Chapter 8

Your plea to this purpose is blended with a double pretence of Pope, and Church. Sometimes you tell us of the Pope and his succession to Saint Peter; and sometimes of the Church and its authority. Sometimes you speak as if both these were one and the same; and sometimes you seem to distinguish them. Some of you lay most weight upon the papal succession and infallibility; and some on the Church's jurisdiction and authority. I shall crave leave to take your pleas asunder: and first to consider what force they have in them as to the end whereunto they are applied, severally and apart; and then see what in their joint concurrence they can contribute thereunto. And whatever you think of it, I suppose this course of proceeding will please ingenuous persons, and lovers of truth; because it enables them to take a distinct view of the things whereon they are to give judgment. Whereas in your handling of them, something you suppose, something you insinuate, something you openly averr, yet so confound them with other heterogeneous discourses that it can hardly be discerned what grounds you build upon. A way of proceeding, which as it argues a secret guilt and fear of bringing forth your principles to light, so a gross kind of sophistry, exploded by all masters of reason whatever. They would not have us fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem, darken things clear and perspicuous in themselves; but to make things dark and confused, perspicuous. And the Orator tells us, that Epicurus his discourse was ambiguous, because his Sententia was inhonesta, his opinion shameful. And to what purpose should any one contend with you about such general ambiguous expressions; [illegible]. I shall then begin with the Pope and his infallibility, because you seem to lay most weight thereon and tell us plainly, pag. 379 of your Fiat, Edit, 2d, that if the Pope be not an unerring guide in affairs of religion, all is lost; and that, a man once rid of his authority, may as easily deride, and as solidly confute the Incarnation, as the sprinkling of holy water; so resolving our faith of the Incarnation of Christ into his authority or testimony. Yes, and in the same page, that if it had not been for the Pope, Christ himself had not been taken in the world for any such person, as he is believed this day: and p. 378. to the same purpose; the first great fundamental of Christian religion, which is the truth and divinity of Christ, had it not been for him, had failed long ago in the world; with much more to the same purpose. Hence it is evident that in your judgment, all truth and certainty in religion depends on the Pope's authority and infallibility; or, as you express it, his unerring guidance. This is your principle, this you propose as the only medium to bring us to that settlement in religion, which you suppose the Scripture is not able to do. What course should we now take? Would you have us believe you at the first word without further trial or examination? Would you have a man to do so, who never before heard of Pope or Church? We are commanded to try all things, and to hold fast that which is good; to try pretending spirits, and the Bereans are commended for examining by the Scripture, what Paul himself preached to them: an implicit credulity given up to such dictates, is the height of fanaticism. Have we not reason then to call you and your copartners in this design to an account, how you prove that which you so strenuously assert and suppose; and to examine the principles of that authority whereunto you resolve all your faith and religion. If upon mature consideration, these prove solid, and the inferences you make from them cogent, it is good reason that you should be attended to. If they prove otherwise; if the first be false, and the latter sophistical; you cannot justly take it ill of him that shall advise you to take heed, that while you are gloriously displaying your colours, the ground that you stand upon do not sink under your feet. And here you are forced to go many a step backward to fix your first footing, (until you leave your Pope quite out of sight) from where you advance towards him by several degrees, and so arrive at his supremacy and infallibility; and so we shall have — Reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri.

1. Your first principle to this purpose is, that Peter was the Prince of the Apostles, and that in him the Lord Jesus founded a monarchy in his Church. So pag. 360. you call him, the head and Prince of the whole congregation. Now this we think no meet principle for any one to begin withal, in asserting the foundation of faith and religion: nor do we think that if it were meet so to be used, that it is any way subservient to your design and purpose.

1. A principle, fundamental, or first entrance into any way of settlement in faith or religion, it cannot possibly be; because it presupposes the knowledge of, and assent to many other great fundamental articles of Christian religion; yes, upon the matter all that are so. For before you can rationally talk with a man about Peter's principality, and the monarchical state of the Church hereon depending, you must suppose that he believes the Scripture to be the Word of God, and all things that are taught therein concerning Jesus Christ, his person, nature, offices, work, and gospel, to be certainly and infallibly true: for they are all supposed in your assertion; which without the knowledge of them is uncouth, horrid, insignificant, and foreign to all notions that a man can rationally entertain of God or religion. Nay, no attempt of proof or confirmation can be given to it, but by and from Scripture, whereby you fall directly into the principle which you seek so carefully to avoid: namely that the Scripture is the only way and means of settling us in the truth; since you cannot settle any man in the very first proposition which you make to lead him into another way but by the Scripture. So powerful is truth, that those who will not follow it willingly, it will lead them captive in triumph, whether they will or no.

2. It is unmeet for any purpose, because it is not true. No one word from the Scripture can you produce in its confirmation: wherein yet if it be not revealed, it must pass as a very uncertain and frivolous conjecture. You can produce no suffrage of the Ancient Church to your purpose; which yet if you could, would not presently render any assertion so confirmed infallibly certain, much less fundamental. Some indeed of the 4th Century call Peter, Principem Apostolorum: but explain themselves to intend thereby [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], the first or Leader, not [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] the Prince, or Ruler. And when the ambiguity of that word began to be abused to pretensions of preeminence, the Council of Carthage expresly condemned it, allowing none to be termed Princeps Sacerdotum. Many in those days thought Peter to be among the Apostles like the Princeps Senatus, or Princeps Civitatis, the chief in their assemblies, or principal in dignity, how truly I know not; but that he should be among them and over them a Prince in office, a Monarch as to rule and power, is a thing that they never once dreamed of; and the asseveration of it is an open untruth. The Apostles were equal in their call, office, place, dignity, employments: all the difference between them, was in their labors, sufferings, and success; wherein Paul seems to have had the pre-eminence; who as Peter, and all the rest of the Apostles, every one singly and for himself, had the care of all the Churches committed to him; thought it may be for the better discharge of their duty, ordinarily they divided their work, as they found it necessary for them to apply themselves to it in particular. See (2 Corinthians 11). And this equality between the Apostles is more than once insinuated by Paul, and that with special reference to Peter (1 Corinthians 1; Galatians 1:18, 19; ch. 2:9). And is it not wonderful, that if this assertion should not only be true, but such a truth as on which the whole faith of the Church was to be built, that the Scripture should be utterly silent of it, that it should give us no rules about it, no directions to use and improve it, afford us no one instance of the exercise of the power and authority intimated, no not one? But that on the contrary it should lay down principles exclusive of it (Matthew 22:25, 26; Luke 22:26), and when it comes to make an enumeration of all the offices appointed by Christ in his Church (Ephesians 4:11), should pass over the Prince and his office in silence, on which all the rest were to depend? You see what a foundation you begin to build upon; a mere imagination, and groundless presumption which has not the least countenance given to it by Scripture or Antiquity. What a perplexed condition must you needs cast men into, if they shall attend to your persuasions to rest on the Pope's unerring guidance for all their certainty in religion, when the first motive you propose to them to gain their assent, is a proposition so far destitute of any cogent evidence of its truth or innate credibility, that it is apparently false, and easily manifested so to be.

3. Were it never so true, as it is notoriously false, yet it would not one jot promote your design: it is about Peter the Apostle, and not the Pope of Rome, that we are yet discoursing. Do you think a man can easily commence per saltum, from the imaginary principality of Peter to the infallibility of the present Pope of Rome? Quid Pape cum Petro? What relation is there between the one and other? Suppose a man have so good a mind to your company, as to be willing to set out with you in this ominous stumbling at the threshold, what will you next lead him to? You say.

