the delivery of the Keys installing him in that charge so as onely St. Peter was installed and if the Doctor will needs contend the rest were he must confess withal that he hath no ground for it since he will never read either of such a promise or performance made by our Saviour that he would give the Keys themselves which onely are the badge of that Function to any of the rest Thirdly
Since the giving the Keys is particularly applied to St. Peter and that those Keys are a token of an Oeconomy or Stewardship in Christs house it follows the Apostles being a part of Christs house or his Church that Saint Peter was constituted Ecclesiastical Steward over them Fourthly The Doctors inference from the particular Application of these words to St. Peter That the Stewardship belongs to single persons and not to Consistories and Assemblies If he intend to deduce hence a power in all the rest of the Apostles and all other Prelates superior to their Assemblies or Consistories is something scrued and far-fetch'd whereas if the words be applied to infer That one was made Steward or Superior in the Consistory or Assembly of the Apostles they are plain and obvious the present circumstances making that Explication natural Lastly Saint Peter being thus constituted Steward in Christs house all that follows in the Doctor though otherwise meant runs on very currantly and upon his grounds to wit That whatsoever St. Peter acted by virtue of Christs power thus promised he should be fully able to act himself without the conjunction of any other and that what he thus did clave non errante no one or more men on Earth could rescind without him Thus hath Doctor Hammond while he disputes against his Brother Presbyters faln into a sudden fit of Popery and at unawares laid grounds for a greater Authority in the Pope then many Papists will grant him But it is onely a fit he will recover I doubt not speedâ—ly as soon he begins to combate us afresh But now as I said the Scene is chang'd The Presbyterian being routed by our weapons that the words were spoken particularly to St. Peter he throws them away affirming here pag. 88. most shamelesly and expresly against Scripture alleaged by himself which named St. Peter in particular and no other in particular That this power was as distinctly promised to each single Apostle as to St. Peter alleages for his first Evidence the words of Scripture Matth. 18. 18. which he says are most clear for that purpose But looking into the Text I finde it onely spoken in common and general to all the Apostles not a word particularizing each single Apostle and distinctly as the Doctor would have it which yet was done to Saint Peter Matth. 16. 19. His second most clear proof is introduced with the old ACCORDINGLY thus And ACCORDINGLY Matth. 19. the promise is again made of twelve Thrones for each to sit on to judge ID EST saith the Doctor to rule or preside in the Church Well done Doctor give you but your own proper weapon of ID EST in weilding which you have a marvellous dexterity and I 'll lay an hundred crowns on your head against the best disputant in Christendom All the world as far as I ever heard except this Doctor understands the place as meant of our Saviours coming to judgment at the Resurrection and the Apostles sitting with him to judge But the Doctor with the help of an ID EST hath made the day of Judgment come in the Apostles time turned judge into preside and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Throne or Iudgment seat into Cathedra an Episcepal Chair or See His third proof is a dumb Negative That the Holy Ghost descended on all the Apostles in fire without any peculiar mark allowed to St. Peter Which reduced into form mutters out thus much That St. Peter had no peculiar mark of fire Ergo concludes the Doctor He was not head of the Apostles Where first I would ask the Doctor how he knows there was no peculiar mark allowed St. Peter He was not there I suppose to see and there is no History either sacred or prophane that expresses the contrary Next if we may judge by exterior actions and may believe That out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks then perhaps the Doctor may receive some satisfaction in this point also that St. Peter had in a more peculiar manner the Holy Ghost For it was he that first burst out into that Heavenly Sermon which converted three thousand But nothing will serve the Doctors curiosity except a greater tongue of fire if he have not that it is most clear he is no head of the Apostles What a wise man is he to think St. Peter could not be chief Pastor of the Church but God must needs be bound to watch all occasions to manifest it by a particular miracle His fourth is from these words And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost In the name of Wonder what can be deduced from this place against St. Peters Primacy The Doctor will manifest it plainly And so saith he the promise of the spirit EQUALLY performed to all Suppose it were equally what follows thence Therefore St. Peter not chief of the Apostles As if none could be higher in dignity but he must necessarily have more of the Holy Ghost in him This Reason then you see is so shallow that even a childe may foard it but his consequence is still shallower inferring from their being full of the Holy Ghost that they had it equally As if each could not be full according to their diverse capacities and yet receive it in a very unequal degree Our Saviour Luke 4. 