CHAP. XIX. Their Confounding 1. A human Ordinance, and a Divine. 2. Mere Primacy with Sovereignty. 3. An
CHAP. XIX. Their Confounding 1. A human Ordinance, and a Divine. 2. Mere Primacy with Sovereignty. 3. An alterable Order with an unalterable Essential.
D etect. 10. When they go about from Councils or other History to prove the Sovereignty of the Pope, let them not cheat you by confounding, 1. A human Ordinance with a Divine: 2. And an alterable point of Order with an unalterable essential part of the Church: 3. Or a mere
Primacy in the same Order or office with a Governing Sovereignty, or a different Order or office.
First therefore we would learn of them, whether the preeminence and order of the five Patriarchal Sees, began not about the first General Council to be looked after, but was settled some while after: For till there were
General Councils (such as were so called) there was no great occasion of determining which should have the first, second, or third seat.
2. Or whenever the time was, yet we inquire, whether these other Sees as of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, or some of them were not Patriarchal as soon as Rome? And whether Councils that speak of priority or posteriority, do not in the same manner, and on the same grounds, and to the same ends give Alexandria, and Antioch, their places, as they give to Rome the first
place? Surely we find them speaking of them as matters of the same Order and nature, saying, Rome shall have the first place or seat, Constantinople the second, Alexandria the third, Antioch the fourth, and Jerusalem the fifth.
4. And therefore we inquire whether all these have not the same kind of right to their preeminence, whether it be Divine or Human. And that the very foundation of this Patriarchal order, yea of Rome's Patriarchal
Primacy, (which was the preparative to its universal Sovereignty) was a mere human invention, given on occasion of the Imperial seat at Rome, and not any institution of Christ to Peter and his Successors, I desire you not to take from my word; but all that will not be fooled out of all Historical verity by Popish audacity, let them take it from the express words of the fourth great approved General Council, viz. of Calcedon, which the poor Jacobites and other Churches of the East and South are so reproached for rejecting. In Act. 16. Binnii p. 134, these are their words [Definitiones Sanctorum
Patrum sequentes ubique & Regulam, & quae nunc relecta sunt 150. Deo amantissimorum Episcoporum, qui congregati sunt sub piae memory
Imperatore majore Theodosio in Regia civitate Constantinop. Nova Roma, cognoscentes & nos eadem definivimus de privilegiis ejusdem Sanctissimae
Constantinop. Ecclesiae novae Romae. Etenim sedi Senioris Romae, propter Imperium civitatis illius (N. B.) patres consequenter privilegia reddiderunt. Et eadem intention permoti 150. Deo amantissimi Episcopy aequa sanctissimae sedi novae Romae privilegia tribuerunt, rationabiliter judicantes Imperio & Senatu Urbem ornatam aequis Senioris Regiae
Romae privilegiis frui.] i.e. [We following always the Definitions of the holy fathers, and the Canon, and knowing those that now have been read of the hundred and fifty Bishops, most beloved of God, that were Congregated under the Emperor of pious memory Theodosius the Greater, in the Royal
City Constantinople (new Rome,) have ourselves also defined the same things, concerning the Privileges of the same most holy Church of Constantinople, new Rome. For to the seat of old Rome, because of the Empire of that City, the Fathers consequently gave the Privileges. And the hundred and fifty Bishops most beloved of God, being moved with the same intention, have given equal Privileges to the most holy Seat of New
Rome: reasonably judging, then the City adorned with the Empire and Senate, shall enjoy equal Privileges with old Regal Rome.]
I do not stand to note that this Council was called by Martian: that his Lay Officers were called the Judges, or how light the Council made of Rome when they said [Qui contradicunt Nestoriani sunt: qui contradicunt Romam ambulent] Bin. p. 98. Nor do I stand so much on it, that they gave
Constantinople equal privileges. But it may confound all the Papal Jugglers on earth to find an approved General Council affirming, 1. That Rome's
Privileges (even its mere primacy) were given by the Fathers. 2. And that because it was the Imperial City. 3. And therefore on the same reason they do the like by Constantinople. 4. And that the General Council of Constant. had gone before them on these grounds: so that you have the vote of two of the first four great General Councils, that it was not so from the beginning, nor an Apostolical Tradition, but the act of the Fathers, because of the Imperial City. If a General Council can err, Popery is a deceit. If it cannot err, then the very Primacy of order in the Pope was then but new, and human, on a Carnal ground, done by man, that might do the like by others, and therefore undo this again.
But say they, Pope Leo confirmed not this. Answ. 1. Still then the Church Representative it seems may err, and the Pope only is infallible. 2. Leo and his Delegates were offended at Anatolius his rising, and the equaling him
with Rome: but they never excepted one word (that ever I found) against the saying, that it was because of the Empire that Rome by the Fathers had the Primacy given it.