II. That Saint Peter besides his Apostolical power and office, (wherein setting aside the prerogative of his princedome before mentioned, the rest of the Apostles were partakers with him,) had also an Oecumenical Episcopal power invested in him, which was to be transmitted to others after him. His office purely Apostolical, you have no mind to lay claim to. It may be, you despair of being able to prove, that your Pope is immediately called and sent by Christ: that he is furnished with a power of working miracles, and such other things as concurred to the constitution of the office Apostolical: and perhaps himself has but little mind to be exercised in the discharge of that office, by travelling up and down, poor, despised, persecuted, to preach the Gospel. Monarchy, rule, supremacy, authority, jurisdiction, infallibility, are words that better please him. And therefore have you mounted this notion of Peter's Episcopacy, whereunto you would have us think that all the fine things you so love and dote upon, are annexed. Poor, labouring, perfected Peter the Apostle, may die and be forgotten: but Peter the Bishop, harnessed with power, principality, sovereignty, and Vicarship of Christ. This is the man you enquire after: but you will have very hard work to find him in the Scripture, or Antiquity, yes the least footstep of him. And do you think indeed that this Episcopacy of Peter, distinct from his Apostleship, is a meet stone to be laid in the foundation of faith? It is a thing that plainly overthrows his Apostleship; for if he were a Bishop, properly and distinctly, he was no Apostle: if an Apostle, not such a Bishop: that is, if his care were confined to any one Church, and his residence required therein, as the case is with a proper Bishop, how could the care of all the Churches be upon him? How could he be obliged to pass up and down the world in pursuit of his commission of preaching the Gospel to all nations? Or to travail up and down as the necessity of the Churches did require? But you will say, that he was not Bishop of this or that particular, but of the Church Universal. But I supposed you had thought him Bishop of the Church of Rome, and that you will plead him afterwards so to have been: and I must assure you, that he that thinks the Church of Rome in the days of Peter and Paul was the same with the Church Catholic, and not looked on as particular a Church as that of Jerusalem, or Ephesus, or Corinth; is a person with whom I will have as little to do as I can in this matter. For to what purpose should any one spend time to debate things, with men absurd and unreasonable, and who will affirm that it is midnight at noon day? I know, the Apostolical office did include in it the power of all other offices in the Church whatever, as the less are included in the greater: but that he who was an Apostle should formally also be a Bishop, though an Apostle might exercise the whole power and office of a Bishop, is [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], somewhat allied to impossibilities. Do you see what a quagmire you are building upon? I know, if a man will let you alone you will raise a structure, which after you have painted and gilded, you may prevail with many harbourless creatures to accept of an habitation therein: for when you have laid your foundation out of sight, you will pretend that all your building is on a rock, whereas indeed you have nothing but the rotten posts of such suppositions as these, to support it withal. But suppose that Peter was thus a prince, monarch, Apostle, Bishop, that is, a Catholic, Particular Officer, what is that to you? Why

III. This Peter came and preached the Gospel at Rome. Though you can by no means prove this Assertion, so as to make it de fide, or necessarily to be believed of any one man in the world, much less to become meet to enjoy a place among those fundamentals that are tendred to us to bring us to Settlement in Religion; yet being a matter very uncertain, and of little importance, I shall not much contend with you about it. Witnesses meerly humane and fallible you have for it a great many; and exceptions almost without number may be put in against your Testimonies, and those of great weight and moment. Now although that which you affirm might be granted you, without any reall advantage to your Cause, or the enabling of you to draw any lawfull inferences to uphold your Papal claim by, yet to let you see on what sorry uncertain presumptions you build your faith and profession, and that in and about things which you make of indispensable necessity to Salvation; I shall in our passage remind you of some few of them, which I profess seriously to you, make it not only questionable to me whether or no, but also somewhat improbable that ever Peter came to Rome. 1. Though those that follow and give their assents to this Story are many, yet it was taken up upon the credit and report of one or two Persons, as Eusebius manifests, Lib. 2. cap. 25. Whether Dionysius Corinthius, or Papias, first began the Story, I know not; but I know certainly that both of them manifested themselves in other things, to be a little too credulous. 2. That which many of them built their credulity upon, is very uncertain, if not certainly false; namely that Peter wrote his first Epistle from Rome, which he calls Babylon in the Subscription of it. But therefore he should then so call it, no man can tell. The Apocalypse of John who prophesied what Rome should be in after-Ages, and thereon what name should be accommodated to it for its false worship and Persecution, was not yet written. Nor was there any thing yet spoken of or known among the Disciples, from where they might conjecture Rome to be intended by that Appellation. So that according to this Supposition, Saint Peter intending to acquaint them to whom he wrote, where he was, when he wrote to them, and to present them with the respects of the Church in that place, had by an aenigmatical expression rather amuzed than informed them. Besides, he had before this, agreed with and solemnly engaged himself to Paul to take care of the Circumcision; to whom after he had preached a while in Palestine, it is more than probable that he betook himself to Babylon in Assyria, the principal seat of their residence in their first and most populous dispersion, from where he wrote to all their Colonies scattered abroad in the neighbouring Nations. So that although I will not, because of the consent of many of the Ancients, deny that Peter went to Rome and preached there, yet I am fully satisfied that this foundation of the Story told by them, is a perfect mistake, consisting in an unwarrantable causless wresting of a plain expression to a mystical sense and meaning. 3. Your Witnesses agree not at all in their Story; neither as to the time of his going to Rome, nor as to the occasion of it, nor as to the season of his abode there. Many of them assign to him 25 years for his residence there, which is evidently false and easily disproved. This computation is ascribed to Eusebius in Chron. Lib. 1. but it is evidently an addition of Hieroms, in whose dayes the Tradition was encreased; for there is no such thing in the Original Greek Copy of Eusebius, nor does it agree with what he had elsewhere written concerning him. And it is very well worth while, to consider how On[illegible]phrius Panvinus, a very learned Antiquary of your own party, makes up these 25 years of Peter's Episcopacy at Rome, Annotat. in Plat. in Vit. B. Petr. Ex novem primis annis, says he, post Christi mortem usque ad initium secundi and Imperii Claudii, Petrum Judaea nunquam excessisse, ex Actis Apostelorum & Pauli Epistola ad Galatas, apertissimè constat. Si igitur, ut inter omnes Authores convenit, co tempore Romam venit, illud certe necessarium vide[illegible]ur eum ante ad urbem adventum Antiochiae septem annis non sedisse; sed hanc ejus Antiochenam cathedram alio tempore fuisse. Quam rem ex vetustissimorum authorum testimonio sic constitui. Secundo Imperii Claudii anno Romam venit, à quo tempore usque ad illius obitum, anni plus minus viginti quinque intersunt, quibus etsi eum Romae sedisse Veteres scribunt, non tamen praeterea sequitur, ipsum semper in urbe commoratum esse. Nam, quarto anno ejus ad urbem adventus, Hierusolymam reversus est, & ibi Concilio Apostolorum interfuit; inde Antiochiam profectus septem ibidem annis usque ad Neronis Imperium permansit, cujus initio Romam reversus Romanam dilabentem reparavit Ecclesiam. Peregrinatione inde per universam fere Europam suscepta, Romam rediens novissimo Neronis Imperii anno, martyrium Crucis passus est.