1 is said to be full of the Holy Ghost so is Barnabas Acts 11. 24. yet as I hope the Doctor will not say Barnabas had the Holy Ghost equally with our Saviour So all the Saints in Heaven are full of Glory yet differ as one Star from another in the degrees of that Glory distributed to them according to the measure of their several capacities Which puts me in minde of a story of a Plough-man who dining with his fellowrusticks when his companions strove to get the bigger Eggs he indifferently chose the lesser affirming That all were equal For which when he was laught at he defended himself with this as he thought serious Reason That the little Eggs had as much meat in them as they could hold and the great ones had no more and therefore there was no difference between them Surely the Doctor heard this dispute stole the Argument and now infers here from all being full of the Holy Ghost that all had it equally The Testimonies you alleage out of the Fathers That the power of the Keys was conforred on all the Apostles that from the giving St. Peter tho Keys the continual successions of Bishops flows that the Church is built upon the Bishops c. We allow of to a tittle and charge it upon you at either a pittiful ignorance or a malicious calumny to pretend by objecting those that we build not the Church upon Bishops in the plural nor allow any authority to them but to the Pope onely whereas you cannot but know how great Authority we give to Councils consisting of Bishops insomuch as it is a School-dispute amongst our Writers Whether the Pope or the Council be of higher
Authority Neither do the Testimonies of Bishops in the plural in the least manner touch us there being not one word in them excluding the Pope Nay rather they make for us for the Church being founded on Apostles and Bishops prejudices not St. Peter and his Successors to be the chiefest And if so then the Church is built most chiefly and especially on St. Peter and his Successors which is all we Catholicks say and not on them onely which he first calumniates us with and then dreamingly impugns ending his two and twentieth Paragraph with a Testimony out of St. Basil who calls Episcopacy The Presidency of the Apostles the very same adds the Doctor That Christ bestowed upon all and not onely on one of them as if we held there were but one Apostle or else that those Bishops who succeeded the rest of the Apostles and were constituted by them were not truly and properly Bishops It follows in the next Section By all which that is by your omitting our best proof from Scripture and answering the weakest by supposing a calumny by your mistake of twelve Thrones by St. Peters having no greater a tongue of fire and all the Apostles being full of the Holy Ghost by the Testimonies of Fathers naming Bishops and Apostles in the plural our of which meer plurality he infers an equality of Authority By all this the Doctor says it is evident again That the Power which Christs Commission instated on St. Peter was in like manner entrusted to every other single Apostle as well as to him c. Whereas he hath not produced one syllable expressing any singularity used to any other single Apostle as was to St. Peter nor one equalizing term of as well equally c. but what he addes himself Though these be the onely expressions can serve him and which he pretends to here as already produced and by producing them to have made the matter Evident But the Doctor being by this time pump'd dry of his own Evidences betakes himself to his former method of answering our Arguments or as he calls it to evacuate them And what Argument think you will he chuse to evacuate but that which is drawn from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and how will he evacuate it but first from Homers Iliads next from the Revelations But indeed he puts our Argument so weakly or rather not at all that is he swallows our proof so glibly and yet evacuates it so groaningly that it were charity in some good body to ease him in this his greatest extremity The sum of his solution of I cannot tell what for he urges no Argument of ours but onely puts down the bare word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems to be this That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore signifies vulgarly a Stone and in Homers Iliads is applied to denote an huge loggerly Stone like a Mill-stone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Next this Stone by the Scripture must needs be a foundation Stone and there being Twelve foundation-stones named in the Apocalypse called there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must follow that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which before was a vulgar-stone is now advanced to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a