And the Reason given by themselves Council. Constant. Can. 5, is, [because Constantinople is new Rome] But Binius saith that Rome receiveth not the Canons of this Council neither, but only their condemnation of Macedonius. And he saith [that every Council hath just so much strength and authority as the Apostolic seat bestoweth on it. For (saith he) unless this be admitted, no reason can be given why some Councils of greater numbers of Bishops were reprobated; and others of a smaller number confirmed] Bin. Vol. 2, p. 515.
What would you have more Sirs? Do you not see yet what the Popish Catholic Church is; and what they mean when they mouth it out to you, and ask you whether your private Judgment be safer or wiser than that of the whole Church, or of all the Christian world? You see they mean all this while but one man, whom Gretser and others plainly confess they call the Church. So that indeed it is General Councils, and all the Christian world or Church that are the ignorant, fallible, and oft erring part; and it is one man,
(that sometime is reputed an incarnate Devil by a General Council too) that is the unerring Pillar of the Church, and wiser than all they. Do you not see that they make a mere nothing or mockery of General Councils, any further than they please the Pope? And can you expect that anything should please them that is against his Greatness, or, as Julius the second calls it, [his holding the place of the great God, the Maker of all things, and all Laws?]
What a vile abuse is it then of the Pope to trouble the world by the meetings and Consultations of General Councils, when he can sit at Rome and contradict them infallibly, and, Good man, is fain to save the Catholic
Church from the Errors that General Councils (the Representative Catholic Church) would else lead them into: and therefore could he not with less ado infallibly make us Laws, Canons, and Scriptures without them? For sure that which the Pope can do against a General Council, he can do without them. If he can Infallibly contradict a General Council, and Infallibly Rule us contrary to their Judgment, he may no doubt Infallibly Rule us without them. And therefore of late times they have learnt so much wit, that you may look long enough before you see a General Council. And I think the Council of Constance were no better Prognosticators then William Lily, nor no more effectual Lawgivers then Wat Tyler, when they Prognosticated or Ordained Decennial Councils: And I will be judged by all the world.
And here also you may see what account the Papists make even of the first General Councils. Its all one with them to judge others Heretics for contradicting especially the four first General Councils (compared to the four Evangelists) as the Scripture itself: and yet (who would have thought it) they profess themselves to reject the Canons or Decrees of both these, the first of Constantinople, and that of Calcedon in part.
And, now I think on it, by this privilege I cannot see but the Pope is privileged from all possibility of being a Heretic personally. But these things are on the by, I return to the point in hand, which is to prove to you, that not only the Romish Universal Monarchy and Vice-godhead, but even its Patriarchal Primacy was no Apostolical Tradition, but a Human
Institution, founded on this Consideration, that Rome was the Imperial Seat and City.
5. And Human it must needs be. 1. For we find that Councils did not declare it as any part of the Law of God, but Ordain it as an act of their own. 2. We find them adding the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which was
a new seat, neither Patriarch nor Bishop residing there in the Apostles days, or long after. 3. Yea we find them giving this new Patriarch the second place, and once making him equal with old Rome, which they would never have presumed to do, if they had thought that the Patriarchship of Alexandria, Antioch, or Rome had been of Divine Institution: for what horrible arrogancy would that have been, when the Holy Ghost by the Apostles had made Alexandria second, and Antioch third, and Rome first, for a Council to set Constantinople before two of them, and equal with the first?
6. And therefore we have reason to think that if Patriarchs be desirable creatures, there may more and more new ones now be made, as lawfully as Constantinople was.
7. And we do not think that a General Council or Pope can make a man of one Nation to be Patriarch of the Church in another Nation, that perhaps may be in wars with the Prince of the first Nation: but that each Prince with the Church under their Power, hath more to do in it then either Pope or Council. And if Portugal and France set up Patriarchs at home, they do as lawfully as the Patriarch of Constantinople was set up.
8. And therefore we must needs judge, that to disobey the Pope, or withdraw from his subjection (if he had never forfeited his Patriarchship by the claim of an Universal Headship) were no greater a sin, then to disobey or withdraw from the Patriarch of Alexandria, Antioch, or Constantinople: either the Government by Patriarchs and Arch-bishops is of God's ordaining and approving, or not: if not (as most of the Protestants hold) then it is no sin to reject any of them. If it be of God, then to reject any of them (though in simple error) is a sin of disobedience through ignorance, but is far from
proving a man to be no member of the Catholic Church: for sure Patriarchs are far from being Essential parts of the Catholic Church.
For, 9. We conclude, as in the Papists own Judgment, the Catholic Church may be without the Patriarch of Constantinople, Alexandria, or Antioch; so may it therefore without the Pope of Rome.