For the first nine years after the death of Christ, to the beginning of the second year of Claudius, it is most evident from the Acts, and Epistle to the Galatians, that Peter went not out of Palestine. If therefore, as all agree, he came at that time to Rome, it is certain that he had not abode at Antioch seven years before his coming there; (which yet all the Witnesses agree in) but this his Antiochian Chair fell out at some other time. Therefore I thus order the whole matter from the Testimony of most Ancient Authors, (not that any one before him ever wrote any such thing, but this he supposes may be said to reconcile their Contradictions); In the second year of Claudius he came to Rome. From there to his death were 25 years more or less: which space of time although the Ancients write that he sate at Rome, yet it does not follow from there, that he always abode in the City; for in the 4th year after his coming, he returned to Jerusalem to be present at the Council of the Apostles; from there going to Antioch, he continued there seven years, to the reign of Nero. In the beginning of his reign, he returned to Rome, to repair the decaying Church there; from there passing almost through all Europe, he returned again to Rome in the last year of Nero, and underwent Martyrdom by the Cross. You may easily discern the uncertainty at least of that Story, which this learned man, can give no countenance to, but by multiplying improbable imaginations to shelter one another. For, 1. Whoever said that Peter came from Rome to come up to the Council at Jerusalem; when it is most manifest from the Story of the Acts that he had never before departed out of Judea; and this Council being granted to have been in the 6th year of Claudius, as here it is by Onuphrius, quite overthrows the Tradition of his going to Rome in his second. 2. The abode of 25 years at Rome, as thus disposed, is no abode indeed; for he continued almost twice as long at Antioch as he did at Rome. 3. Here is no time at all allowed to him for preaching the Gospel in Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bythinia, which certainly are not Provinces of Europe, in which places Eusebius (Hist. Lib. 3. cap. 1.), Origen, and all the Ancients agree that he did attend to his Apostleship towards the Jews; and his Epistles make it evident. 4. Nor is there any time left for him to be at Babylon, where yet we know he was; so that this fancy can have no countenance given it, without a full rejection of all that we know to be true in the Story.

4. The Scripture is utterly silent of any such thing as Peter's going to Rome. Other journeyings of his it records, as to Samaria, Lydda, Joppa, Caesaria, Antioch. Now it was no way material that his coming to any of these places should be known, but only in reference to the things done there by him; and yet they are recorded. But this his going to Rome, which is supposed to be of such huge importance in Christian Religion, and that according to Onuphrius falling out in the middle of his other journeyings, as it must do if ever it fell out, is utterly passed by in silence. If it had been to have such an influence into the very being of Christianity as now is pretended, some men will be apt to think, that the mention of it would not have been omitted. 5. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, written a good while after this imaginary going of Peter to Rome, makes no mention of him, when yet he saluted by name those of chief note and dignity in the Church there. So that undoubtedly he was not then come there. 6. The same Apostle being at Rome, in the reign of Nero, in the midst of the time allotted to the abode of Peter there, never once mentions him in any of the Epistles which from there he wrote to the Churches and his fellow labourers; though he does remember very many others that were with him in the City. 7. He asserts that in one of his Epistles from there, which as I think sufficiently proves that Peter was not then there; for he says plainly that in his trial he was forsaken by all men, that no man stood by him, which he mentions as their sin, and prays for pardon for them. Now no man can reasonably think, that Peter was among the number of them whom he complained of. 8. The story is not consistent with what is expressly written of Peter by Luke in the Acts, and Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians. Paul was converted to the faith about the 38th year of Christ, or 5th after his Ascension. After this he continued 3 years preaching the Gospel about Damascus, and in Arabia. In the 40th or 41st year of Christ he came to Jerusalem, to confer with Peter (Galatians 1), which was the first of Claudius. As yet therefore, Peter was not removed out of Judaea: 14 years after, that is, either after his first going up to Jerusalem, or rather 14 years after his first Conversion, he went up again to Jerusalem, and found Peter still there, which was in the 52nd year of Christ, and the 13th of Claudius. Or if you should take the date of the 14 years mentioned by him shorter by 5 or 6 years, and reckon their beginning from the passion and Resurrection of Christ, which is not improbable; then this going up of Paul to Jerusalem, will be found to be the same with his going up to the Council from Antioch, about the 6th or rather 7th year of Claudius. Peter was then yet certainly at Jerusalem. That is, about the 46th year of Christ; some while after you would have the Church to be founded by him at Rome. After this, when Paul had taken a long progress through many countries, wherein he must needs spend some years, returning to Antioch (Acts 18:22), he there again met with Peter (Galatians 2:11), Peter being yet still in the East towards the end of the reign of Claudius. At Antioch where Paul found him, if any of your witnesses may be believed, he abode 7 years. Besides he was now very old, and ready to lay down his mortality, as our Lord had showed him; and in all probability after his remove from Antioch, spent the residue of his days in the Eastern Dispersion of the Jews. For, 9thly, much of the Apostles' work in Palestine among the Jews was now drawing to an end; the elect being gathered in, troubles were growing upon the Nation; and Peter had, as we observed before, agreed with Paul to take the care of the Circumcision, of whom the greatest number by far, excepting only Judaea itself, was in Babylon and the Eastern Nations about it. Now whether these and the like observations out of the Scripture concerning the course of Saint Peter's life, be not sufficient to outbalance the testimony of your disagreeing witnesses, impartial and unprejudiced men may judge. For my part, I do not intend to conclude peremptorily from them, that Peter was never at Rome, or never preached the Gospel there; but that your assertion of it is improbable, and built upon very questionable grounds, that I suppose I may safely conclude. And God forbid, that we should once imagine the present faith of Christians, or their profession of Christian Religion, to be built upon such uncertain conjectures, or to be concerned in them whether they be true, or false. Nothing can be spoken with more reproach to it, than to say, that it stands in need of such supportment. And yet if this one supposition fail you, all your building falls to the ground in a moment. Never was so stupendous a fabric raised on such imaginary foundations. But that we may proceed; let us suppose this also, that Peter was at Rome, and preached the Gospel there, what will from there follow to your advantage? What, towards the settlement of any man in Religion, or bringing us to the unity of faith, the things enquired after? He was at, he preached the Gospel at Jerusalem, Samaria, Joppa, Antioch, Babylon, and sundry other places, and yet we find no such consequences pleaded from there, as you urge from his coming to Rome. Therefore you add.