precious stone Now follows his first inference as well as I can gather it That all the twelve Apostles being in like manner and not St. Peter onely and above the rest styled Foundation-stones it is consequent hence that all were equal Where first the Argument is again onely Negative to wit that no distinction is there put therefore there was none To make which inference good he must first shew that if there were any distinction it must necessarily be exprest upon all occasions Next it is a most pitiful peece of reason to perswade the Reader from onely a plurality and naming twelve Apostles that all were equal As if out of the very naming in the plural twelve Signs Shires Cities or Magistrates it must necessarily follow out of the bare common name of Sign Magistrate c. given to each of them that all were equal Again the Doctor hath quite overthrown his cause by arguing That not onely St. Peter but the rest also were called Foundation-stones and therefore they were all equal Since granting as he does that a Foundation-stone and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being the same and onely St. Peter having the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it follows in the Doctors grounds That he onely and in good reason that he more particularly should be a Rock or Foundation-stone Where note that the Doctor would have all the Apostles call Peter for the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being given St. Peter by our Saviour for no other end but to signifie he was a Rock or as the Doctor will have it a Foundation-stone and every Apostle being according to Master Hammond equally such it follows That they have all as good title to be called Peter as that Apostle who alone till Master Hammond writ had that appellation It follows to strengthen his former weak reason And it being there in vision APPARENT that the wall of the City Id est of the Church being measured exactly and found to be an hundred forty four Id est saith he Twelve times twelve cubits It is evident That that mensuration assigns an equal proportion whether of Power or Province to all and every of the Apostles which is again a prejudice to the Universal Pastorship of any one of them Thus the Doctor intends for an up-shot-Argument to evidence an equality in all the Apostles by the equal division of this Wall But I crave leave to ask the Doctor whether he be certain that none of those precious Stones which equally made up this Wall is richer then the rest For the richness in things of this nature being more considerable and more enhancing their value then the bulk and quantity it follows That the greater preciousness and lustre which manifests it self in one above another may better claim a signification That that Apostle who is represented by it had an authority above the rest then the equal measure of the Wall can infer an equality nay more if there be an equality in the bigness and an inequality in the worth there is no evasion but it must resemble a worthier person In order to which there comes a congruous Argument to my minde such as if it were on the Doctors side and he had the managing of it I know he would make it a MOST IRREFRAGABLE and UNQUESTIONABLE EVIDENCE And though Catholicks who understand the grounds of their Faith â—light such poor supports as a self-fancied Explication of the obscurest part of Scripture in which chiefly consists the Doctors talent in evidencing yet because perhaps he may fancy it stronger then twenty demonstrations and so it may come to do him much good he shall have it very willingly Amongst these twelve pretious Foundation-stones denoting the twelve
of the study of ancient History knows to have been another manner of thing then the Emperors Robe We cannot then in reason think other but that either the Rescript is false and because no new Bishop of Ravenna could use the Pall without a new Concession from the Pope as appears in St. Greg. Lib. 5. Epist. 8. forged in the time of the Schism that they might have some pretence to retain still the use of the Pall which they accounted honorable Or at least it cannot be imagined to have been made without the Popes consent since the Pope in the very next year after the making of this presumed Rescript appointed and constituted even those of Ravenna at first being unwilling St. Peter Chrysologus to succeed in that See after the decease of Iohn as the same Monuments affirm Whence the Doctor but from a manifestly corrupted part of them pickt out this Testimony That the after-Bishops of Ravenna were sometimes Schismaticks all the world knows none excusing them much less bringing that action of theirs for a Testimony or example till such as Mr. Hammond arose who were involved in the same crime But that from Valentiâ—â—ans time Ravenna held the Patriarchate till the time of Constantinus Pogonatus without dependence on the Bishop of Rome as the Doctor tells us is an intolerable mistake as any one meanly versed in History knows and as is manifest by Pope Gregories Letters to the Bishops of that place who was made Pope in the year Five hundred and ninety whereas Pogonatus began his reign in the year Six hundred sixty and eight Their sact then Master Doctor can onely stead or excuse you thus far to shew that others have been Schismaticks as well as your selves and therefore you are not the first nor onely men that have faln into a such a lapse And thus far indeed we grant your consequence but it will not serve to shew that you are faultless because they were faulty You should have manifested first the justifiableness of their fact and then proceed by applying it to justifie your own Or rather indeed it infers you are Schismaticks because you cling to none but those whom all the world esteemed to be such But me thinks I hear the Doctor gravely complain That I call all those Schismaticks whom he alleages as Testimonies against me and that this also is A method of security beyond all AMULETS I answer let it neither be as he nor I say but what the whole Christian World both then and ever since held none contradicting but those who were accused of the same fault Let us therefore make plain Reason our Judge in this present Controversie The Popes at the breach of the Ravennates from their subjection made head against them and stood upon their Authority as Universal Pastors of the Church as the Doctor will grant Which therefore in all likelihood would have been looked on by the rest of the Catholick Bishops as a proud usurpation and being against their common interest to let the Pope pretend to an Universal Pastorship ought in all reason to have engaged them in the Ravennates quarrel Is there any news of such an Universal siding Not a word By which one may at least conjecture That they thought the Popes pretence to the Primacy lawful How did the Ravennates behave themselves in the business Did they stick close to and constantly claim their non subjection to the Pope from Canons or Scripture Nothing less They recanted often and acknowledged subjection as the Doctor grants and says they did it sometimes out of fear of other enemies sometimes out of friendship or despite to their own Clergy yet the people adds the Doctor thought themselves injured Well but what said the Governors of the world all this while to whom it appertained to see Justice rightly administred How did the Emperor Iustinian the then Head of the Church as the Doctor will have it decide the Controversie when he came to conclude it He vindicated the Pope and punished most severely the people of Ravenna banished the Bishop and in a judiciary manner put the ringleaders of the Schism to death at Constantinople whither they were carried bound What a pitiful Controvertist then is this Doctor to alleage the bare fact of a turbulent rebellious never-quiet City against the justly-presumed acknowledgment and the unanimous belief both of the then-present and future Christian World Lastly against the decision of those who were their Temporal Lords and lawful Judges and according to the Doctors grounds against the verdict of the Head of the Church to whom the rightful power in those matters legally pertained His fourth Instance is out of Balsamon an enemy to the See of Rome and a writer for the Greeks against it who says That some Arch-Bishopricks had from the Emperors Charter that priviledge not to be subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople Where first if we may trust Balsamon who seems in this very place and Treatise to plead for the Greeks against the Bishop of Rome then Mr. Doctor you know your double task necessary to make good your premises ere you can conclude any thing to wit that the Emperors did it with order from the Church or in case they did not that it was done lawfully Next does the Testimony say That the Emperor priviledged them from subjection to the Pope as Head of the Church if not there is no hurt at all done to our question if it did there had not been much since an enemies saying is no slander His fifth instance is That under Phocas the Patriarchate of Grado in Italy was erected Where first it seems The Testimony says not it was done by him but under him or while he reigned and then for any thing you can conclude from hence The Pope did it in Phocas his reign Secondly since it was not indeed of new erected but translated thither from Aquileia burned not long before by the Longobards it was no sign of a presumed Jurisdiction but rather of a pious generosity whether in Phocas or Charls the Great to bestow a new seat on the destitute Patriarch To omit that in the Council of Grado was read the Epistle of Pope Felagius the second granting to Elias of Gradâ— the place of the Patriarch of Aquileia The Doctor did wisely then to put under Phocas in stead of by Phocas that so he might seem to intimate by ambiguity what he durst not speak out for want of evidence SECT 5. The Doctors Testimonies from Councils and Histories found to be partly against himself partly frivolous and to no purpose AFter his Evidence from a forged Rescript and a tumultuous rable That the right of erecting Patriarchates belongs to the Secular Power and that this in the Western part of Christianity was an ordinary custom he proceeds to shew That this was a frequent usage in the East also citing for it no less authority then that highest one of General Councils Sacred Witnesses Whom to