1 V. That Saint Peter was Bishop of the Roman Church; that he fixed his seat there, and there he died. In gathering up your Principles I follow the footsteps of Bellarmine, Baronius, and other great Champions of your Church; so that you cannot except against the method of our proposals of them. Now this Conclusion is built on these three Suppositions. 1. That Peter had an Episcopal Office distinct from his Apostolical; 2. That he was at Rome. 3. That he fixed his Episcopal Sea there; whereof the Second is very questionable, the First and Last are absolutely false. So that the Conclusion itself must needs be a notable fundamental Principle of Faith. It is true, and I shewed it before, that the Apostles when they came into any Church did exercise all the power of Bishops in and over that Church, but not as Bishops but as Apostles. As a King may in any of the Cities of his dominions where he comes, exercise all the authority of the Mayor, or particular Governour of that place where he is, which yet does not make him become the Mayor of the place; which would be a diminution of his royal dignity. No more did the Apostles become Local Bishops, because of their exercising Episcopal Power in any particular Church, by virtue of their authority Apostolical, wherein that other was included, as has been declared. And Cui Bono? To what purpose serves this fictitious Episcopacy? All the privileges that you contend for the assignation of to Peter, were bestowed upon him as an Apostle, or as a believing disciple of Christ. As such he had those peculiar grants made to him. The Keys of the Kingdom of heaven were given to him as an Apostle (or, according to Saint Austin, as a believer) as such was he commanded to feed the sheep of Christ. It was to him as an Apostle, or a professing believer, that Christ promised to build the Church, on the faith that he had professed. You reckon all these things among the privileges of Peter the Apostle, who as such is said to be [in non-Latin alphabet], or first in order. As an Apostle he had the care of all Churches committed to him; as an Apostle he was divinely inspired and enabled infallibly to reveal the mind of Christ. All these things belonged to him as an Apostle; and what privilege he could have besides as a Bishop neither you nor I can tell; no more than you can when, how, or by whom he was called and ordained to any such office; all which we know well enough concerning his Apostleship. If you will then have any to succeed him in the enjoyment of any, or of all these privileges, you must bespeak him to succeed him in his Apostleship, and not in his Bishopric. Besides, as I said before, this imaginary Episcopacy which limits and confines him to a particular Church, as it does if it be an Episcopacy properly so called, is destructive of his Apostolical Office, and of his duty in answering the Commission given him of preaching the Gospel to every Creature, following the guidance of God's Providence, and conduct of the Holy Ghost in his way. Many of the Ancients I confess affirm that Peter sate Bishop of the Church of Rome; but they all evidently use the word in a large sense to imply that during his abode there, (for that there he was, they did suppose,) he took upon him the especial care of that Church. For the same persons constantly affirm that Paul also was Bishop of the same Church, at the same time; which cannot be otherwise understood than in the large sense mentioned. And Ruffinus, Prafat. Recog. Clement. ad G[illegible]udent. unriddles the mystery: Linus, says he, & Cl[illegible]tus fuerunt ante Clementem Episcopi in [illegible]rbe Roma, sed superstite Petro; videlicet, at illi Episcopatûs Curam gererent, iste verò Apostolatûs simpleret officium. Linus and Cletus were Bishops in the City of Rome before Clemens, but while Peter was yet alive; they performing the duty of Bishops, Peter attending to his office Apostolical. And hereby does he utterly discard the present new plea of the foundation of your faith. For though he assert that Peter the Apostle was at Rome, yet he denies that he ever sate Bishop there, but names two others that ruled that Church at Rome jointly during his time, either in one Assembly, or in two, the one of the Circumcision, the other of the Gentile-Converts. And if Peter were thus Bishop of Rome, and entered as you say upon his Episcopacy at his first coming there, from where is it that you are forced to confess that he was so long absent from his charge? Five years, says Bellarmine, but that will by no means salve the difficulty. Seven says Onuphrius, at once, and abiding at one place; the most part of his time besides being spent in other places, and yet allowing him no time at all for those places where he certainly was. Eighteen, says Cortefius; strange that he should be so long absent from his especial cure, and never write one word to them, for their instruction or consolation; whereas in the mean time he wrote two Epistles to them, who it seems did not in any special manner belong to his charge. I wish we could once find our way out of this maze of uncertainties. This is but a sad disquisition after Principles of faith, to settle men in Religion by them; and yet if we should suppose this also, we are far enough from our journey's end. The present Bishop of Rome is as yet behind the curtain, neither can he appear upon the stage, until he be ushered in by one pretence more of the same nature with them that went before, and this is,

V. That some one must needs succeed Peter in his Episcopacy: But why so? Why was it not needful that one should succeed him in his Apostleship? Why was it not needful that Paul should have a successor as well as Peter? And John as well as either of them? Because, you say, that was necessary for the Church, not so these. But who told you so? Where is the proof of what you averre? Who made you judges of what is necessary, and what is not necessary for the Church of Christ, when himself is silent? And why is not the succession of an Apostle necessary as well as of such a Bishop as you fancie? Had it not been better to have had one still residing in the Church, of whose Infallibility there could have been no doubt or question? One that had the power of working Miracles, that should have no need to scare the people by shaking fire out of his slieve, as your Pope Gregory the 7th was wont to do, if Cardinal Benno may be believed. But you have now carried us quite off from the Scripture, and Story, and probable conjectures, to attend to you while you give the Lord Jesus prudential advice, about what is necessary for his Church; it must needs be so, it is meet it should be so, is the best of your proof in this matter. Only your fratres Walenburgici adde, that never any man ordained the Government of a Community more weakly, than Christ must be supposed to have done the Government of his Church, if he have not appointed such a Successor to Peter as you imagin. But it is easie for you to assert what you please of this nature, and as easie for any one to reject what you so assert if he please. These things are without the verge of Christian Religion; [illegible] Towers and Palaces in the ayr: But what must Saint Peter be succeeded in? His Episcopacy and what therewithall? His Authority, Power and Jurisdiction over all Churches in the world, with an unerring judgement in matters of faith. But all these belonged to Peter, as far as ever they belonged to him, as he was an Apostle, long before you fancie him to have been a Bishop: As then his Episcopacy came without these things, so for ought you know, it might goe without it. This is a matter of huge importance in that Systeme of Principles, which you tender to us, to bring us to settlement in Religion, and the Unity of Faith; would you would consider a little, how you may give some tolerable appearance of proof to that which the Scripture is so utterly silent in; yes, which lyes against the whole Oeconomy of the Lord Jesus Christ in his ordering of his Church, as delivered to us therein; dic aliquem dic, Quintiliane, colorem. But we come now to the Pope, whom here we first find latentem, post Principia, and coming forth [illegible] with his Claim.

VI. That the Bishop of Rome is the man that thus succeeds Peter in his Episcopacy, which though it were settled at Rome, was over the whole Catholic Church. So you say, and so you profess your selves to believe. And we desire that you would not take it amiss if we desire to know upon what grounds you do so; being unwilling to cast away all consideration that we may embrace a fanatical Credo in this unlikely business. We desire therefore to know, who appointed that there should be any such succession; who, that the Bishop of Rome should be this Successor. Did Jesus Christ do it? We may justly expect you should say he did: but if you do, we desire to know when, where, how; seeing the Scripture is utterly silent of any such thing. Did Saint Peter himself do it? Pray, manifest to us that by the appointment of Jesus Christ he had power so to do; and that secondly he actually did so: neither of these can you prove, or produce any testimony worth crediting in confirmation of it. Did it necessarily follow from hence, because that was the place where Peter died? But this was accidental, a thing that Peter thought not of: for, you say, that a few days before his death he was leaving that place. Besides according to this insinuation, why did not every Apostle leave a successor behind him in the place where he died, and that by virtue of his dying in that place? Or produce you any patent granted to Peter in especial, that where he died there he should leave a successor behind him. But it seems the whole weight of your faith is laid upon a matter of fact accidentally falling out, yes and that very uncertain whether ever it fell out or no. Show us any thing of the will and institution of Christ in this matter: as, that Peter should go to Rome, that he should fix his seat there, that he should die there, that he should have a successor, that the Bishop of Rome should be his successor, that to this successor I know not what, nor how many privileges should be conveyed: all these are arbitrary [illegible], inventions that men may multiply in infinitum at their pleasure: for what should set bounds to the imaginations of men, when once they cast off all reverence of Christ and his truth? Once more; why did not Peter fix a seat and leave a successor at Antioch, and in other places, where he abode, and preached, and exercised Episcopal power without all question? Was it because he died at Rome? This is to acknowledge that the whole Papacy is built, as was said, upon an accidental matter of fact; and that supposed not proved. Further, if he must be supposed to succeed Peter, I desire to know what that succession is, and wherein he does succeed him. Does he succeed him in all that he had and was, in reference to the Church of God? Does he succeed him in the manner of his call to his office? Peter was called immediately by Christ in his own person: the Pope is chosen by the Conclave of Cardinals, concerning whom, their office, privileges, power, right to choose the successor of Peter, there is not one iota in the Scripture, or any monuments of the best antiquity: and how in their election of Popes they have been influenced by the interest of powerful strumpets, your own Baronius will inform you. Does he succeed him in the way and manner of his personal discharge of his office and employment? Not in the least; Peter in the pursuit of his commission and in obedience to the command of his Lord and Master, traveled up and down the world, preaching the Gospel, planting and watering the churches of Christ, in patience, self-denial, humility, zeal, temperance, meekness. The Pope reigns at Rome in ease, exalting himself above the kings of the earth, without taking the least pains in his own person for the conversion of sinners, or edification of the disciples of Christ. Does he succeed him in his personal qualifications which were of such extraordinary advantage to the Church of God in his days; his faith, love, holiness, light and knowledge? You will not say so. Many of your Popes by your own confession have been ignorant and stupid; many of them flagitiously wicked, to say no more. Does he succeed him in the way and manner of his exercising his care and authority towards the churches of Christ? As little as the rest: Peter did it by his prayers for the churches, personal visitation, and instruction of them, writing by inspiration for their direction and guidance according to the will of God: the Pope by bulls, and consistorial determinations, executed by intricate legal processes, and officers unknown not only to Peter but all antiquity, whose ways, practices, orders, terms, Saint Peter himself were he upon the earth again would very little understand. Does he succeed him in his personal infallibility? Agree among your selves if you can, and give an answer to this inquiry. Does he succeed him in his power of working miracles? You do not so much as pretend thereunto. Does he succeed him in the doctrine that he taught? It has been proved to you a thousand times that he does not; and we are still ready to prove it again if you call us thereunto. Wherein then does this succession consist that you talk of? In his power, authority, jurisdiction, supremacy, monarchy, with the secular advantages of riches, honor, and pomp that attend them; things sweet and desirable to carnal minds: this is the succession you pretend to plead for: and are you not therein to be commended for your wisdom? In the things that Peter really enjoyed, and which were of singular spiritual advantage to the Church of God, you disclaim any succession to him; and fix it on things wherein he was no way concerned, that make for your own secular advantage and interest. You have certainly laid your design very well if these things would hold good to eternity. For, hence it is that you draw out the monarchy of your Pope, direct and absolute in ecclesiastical things over the whole Church; indirect at least, and in ordine ad Spiritualia, over the whole world. This is the Diana in making of shrines for whom your occupation consists, and it brings no small gains to you. Hence you wire-draw his cathedral infallibility, legislative authority, freedom from the judgment of any, whereby you hope to secure him and your selves from all opposition, endeavoring to terrify them with this Medusa's head that approach to you. Hence are his titles: the Vicar of Christ, Head and Spouse of his Church, Vice-Deus, Dius alter in Terris, and the like, whereby you keep up popular veneration, and preserve his majestic distance from the poor disciples of Christ. Hence you warrant his practices suited to these pretensions and titles, in the deposing of kings, transposing of titles to dominion and rule, giving away of kingdoms, stirring up and waging mighty wars, causing and commanding them that dissent from him, or refuse to yield obedience to him, to be destroyed with fire and sword. And who can now question but that you have very wisely stated your succession.