not from the Tribunal of the Jews much less their Synagogue representing their Church as the Doctor would perswade us but from the Tribunal of Portius Festus a Roman Governor under Caesar to Caesar himself I will onely put down the words as I finde them in their own Translation and so leave the Doctor to the Readers Judgement either to be accused for willfully abusing or ignorantly mistaking them But Festus willing to do the Iews a pleasure answered Paul and said wilt thou go up to Ierusalem and there be judged of these things before me Then said Paul I stand at Caesars judgement-seat where I ought to be judged c. Act. 25. 9 10 c. And now is not this Doctor think you the fittest man among all the sons of the Church of England to have a Pension for writing Annotations in folio on the Bible His last proof is that Iustinians third Book is made up of Constitutions de Episcopis Clericis Laicis Bishops Priests Laymen First we answer and the same may be said of the Theodosian Code that all the Laws found there must not necessarily be Iustinians since the Keepers of the Laws use not onely to put in their Law-books those Constitutions themselves made but also those they are to see observed among which are the Canons and Laws of the Church made before by Councils and other Ecclesiastical Powers Secondly We grant Iustinian may make Constitutions of his own concerning Bishops and Clergymen in what relates to temporal affairs or as they are parts of the civil Commonwealth And lastly If he shall be found to have made any Laws concerning them and without the Authority of the Church entrenching upon Ecclesiastical businesses let the Doctor prove he had power to make such and he will in so doing clear him in that part from that note of Tyranny which is objected against him What you say concerning the Canons of Councils that they have been mostly set out by the Emperors It is very certain you might if you had pleased instead of your Mostly have put Always the causing them to be promulgated belonging to the Office of the supreme secular Powers whose obligation it is to see that the Churches decrees be received and put in execution What you clap in within a Parenthesis as your custom is to intermingle truth with falshood that Canons of Councils received their Authority by the Emperor In the sence you take it is a great error For never was it heard that an Emperor claimed a negative voice in making a Canon of a Council valid which concerned matters purely Spiritual nay nor disaccepted them decreed unanimously by the Fathers but all the world lookt upon him as an unjust and tyrannical incroacher They receive indeed Authority from the Emperor in this sense that his subscription and command to proclaim them makes them have a more powerful reception and secures them from the obstacles of turbulent and rebellious spirits But this will not content you your aym is that they should not have the Authority or validity of a Canon without the last-life-giving-hand of the Emperors vote which is onely a strain of your own liberality to him or rather of your envy towards the Church without any ground of his rightful claim to any such Jurisdiction over Councils SECT 7. Other empty Proofs of this pretended Right confuted THese rubs being removed it will be our next sport to address an answer to his nineteenth Section it self where omitting his ten Parenthesisses which contain nothing but either sayings of his own or Greek out of Strabo's Geography That the Romans kept their assizes at divers places or Testimonies from the Council of Chalcedon already answered omitting these I say I will briefly resume the whole sence of the Paragraph as well as I can gather it out of the some-thing-more Lucid intervals of his mad Parenthesisses And this I take to be the sum of it That Kings should according to emergent conveniences change their Seats of Iudicature and that the same reasons may require a removal of Ecclesiastical Seats wherefore there being nothing to the contrary constituted either by Christ or his Apostles it follows That Kings may when they please erect and consequently remove Primacies and Metropolitans I answer That Secular Courts may be removed upon good occasions is so evident to every Fool that it needs neither Greek nor Strabo to prove it That Ecclesiastical Seats for greater conveniences of the Church be also subject to removal is likewise evident and constituted by the Council of Chalcedon Can. 17. But his inference That it belongs to the right of Kings to erect and transfer them is weaker then water nor has the Doctor infused into it the least grain of Reason to strengthen it Yet first to prove it he says Nothing is found either by Christ or his Apostles ordered to the contrary Which is a most pitiful Negative proof as indeed the greatest part of his Book iâ— and supposes to make it good That neither Christ nor his Apostles said did or ordered any thing but what is exprest in Scripture which is both expresly contrary to Scripture it self and to common reason also Besides this wise proof is both most unjust towards us and silly in him to expect unjust towards us ingaging us to prove out of Scripture That Kings cannot erect Primacies and Patriarchates whereas there is no such word there as either Primate or Patriarchate which he would have us shew thence not subject to Kings Nor is it less silly in him to expect That the Scripture should make mention of the erection or not erection of Primacies and Patriarchates by Secular Powers since the Secular Powers when the Scripture was written being most bloody Tyrants and Persecutors of the Church were more likely to hang up all Primates and Patriarchs then either erect or remove their Seats to a more convenient place Yet if you would see something to the contrary why Kings should not use Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction I can produce you the sence of the Catholick Church the best Testimony that can be alleaged for the meaning of Gods Spirit but because this weighs little with you I shew you next the Testimony of common sence and reason which tells you Faber fabrilia tractet and that those whose education institute of life particular designment to and total dependence on any course of life makes them more strongly addict all their thoughts to perfect themselves knowingly and magisterially in that their proper profession are fitter by far for such an employment then those whose diversly-distracted studies render them half-knowing or half-careful in such performances How much then is it more convenient that Ecclesiastical persons should manage the affairs of the Church then Secular Princes whom partly their necessary Temporal occasions partly voluntary Recreations Court attendances and entertainments so quite take up that they can have but saint and weak reflections either of knowledge or care in comparison of the others upon
that the Scripture grants to S. Peter some Primacy of Order or Dignity If so Mr. Hammond then for any thing you know it may be a Primacy of Iurisdiction And it stands onely upon the certainty of your and our interpretation of Scripture whether it signifie such a Primacy or no. Neither indeed could it be any other if any hold may be taken from your words For S. Peter as you grant and as the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Simon the first of the Apostles plainly evidence had some kind of Primacy then given him and if it were then given him he then had it that is he had it in our Saviours life time but you told us before that S. Iohn had the dignity of place which is the same with Primacy of Order before all others in Christs life time even before S. Peter himself The Primacy then which S. Peter had in Christs life time must be some other Primacy and what Primacy could this be but the Primacy of Iurisdiction Again if by this Primacy he allows S. Peter he means such a precedency as hath any effect or efficacity in the Church according to the nature and degree of a Primacy this is all the substance of the Popes Authority and all that is held by us as of Faith but if he means by Primacy there a meerely inefficacious and dry Presidency and Precedency of Order such as is with us the walking on the right hand or sitting first at a Table without any superiority more than a courteous deference of the rest then the Doctor must imagine our Blessed Saviour had no better thing to do when he made S. Peter the first but to take order for feare the good Apostles should fall to complement who should sit go or speak in the first place and consequently this tenet being an Act of our Saviours register'd in Scripture must bee a courteous point of Faith obliging all the Apostles under pain of damnation to be civil and make a leg to S. Peter In the next paragraph the Doctor is full of feares and jealousies and makes a great doubt that the subjection of this Church to the Authority of the Bishop of Rome will never be likely to tend to the Unity of the whole And why think you so Mr. Doctor doe you not find evidently that the Church before Luther and K Henry renounced the said Authority enjoy'd most perfect peace and tranquillity as those who are under that government doe most blessedly now and on the contrary that after that Authority was rejected nothing has succeeded the rejecters but perpetual turmoiles schisms divisions and subdivisions into Sects and daily mutations in Faith and Government as far as the temporal sword did not hinder them Is not this as evident as all History and even our very eyes can witnesse a truth Lastly doe not the present distractions you now groan under awake you to see that the source of all your misery springs from the leaking Cistern of Schism you have digg'd for your selves Did your Ancestours find so little Unity under the Government of the Roman Catholike Church or have you found such a constant Unity since you left it that you can presume the re-admitting that Government is never likely to tend to Unity Yet you cannot think otherwise unlesse all other Churches of Christians paid that subjection too Do you your obligation why should their backwardnes in their duties make you deny