This is the way, this the progress, whereby you pretend to bring us to the unity of faith. If we will submit to the Pope, and acquiesce in his determinations, (whereunto to induce us we have the cogent reasons now considered,) the work will be effected. This is the way that God has, as you pretend, appointed to bring us to settlement in religion. These things you have told us so often, and with so much confidence, that you take it ill we should question the truth of any thing you averr in the whole matter; and look upon us as very ignorant or unreasonable for our so doing. Yes, he that believes it safer for him to trust the everlasting concernments of his soul to the goodness, grace, and faithfulness of God in his Word, than to these principles of yours, is rejected by you out of the limits of the Catholic Church, that is, of Christianity; for they are the same. To make good your judgement and censure then, you vent endless cavils against the authority, perfection, and perspicuity of the Scriptures, pretending to despise and scorn whatever is offered in their vindication. This rope of sand, composed of false suppositions, groundless presumptions, inconsequent inferences, in all which there is not one word of infallible truth, at least that you can any way make appear so to be, is the great bond you use to gird men withal into the unity of faith. In brief, you tell us that if we will all submit to the Pope, we shall be sure all to agree, but this is no more, but, as I have before told you, what every party of men in the world tender us upon the same or the like condition. It is not a mere agreement we aim at, but an agreement in the truth; not a mere unity, but a unity of faith; and faith must be built on principles infallible; or it will prove in the close to have been fancy not faith; carnal imagination, not Christian belief: otherwise we may agree in Turcism, or Judaism, or Paganism, as well as in Christianity, and to as good purpose. Now what of this kind do you tender to us? Would you have us to leave the sure word of prophecy, more sure than a voice from Heaven, the light shining in the dark places of this world which we are commanded to attend to by God himself, the Holy Scripture given by inspiration, which is able to make us wise to salvation, the Word that is perfect, sure, right, converting the soul, enlightening the eyes, making wise the simple, whose observation is attended with great reward, to give heed, yes, to give up all our spiritual and eternal concernments, to the credit of old groundless uncertain stories, inevident presumptions, fables invented for and openly improved to carnal, secular and wicked ends? Is your request reasonable? Would we could prevail with you to cease your importunity in this matter: especially considering the dangerous consequence of the admission of these your principles to Christianity in general. For, if it be so that Saint Peter had such an episcopacy as you talk of, and that a continuance of it in a succession by the Bishops of Rome, be of that indispensable necessity to the preservation of Christian religion as is pretended, many men considering the nature and quality of that succession, how the means of its continuation have been arbitrarily and occasionally changed, what place formerly popular suffrage, and the imperial authority have had in it; how it came to be devolved on a conclave of Cardinals, what violence and tumults have attended one way, what briberies and filthy respects to the lusts of unclean persons the other, what interruptions the succession itself has had by vacancies, schisms, and contests for the place, and uncertainty of the person that had the best right to the Popedome according to the customs of the days wherein he lived, and that many of the persons who have had a place in the pretended succession, have been plainly men of the world, such as cannot receive the Spirit of Christ, yes, open enemies to his cross: would find just cause to suspect that Christianity were utterly failed many ages ago in the world, which certainly would not much promote the settlement in truth and unity of faith that we are enquiring after. And this is the first way that you propose to supply that defect which you charge upon the Scripture, that it is insufficient to reconcile men that are at variance about religion, and settle them in the truth. And if you are able by so many uncertainties and untruths to bring men to a certainty and settlement in the truth, you need not despair of compassing any thing, that you shall have a mind to attempt.

But you have yet another plea which you make no less use of than of the former, which must therefore be also, (now you have engaged us in this work,) a little examined: this is the Church, its authority and infallibility. The truth is, when you come to make a practical application of this plea to your own use, you resolve it into, and confound it with that foregoing of the Pope, in whom solely many of you would have this authority and infallibility of the Church to reside. Yet because in your management of it, you proceed on other principles than those before mentioned, this pretence also shall be apart considered. And here you tell us,