yours Besides whom doe you call Christians all that cry Lord Lord that is professe the name of Christ but deny the onely certain Rule to come to the knowledge of his Law such as were the Gnosticks Carpocratians Donatists Socinians and all the heresies that ever arose since the infancy of the Church or doe you mean by the word Christians onely those qui faciunt voluntatem Patris doe the will of our heavenly Father that is all that hear the Church or have a certain and common Rule to know what Christs Law is if so all these acknowledge subjection to the Head-Bishop of Rome never denied by any but those who at the same time they denied it cast themselves out of the Church refusing to hear her You say the Eastern Churches had not acknowledg'd it ere your departure Admit they had not can their pattern warrant you more than it can warrant the Arrians Nestorians Eutychians c. unless you be certain they did well in it They rejected it indeed and for their reward were by all the Christian world till you falling into the same fault began to call them Brothers and by all your Ancestours justly held and called Schismaticks Yet when they were in their right mood they admitted it as much as any Roman-Catholike as appeares in the Acts of the Florentine Council to which they subscribed nay even when they were disgusted and refused Unity they acknowledged the power of the Bishop of Rome as appeares by a testimony of Gerson cited by your friend Bishop Bramhall against himselfe in his just vindication of the Church of England p. 101. which witnesses that the Greeks departed from the then-Pope with these words Wee acknowledge thy power we cannot satisfie your covetousness live by your selves His second doubt is that the Bishop of Rome is not able to administer that vast Province I wonder how he did of old and why he may not do the same again as well as formerly But the Dr. calls it a politick probleme whether hee can or no and would have it judged by those who are by God entrusted with the Flock Id est saith he by the Princes the nursing Fathers in every Church It is indeed a politick probleme that is a question concerning Government but since it concernes Government Ecclesiastical it falls not under the scanning of temporal Politicians The Christian Common-wealth would be brought to a pretty pass if the Government of Gods Church so long acknowledged as left by Christ and continued in the Church 300. yeares by their own confession ere there were any Christian Princes should anew be call'd into question by humane policy But these two words of Scripture Nursing Fathers make it plain to the Doctor satisfy'd with any thing himself fancies that the Government and Jurisdiction over the Church belongs to Kings as if to nurse cherish and foster were to rule order govern and command or as if Ioseph who was Foster-father to our Saviour was as good as or the same with God Almighty who was his true Father And I wonder where this Doctor ever read that our Saviour entrusted the Government of his Church and Ecclesiastical affaires to any but the Apostles Ecclesiastical persons or that any held Nero the Heathen Emperour to have right and title o be Head of the Church Again if our Saviour left that authority with his Apostles I would gladly know by what new Orders from Christ it came to be transfer'd from their Successors into the hands of secular Princes But the Doctor has
alter old ones then you must either grant our Church in the fifteenth age to have been no Church which you dare not affirm for fear of spoiling your own mission or else grant that you were more bound to hold the Ceremonies recommended by her than those which descended from the Primitive times Since our Church could better see what was expedient for her present circumstances than the Primitive could foresee so long before hand what was likely to be convenient for future ages SECT 4. Of Doctor Hammonds charitablenesse in admitting all to his Communion and our pretended Uncharitablenesse for refusing to goe to their Assemblies IN the fifth place the Doctor professes like a good charitable man as hee is that they exclude no Christian from their Communion that will either filially or fraternally embrace it with them No truly to give your Religion its due it is a wonderful civil and courteous profession and admits all the old condemned Heresies into Communion provided they but professe Christ whatever points else they deny it matters not Nay it is sufficient if they call themselves Christians though all the world else calls them Hereticks yet your kind hearted Church cannot but friendly entertain them You keep open house for all commers The doctrine of Oportet haereses esse There must bee heresies is changed by your boon behaviour into It is impossible there should be heresies For whereas the world heretofore understood those to be Hereticks who held the letter of the Scripture and some points of Christianity but deny'd others which were the tenets of the Universal Church at that time you have now quite chang'd the former notion and think none to bee excluded from Communion that is none to be Hereticks that bear the name of a Christian so as though they deny all points of Christs doctrine yet professe Christs name and the outward letter of the Scripture let them come and welcome Anabaptists Brownists Presbyterians Quakers Carpocratians perhaps Arians nay even Simon Magus himselfe all these sew'd together only with the aiery sound of the word Christian will serve for broken-ware pieces to patch up Doctor Hammonds motley Church For since they hold to his grounds that is to professe Christs name and the letter of the Scripture he cannot in any reason admit some and refuse the rest Again the Doctor is willing to admit any that will filially or fraternally embrace communion with them that is all that will be either under them or at least not above them but is loath to admit communion with any that will paternally communicate with them that is be over and govern them No take heed of that as much courtesie as you please but not a dram of humility obedience nor subjection to Superiours These peace-preserving virtues would quite break the neck of Schism and Faction If there bee any such over-powering Authority though never so long setled in possession over the Countrey and acknowledged and beleeved by all Christians in never so many ages to bee of divine institution yet presently the spirit of Schism in the first place endeavours to break asunder the bonds of this paternal communion to pluck it down to the ground and cast it out of the Island You are willing you say to admit all to your Assemblies that acknowledge the foundation laid by Christ and his Apostles You love mightily to talk plausible words in the aire and in general as if you made account your Readers should bee all fooles to search no further than the empty sound of your universal sayings not applying them to the thing in question Good Mr. Doctor tell me what it is to acknowledge the foundation laid by Christ and his Apostles Is it to acknowledge Scripture All heresies in the world fly onely to it and make it their armour-house to oppugn Christ and his Church Arians and Socinians most of all and yet they can deny Christs Godhead So as by this means indeed you will have store of communicants Is it the true sence of the Scripture then truth being one and falshood manifold if their interpretation be different from yours both cannot bee true and consequently both acknowledge not the foundation left by Christ for falsifying his word cannot be that foundation Again if this bee the foundation left by Christ you must have some certain and known Rule to come by the true sence of the Scriptures else you cannot be certainly assured who acknowledge this foundation and so admit rashly to your Communion you know not whom Is it perhaps the true sence of Scripture but restrain'd to fundamentals still the same difficulty remaines unlesse you have some certain Rule to distinguish and sort out the Essentials from points of less importance to talk much of fundamentals and never tell us which are they is but a shuffling trick of a mountebank and very unbecomming a grave Divine Or is this Foundation perhaps the solid sence of Christs law written and planted in the tables of mens hearts by the Apostles and thence by a welllink't chain of Universal Tradition derived to our times If so you must admit onely Catholikes and exclude all the rest since onely they hold this foundation Or rather indeed since you deny this way of bringing down Faith to bee sufficient which Catholikes hold as a certain and infallible Rule it followes that if you will goe conseqently to your own grounds you must not admit them neither since this is not the by-you acknowledged foundation laid by Christ and his Apostles It remaines then that you are willing to admit all those that shall say they have the Foundation laid by Christ and his Apostles and then you cannot doubt but to have the brotherly fellowship of all hereticks and schismaticks in the world that have been are or shall bee since all pretend strongly in general termes to acknowledge that Foundation Nor is hee lesse devoutly charitable in the following words that they earnestly desire to bee admitted to the like freedome of external Communion with all the members of all other Christian Churches as oft as occasion makes us capable of that blessing of the one heart and the one lip This it is to bee so inured to a drowsy sounding vein of preaching Quodlibets till a man hath humm'd and drumm'd away all reason out of his head Speak sence man and let your pretended Charity come clad in Truth or else I must justly suspect it to bee nothing but Pharisaical hypocrisie I hate contradictions though told me in never so pious a tone Was it ever heard that any Catholike deny'd you Communion if you were capable of that blessing of one heart the same interiour beleefe and one lip the same exteriour profession To what purpose then are those seemingly pious words produc'd Leave off paying us with this hollow language empty of sence render your selves capable of that blessing in your actions renounce and repent your disobedience to your so-long-acknowledg'd Superiours Repeal your schismatical ordinances against