That the Church was before the Scripture, and gives Authority to it. By the Scriptures you know that we understand the Word of God, with this one adjunct of its being written by his command and appointment. We do not say that it belongs to the essence of the Word of God that it be written: whatever is spoken by God, we admit as his Word, when we are infallibly assured that by him it was spoken; and that we should do so before, himself does not require at our hands: for he would have us use our utmost diligence not to be imposed upon by any in his Name. Therefore we grant that the Word of God was given out for the rule of men in his worship, two thousand years before it was written; but it was so given forth, as that they to whom it came, had infallible assurance that from him it came and his Word it was: and if you, or any man else, can give us such assurance, that any thing is, or has been spoken by him, besides what we have now written in the Scripture, we shall receive it with the same faith and obedience, wherewith we receive the Scripture its self. Whereas therefore you say, that the Church was before the Scripture, if you intend no more but that there was a Church in the world, before the word of God was written, we grant it true; but not at all to your purpose. If you intend that the Church is before the Word of God, which at an appointed time was written, it may possibly be wrested to your purpose, but is far from being true; seeing the Church is a society of men, called to the knowledge and worship of God by his Word. They become a Church by the call of that Word, which it seems you would have not given until they are a Church: of effects produce their causes, children beget their parents, light brings forth the sun, and heat the fire: so are the Prophets and Apostles built upon the foundation of the Church, whereof the Pope is the cornerstone: so was the Judaical Church before the law of its constitution, and the Christian before the Word of Promise whereon it was founded, and the Word of Command by which it was edified. In brief; from the day wherein man was first created upon the earth, to the days wherein we live, never did a person or Church yield any obedience, or perform any acceptable worship to God, but what was founded on, and regulated by his Word, given to them antecedently to their obedience and worship, to be the sole foundation and rule of it. That you have no concernment in what is, or may be truly spoken of the Church, we shall afterwards show; but it is not for the interest of truth, that we should suffer you without control, to impose such absurd notions on the minds of men; especially when you pretend to direct them to a settlement in religion. Alike true is it, that the Church gives authority to the Scripture: every true Church indeed gives witness or testimony to it, and it is its duty so to do; it holds it forth, declares, and manifests it, so that it may be considered and taken notice of by all; which is one main end of the institution of the Church in this world: but the Church no more gives authority to the Scripture than it gives authority to God himself: he requires of men the discharge of that duty which he has assigned to them, but stands not in need of their suffrage to confirm his authority. It was not so indeed with the idols of old, of whom Tertullian said rightly; *Si Deus homini non placuerit, Deus non erit*: the reputation of their deity depended on the testimony of men; as, you say, that of Christ's does on the authority of the Pope. But I shall not farther insist upon the disprovement of this vanity; having showed already, that the Scripture has all its authority both in its self, and in reference to us, from him whose Word it is: and we have also made it appear, that your assertions to the contrary, are meet for nothing but to open a door to all irreligiousness, profaneness, and atheism; so that there is [illegible] nothing sound or savory, nothing which a heart careful to preserve its loyalty to God, will not nauseate at, nothing not suited to oppugn the fundamentals of Christian religion in this your position. This ground well fixed you tell us.

11. That the Church is infallible, or cannot erre in what she teacheth to be believed. And we ask you what Church you mean, and how far you intend that it is infallible? The only known Church which was then in the world, was in the Wilderness when Moses was in the mount. Was it infallible when it made the golden Calf, and danced about it proclaiming a feast to Jebovah before the Calf? Was the same Church afterward infallible in the dayes of the Judges, when it worshipped Baalim and Aftaroth? Or in the dayes of Jeroboam, when it sacrificed before the Calves at Dan and Bethel? Or in the other branch of it in the dayes of Ahaz, when the High-Priest set up an Altar in the Temple for the King to offer Sacrifice to the gods of Damascus? Or in the dayes of Jehoiaki[illegible] and Zedekiah, when the High-Priest with the rest of the Priests, imprisoned and would have slain Jeremiah for preaching the word of God? Or when they preferred the worship of the Queen of Heaven before that of the God of Abraham? Or was it infallible when the High-Priest, with the whole Councel or Sa[illegible]edrim of the Church, judicially condemned as far as in them lay their own Messias, and rejected the Gospel that was preached to them? You must inform us what other Church was them in the world, or you will quickly perceive how ungrounded your generall Maxim is, of the Churches absolute infallibility. As farre indeed as it attends to the Infallible Rule given to it, it is so; but not one jot farther. Moreover, we desire to know, What Church you mean in your Assertion, or rather what is it that you mean by the Church? Do you intend the Mystical Church, or the whole number of God's Elect in all Ages, or in any Age, militant on the Earth, which principally is the Church of God (Ephesians 5:26)? Or, do you intend the whole diffused body of the Disciples of Christ in the world, separated to God by Baptism and the Profession of saving truth, which is the Church Catholick visible? Or, do you mean any particular Church as the Roman, or Constantinopolitan, the French, Dutch, or English Church? If you intend the first of these, or the Church in the first sense; we acknowledge that it is thus far infallible, that no true member of it shall ever totally and finally renounce, lose, or forsake that faith, without which they cannot please God and be saved. This the Scripture teacheth, this Austin confirmeth in an hundred places. If you intend the Church in the second sense; we grant that also so far unerring and infallible, as that there ever was, and ever shall be in the world, a number of men making Profession of the saving Truth of the Gospel, and yielding professed subjection to our Lord Jesus Christ according to it, wherein consists his visible kingdom in this world; that never was, that never can be utterly overthrown. If you speak of a Church in the last sense, then we tell you, That no such Church is by virtue of any Promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, freed from erring, yes so farre as to deny the fundamentals of Christianity, and thereby to lose the very being of a Church. While it continues a Church, it cannot erre fundamentally; because such errours destroy the very being of a Church; but those who were once a Church, by their failing in the Truth, may cease to be so any longer. And a Church as such may so fail, though every Person in it do not so; for the individual members of it, that are so also of the Mystical Church, shall be preserved in its Apostasie. And so the Mystical Church, and the Catholick Church of Professors may be continued, though all particular Churches should fail. So that no Person, the Church in no sense is absolutely freed in this world from the danger of all errours: that is the condition we shall attain in Heaven; here where we know but in part we are incapable of it. The Church of the Elect and every member of it, shall eventually be preserved by the power of the Holy Ghost, from any such errour as would utterly destroy their Communion with Christ in Grace here, or prevent their fruition of him in Glory hereafter: or, as the Apostle speaks, they shall assuredly be kept by the Power of God through faith to salvation. The Generall Church of Visible Professors, shall be always so farre preserved in the world, as that there shall never want some, in some place or other of it, that shall profess all needfull saving Truths of the Gospel, in the belief whereof and obedience whereunto a man may be saved. But for Particular Churches as such, they have no security but what lyes in their diligent attendance to that Infallible Rule, which will preserve them from all hurtfull errours, if through their own default they neglect not to keep close to it. And your flattering your selves with an imagination of any other Priviledge, is that which has wrought your ruine: You are deceived if in this matter you are of Menander's mind, who sayed [in non-Latin alphabet]; that, all will of its own accord fall out well with you though you sleep securely. As for all other Churches in the world besides your own, we have your concession not only that they were and are fallible, but that they have actually erred long since: and the same has been proved against yours a thousand times; and your best Reserve against particular charges of Errour lyes in this impertinent generall pretence, that you cannot erre. It may be you will ask, for you use so to do, and it is the design of your Fiat to promote the inquiry, If the Church be fallible, that is to propose to us the things and Doctrines that we are to believe, How can we with faith infallible believe her proposals? And I tell you truly I know not how we can, if we believe them only upon her Authority, or she propose them to be believed solely upon that account; but when she proposeth them to us to be believed on the Authority of God speaking in the Scriptures, we both can, and do believe what she teacheth and proposeth, and that with faith infallible resolved into the Veracity of God in his Word. And we grant every Church to be so farre infallible as it attends to the only Infallible Rule among men. When you prove that any one Church is by any promise of Christ, any grant of Priviledge expressed or intimated in the Scripture, placed in an unerring condition, any farther than as in the use of the means appointed she attends to the only Rule of her preservation, or that any Church shall be necessitated to attend to that Rule whether she will or no, whereby she may be preserved, or can give us an instance of any Church since the foundation of the world, that has been actually preserved and absolutely from all errour, (other than that of your own, which you know we cannot admit of,) as you will do, [in non-Latin alphabet], a great and memorable work, so we shall grant as much as you can reasonably desire of us upon the account of the Assertion under consideration. But until you do some one, or all of these, your crying out, The Church, the Church, the Church cannot erre, makes no other noyse in our ears, than that of the Jews, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Law shall not fail, did in the ears of the Prophets of old. Neither do we speak this of the Church, or any Church, as though we were concerned to question or deny any just Priviledges belonging to it, thereby to secure our selves from any pretensions of yours; but meerly for the sake of Truth. For we shall manifest anon to you, that you are as little concerned in the Priviledges of the Church, be they what they will, more or less, as any Society of the Professors of Christianity in the world; if so be that you are concerned in them at all. So that if the Truth would permit us to agree with you in all things that you assign to the Church, yet the difference between you and us were never the nearer to an end; for we should still differ with you about your share and interest therein; and for ever abhor your frowardness in appropriating of them all to your selves. And herein, as I sayed, has lyen a great part of your ruine; While you have been sweetly dreaming of an Infallibility, you have really plunged your selves into errours innumerable. And when any one has jogged you to awake you out of your fatall sleep, by minding you of your particular errours, your dream has left such an impression upon your imagination, as that you think them no errours, upon this only ground, because you cannot erre. I am perswaded, had it not been for this one errour, you had been freed from many others: But this perfectly disables you for any candid Inquisition after the Truth. For why should he once look about him, or indeed so much as take care to keep his eyes open, who is sure that he can never be out of his way. Hence you inquire not at all, whether what you profess be Truth or not, but to learn what your Church teacheth and defend it, is all that you have to do about Religion in this world. And whatever Absurdities or Inconveniencies you find your selves driven to in the handling of particular points, all is one, they must be right though you cannot defend them, because your Church which cannot erre has so declared them to be. And if you should chance to be convinced of any Truth in particular that is contrary to the determination of your Church, you know not how to embrace it, but must shut your eyes against its light and evidence, and cast it out of your minds, or wander up and down with a various assent between Contradictions. Well said he of old [in non-Latin alphabet] [in non-Latin alphabet]. This is flat folly, namely for a man to live in rebellion to his own light: But you adde,

III. That your selves, that is, the Pope with those who in matters of religion adhere to him, and live in subjection to him, are this Church; in an assent to whose infallible teachings and determinations, the unity of faith does consist. Could you prove this assertion I confess it would stand you in good stead. But before we enquire after that, we shall endeavour a little to come to a right understanding of what you say. When you affirm that the Roman Church, is the Church of Christ, you intend either that it is the only Church of Christ, all the Church of Christ, and so consequently the Catholic Church; or you mean that it is a Church of Christ, which has an especial prerogative enabling it to require obedience of all the disciples of Christ. If you say the former, we desire to know (1.) when it became so to be. It was not so when all the Church was together at Jerusalem, and no foundation of any Church at all laid at Rome (Acts 1:1, 2, 3, 4, 5). It was not so when the first Church of the Gentiles was gathered at Antioch; and the disciples first began to be called Christians; for as yet we have no tidings of any Church at Rome. It was not so, when Paul wrote his Epistles, for he makes express mention of many other Church in other places, which had no relation to any Churches at Rome, more than they had one to another in their common profession of the same faith, and therein enjoyed equal gifts and privileges with it. It was not so, in the days of the Primitive Fathers of the first three hundred years, who all of them, not one excepted, took the Roman to be a local particular Church, and the Bishop of Rome to be such a Bishop, as they esteemed of all other Churches and Bishops: Their persuasion in this matter is expressed in the beginning of the Epistle of Clemens, or Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth, [in non-Latin alphabet], the Church that is at Rome, to the Church that is at Corinth; both local Churches, both equal: And such is the language of all the Writers of those times. It was not so in the days of the Fathers and Councils of the next three centuries, who still accounted it a particular Church; Diocesan or Patriarchal; but all of them particular, never calling it Catholic, but upon the account of its holding the Catholic faith, as they called all other Churches that did so, in opposition to the errors, heresies, and schisms of any in their days. We desire then to know when it became the only or absolutely Catholic Church of Christ: As also (secondly) by what means it became so to be? It did not do so by virtue of any institution, warrant, or command of Christ: You were never able to produce the least intimation of any such warrant out of any writing of divine inspiration, nor approved Catholic writer of the first ages after Christ, though it hugely concern you so to do, if it were possible to be done; but they all expresly teach that which is inconsistent with such pretences. It did not do so, by any decree of the first General Councils, which are all of them silent as to any such thing, and some of them, as those of Nice, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, expresly declare and determine the contrary, at least that which is contrary thereunto. We can find no other way or means whereby it can pretend to this vast privilege, unless it be the grant of Phocas to Boniface, that he should be called the Universal Bishop, who to serve his own ends was very liberal of that which was not at all in his power to bestow: And yet neither is this, though it be a means that you have more reason to be ashamed than to boast of, sufficient to found your present claim, considering how that name was in those days no more than a name, a mere airy ambitious title, that carried along with it no real power; and, stet magni nominis umbra.

Secondly, We cannot give our assent to this claim of yours, because we should thereby be necessitated to cut off from the Church, and consequently all hope of salvation, far the greatest number of men in the world who in this and all foregoing ages have called and do call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. This we dare not do especially considering that many of them have spent and do spend their days in great affliction for their testimony to Christ and his Gospel, and many of them every day seal their testimony with their blood, so belonging as we believe to that holy army of Martyrs, which continually praises God: Now as herein we dare not concur with you considering the charge given to Timothy by Paul, [in non-Latin alphabet], be not partaker of other men's sins, so indeed we are persuaded that your opinion, or rather presumption in this matter, is extremely injurious to the grace of Christ, the love and goodness of God, as also to the truth of the Gospel. And therefore

Thirdly, We suppose this the most schismatical principle that ever was broached under the Sun, since there was a Church upon the earth: and that because, 1. It is the most groundless, 2. The most uncharitable that ever was; and 3. Of the most pernicious consequence, as having a principal influence into the present irreconcilableness of differences among Christians in the world; which will one day be charged on the authors and abettors of it; For it will one day appear, that it is not the various conceptions of the minds of peaceable men about the things of God, nor the various degrees of knowledge and faith that are found among them, but groundless impositions of things as necessary to be believed and practised, beyond Scripture warrant, that are the springs and causes of all, or at least the most blameable and sinful differences among Christians.

Fourthly, we know this pretence should it take place, would prove extremely hazardous to the truth of the promises of Christ given to the Catholick Church. For, suppose that to be one and the same with the Roman, and whatever mishap may befall the one must be thought to befall the other; for on your supposition, they are not only like Hippocrates twins, that being born together, wept and joyed together, and together died, but like Hippocrates himself, as the same individual person or thing, being both the same; one Church, that has two names, Catholick and Roman, that is Universal-Particular; no otherwise two, than as Julius Caesar was, when by his overawing his colleague from the execution of his office, they dated their acts at Rome, Julio & Casare Consulibus. For, as they said, Non Bibulo quiquam nuper sed Caesare factum est; Nani Bibulo fieri Consule nil memini. Now, besides the failings which we know your Church to have been subject to in point of faith, manners, and worship; it has also been at least in danger of destruction in the time of the prevalency of the Goths, Vandals, Huns, and Longobards; especially when Rome itself was left desolate and without inhabitant by Totilas. And what yet farther may befall it before the end of the world, [illegible]. Only this I know that many are in expectation of a sad catastrophe to be given to it, and that on grounds not to be despised. Now God forbid, that the Church to which the promises are made, should be once thought to be subject to all the dangers and hazards that you wilfully expose your selves to. So that as this is a very groundless presumption in its self, so it is a very great aggravation of your miscarriages also, while you seek to entitle the Catholick Church of Christ to them, which can neither contract any such guilt as you have done, nor be liable to any such misery or punishment as you are.

Fifthly, we see not the promises, made to the Catholick Church, fulfilled to you; as we see that to have befallen your Church, which is contrary to the promises that ever it should befall the Catholick. The conclusion then will necessarily on both instances follow, that either you are not the Catholick Church, or that the promises of Christ have failed and been of none effect. And you may easily guess, which part of the conclusion, it is best and most safe for us to give assent to. I shall give you one or two instances to this last head. Christ has promised his Spirit to his Church, that is the Catholick Church, to abide with it for ever (John 14:16). But this promise has not been made good to your Church at all times; because it has not been so to the head of it. Many a time the head of your Church has not received the Spirit of Christ; for our Savior tells us in the next words, that the world cannot receive him; that is men of the world, carnally minded men cannot do so: for he is the peculiar inheritance of those that are called, sanctified, and do believe. Now if ever there was any world in the world, any of the world in the earth, some, many of your Popes, have been so, and therefore by the testimony of Christ could not receive the Spirit that he promised to his Church. Again it is promised, to the Church mystical or Catholick in the first and chiefest notion of it, that all her children shall be holy, all taught of God, and all that are so taught, as our Savior informs us, come to him by saving faith; you will not I am sure for shame affirm that this promise has been made good to all, either children or fathers, of your Church. Innumerable other promises, made to the Catholick Church, may be instanced in, which you can no better or otherwise apply to your Church, than one of your Popes did that of the Psalmist to himself, You shall tread on the Lion and the Basilisk, when he set his foot on the neck of Fredrick the Emperor. But the arguments are endless whereby the vanity of this pretence may be disproved; I shall only add,

Sixthly, that it is contrary to all story, reason, and common sense: for it is notorious that far the greatest part of Christians, that belong to the Catholick Church of Christ, or have done so from the days that Christianity first entered the world successively in all ages, never thought themselves any otherwise concerned in the Roman Church, than in any other particular Church of name in the world. And is it not a madness to exclude them all from being Christians, or belonging to the Catholick Church, because they belonged not to the Roman. This I could easily demonstrate throughout all ages of the Church successively. But we need not insist longer on the disproving of that assertion, which implies a flat contradiction in the very terms of it. If any Church be the Catholick, it cannot therefore be the Roman; and if it be the Roman properly, it cannot therefore be the Catholick.

2. If you shall say that you mean only that you are a Particular Church of Christ, but yet that, or such a Particular Church, as has the great privileges of infallibility, and universal authority annexed to it, which makes it of necessity for all men to submit to it, and to acquiesce in its determinations: I answer, 1. I fear you will not say so; you will not, I fear, renounce your claim to Catholicism. I have already observed that your self in particular affirm the Roman and Catholic Church to be one and the same. It is not enough for you that you belong any way to the Church of Christ, but you plead that none do so but your selves. 2. Indeed you do not own your selves in this very assertion to be a Particular Church; your claim of universal authority and jurisdiction, which you still carry along with you, is inconsistent with any such concession. 3. To make the best of it that we can; what ground have you to give us this difference between the churches of Christ, that one is fallible, another infallible; that one has power over all the rest, that one depends on Christ, all the rest on that one? Where is the least intimation given of any such thing in the Scripture? Where or by whom is it expressly asserted among the ancient writers of the Church? Was this principle pleaded or once asserted in any of the ancient councils? Some ambiguous expressions of particular persons, most of them Bishops of Rome in the declining days of the Church, you produce indeed to this purpose: but can any rational man think them a sufficient foundation of that stupendous fabric, which you endeavour to erect upon them? I suppose you will not find any such persons hasty in their so doing: those who are already engaged will not be easily recovered: for new proselytes to these principles you have small ground to expect any, unless it be of persons whose lives are either tainted with sensuality, which they would gladly have a refuge for against the accusations of their consciences, or whose minds are entangled with worldly secular advantages suited to their conditions, tempers, and inclinations.

Thus I have, with what briefness I could, shewed you the uncertainty, indeed falseness of those general principles from which you educe all your other pleas and reasonings, into which they must be resolved. And now I pray consider the ground-work you lay for the bringing of men to a settlement in the truth and to the unity of faith, in opposition to the Scripture which you reject as insufficient to this purpose. The sum of it is, an acquiescency in the proposals and determinations of your Church, as to all things that concern faith and the worship of God. The two main principles that concur to it, we have apart considered, and have found them every way insufficient for the end proposed. Neither have they one jot more of strength when they are complicated and blended together, as they usually are by you, than they have in and of themselves as they stand singly on their own bottoms. A thousand falsehoods put together will be far enough from making one truth. A multiplication of them may increase a sophism but not add the least weight or strength to an argument. An army of cripples will not make one sound man. And can you think it reasonable, that we should renounce our sure and firm Word of Prophecy, to attend to you in this chase of uncertain conjectures, and palpable untruths? Suppose this were a way that would bring you and us to an agreement, and take away the evil of our differences; I can name you twenty, that would do it as effectually; and they should none of them have any evil in them, but only that which yours also is openly guilty of, namely the relinquishment of our duty towards God, and care of our own souls, to come to some peace among our selves in this world, which would be nothing else, but a plain conspiracy against Jesus Christ, and rejection of his authority. At present I shall say no more, but that he who is led into the truth by so many errors, and is brought to establishments by so many uncertainties, has singular success, and such as no other man has reason to look for. Or he is like Robert Duke of Normandy who when he caused the Saracens to carry him into Jerusalem, sent word to his friends in Europe, that he was carried into Heaven on the backs of Devils.

It may also in particular be easily made to appear how unsuited your means of bringing men to the unity of faith, are to that supposition of the present differences in religion between you and us, which you proceed upon. For, suppose a man be convinced that many things taught by your Church are false, and contrary to the mind of God, as you know the case to be between you and us; what course would you take with him to reduce him to the unity of faith? Would you tell him that your Church cannot erre, or would you endeavour to perswade him that the particulars which he instanceth in as errours, are not so indeed, but real truths and necessarily by him to be believed? The former, if you would speak it out, down-right and openly, as becometh men who distrust not the truth of their principles (for he that is perswaded of the truth never fears its strength) would soon appear to be a very wise course indeed. You would perswade a man in generall that you cannot erre, while he gives you instances that you have actually erred. Do not think you have any sophisms against motion in generall, that will prevail with any man to assent to you, while he is able to rise and walk to and fro. Besides, he that is convinced of any thing wherein you erre, believes the opposite to it to be true, and that on grounds to him sufficiently cogent to require his assent: if you could now perswade him that you cannot erre, while he actually believes things to be true, which he knows to be contrary to your determination, what a sweet condition should you bring him into? Can you enable him to believe contradictions at the same time? Or, when a man on particular grounds and evidences is come to a setled firm perswasion that any doctrine of your Church, suppose that of Transubstantiation, is false and contradictory to Scripture and right reason; if you should, abstracting from particulars, in generall puzzle him with sophisms and pretences for your Church's infallibility, do you think it is an easie thing for him immediately to forego that perswasion in particular, which his mind upon cogent and to him unavoidable grounds and arguments was possessed withall, without a rationall removall of those grounds and arguments? Mens belief of things never pierces deeper into their souls than their imagination, who can take it up and lay it down at their pleasure. I am perswaded therefore, you would take the latter course, and strive to convince him of his mistakes in the things that he judgeth erroneous in the doctrine of your Church. And what way would you proceed by for his conviction? Would you not produce testimonies of Scripture, with arguments drawn from them, and the suffrage of the Fathers to the same purpose? No, would you not do so, if the errour he charge you withall, be that of the authority and infallibility of your Church? I am sure, all your controversie-writers of note take this course. And do you not see then, that you are brought, whether you will or no, to the use of that way and means for the reducing of men to the unity of faith, which you before rejected, which Protestants avow as sufficient to that purpose?