Which is the True Church, Part 1 · Chapter 3
CHAP. III. What mean you by the Word POPE?
W. J. By POPE I mean St. Peter, or any of his lawful successors in the See of Sect. 1.Rome, having authority by the institution of Christ, to govern all particular Churches next under Christ.
R. B. I am never the nearer knowing the Pope by this, till I know how St. Peters Successors may be known to me.
Q. 1. What personal qualification is necessary ad esse?
W. J. Such as are necessary ad esse of other Bishops, which I suppose you know.
R. B. If so, then all those were no Popes that were Hereticks, or denied essential points of faith.
W. J. 'Tis true, they were no Popes while formal Hereticks, if any such were.
R. B. As Iohn 22, 23, Eugenius 4th, &c.
W. J. Prove that.
R. B. The Articles brought against them, and the judgments thereupon, are a proof, if any thing may be called a proof; viz. in the Council at Rome against Iohn, in the Councils of Constance against divers, at Basil against Eugenius, and others much elder against Honorius, &c. Is a General Council no proof?
I added that so they were no Christians: and he answers, Prove that *Yet he maintaineth himself that Hereticks are no Christians but equivocally. Baronius, Binnius, Bellarmine, Genebrard, your greatest flatterers confess it, and much more. Who that ever read the Councils and Churchhistory doubted of it? see then the impudency of men pretending to lay their cause on tradition, and history.. To which I say, General Councils are your Catholick Church representative, and those charge these Popes with Heresie and Infidelity: If you are so frontless as to deny it, I will not therefore tire the Reader with transcribing Councils as oft as you can say, Prove it.
I added, And all those that wanted the necessary abilities to the essentials of their works. He saith, Prove that there were such Popes? I answer, That you have had children Popes, and some that were illiterate and ignorant, I have oft proved by the express testimonies of your own Historians. How oft must I repeat them?
I added, That therefore their Church hath oft been headless, and the Succession interrupted; Councils having thus censured many Popes.
W. J. When you have proved the precedents, prove that.
R. B. Reader, is not the cause of the Papacy in a desperate case, if Arms upheld it not, when their Champion hath no more to say for the very successive being of the Popes, but to bid me prove that which all men that read them know is commonly and copiously asserted by their Councils and Historians? How oft have I cited their Platina, Werverus, yea Baro…us, Binnius, Genebrard their greatest flatterers, telling us that some were Children, and some illiterate, and fifty together were not Apostolical, but Apostatical, &c.
W. I. Prove that they were lawful Councils which so censured any Popes, which we admit as true and lawful.
R. B. Alas, poor men▪ are you driven to that? 1. If you have the face to deny those to be lawful Councils that censured Honorius, the two Iohns, Eugenius, &c. we may as well and a little better use the same liberty, and question whether that of Trent, Florence, Lateran, &c. were lawful?
2. May not the world see now what is the foundation of your faith, and the validity of your Authority and Tradition? even your own wills? General Councils tell you the sense of the Church, and the Tradition of your fore-fathers, if you like them. But if the Pope dislike them, they are no lawful Councils, and their testimony null. The sum is, whatever Councils say, the Pope shall never be proved a Heretick or Infidel till he will say that he is one himself, and will subscribe as Marcellinus did to his own condemnation, or with Liberius confess his fault.
3. And have not these men a notable advantage to proselyte Ladies and illiterate persons, when if General Councils damn their Popes, it is but bidding them, Prove those to have been lawful Councils. And though I can prove to them that even their own Popes have affirmed them lawful, yet few women are so far skilled in History, and so they must yield to every impudent deceiver: And when I have proved all, it is but as Bellarmine's fetching a denial out of the word Conciliariter, against the approbation of Martin 5.
4. But is this enough for you? what if none were lawful Councils that displease the Pope? Are they therefore no competent witnesses of a matter of fact? In the I said that the charge of Simony made many of them uncapable; to which he giveth no answer, for their most flattering Historians assert it, and lament it.mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. And are not so many hundred Bishops and other Clerks as were at the Councils of Basil, Constance, Pisa, &c. competent Witnesses, that the Pope was a Heretick, Simonest, Murderer, &c. had the Pope but consented these Councils had been the Catholick Church and infallible? And may they not be credible Witnesses against him till he consent? How shall we believe them, when they tell us what was held and done in all the Christian World a thousand or fourteen hundred years ago, if after examination of Witnesses we may not believe them concerning one man, one publick sinner, in their own time, and known to many of themselves? What then would the testimony of a Historian or an hundred Historians signifie, if the testimony of many hundred Bishops congregate and deliberately examining, consulting and sentencing, be false?
R. B. I next asked, Q. 2. Where and how must this Institution of Christ (of the Papacy) Sect. 2.be found?
W. J. In the revealed Word of God, written or unwritten.
R. B. 1. Remember, Reader, that even now he told us that the Church-Governours are known without Revelation, else God had made an imprudent Government. He could not mean that they are known to be men, but Governours, distinct from Usurpers, or else he had spoke non-sense or impertinently. And yet now it is in the revealed word of God.
2. I answered, That they never gave the world assurance how to know the measure of their unwritten word, nor where to find it, so as to know what it is.
W. J. We say we have.
R. B. Just as now you do to me: If that Word of God be still unwritten, and neither to be found in your Councils, nor any of your Books, I challenge all the reason in the world, to tell us where we may certainly come to know what it is, and when we have all; especially when so great Councils as Ariminum, Ephes. 2, Constance and Basil may be deceived in your very Fundamentals of Authority, in matter of fact so near at hand?
R. B. Till you prove Christs institution, which you have nev… done, you free us from believing in the Pope.
W. J. All are free from believing in the Pope; we believe in God, but not in the Pope: who of us ever charged you to do so?
R. B. Even they that charge us to trust our very Salvation upon his Infallibility, Veracity or Authority, as from which only with his Council we must know what is Gods Word, and what the meaning of it, what is it to believe in, but to believe his Authority and Veracity, and trust upon it? But we thank you for discharging us from believing in the Pope: But I doubt when we are in your power, you will call us to an afterreckoning, and burn us for not believing on him, when you acquit us from believing in him; so much of your faith doth lie on a Letter.
R. B. Quest. 3. Will any ones Election prove him to be Pope? or who must elect him Sect. 3.☞ad esse?
W. J. Such as by approved custom are esteemed by those to whom it belongs, fit for that charge, and with whose election the Church is satisfied.
R. B. Now we come to their desperation! never were men put to more open confusion in the very essence of their cause. Something must be said, but they know not what. I noted here, that if no Election, or any ones Election will serve turn, the Scholars may elect a Schoolmaster Pope, and any man may be Pope, or an hundred may be Popes: But if not, then it must be known who it is that hath the power of Election, and that it was done by them. The people of Barnet or Brainford have no authority to elect a Lord Mayor of London; nor would one of their choice be any better than a Play-house Lord. Our Question is, Who must choose the Governour of all the world? In reason all the world should meet by themselves, or their just Delegates to choose him. But the man that claimeth this Divine Soveraignty hath been sometime chosen at Rome by a meeting of Lay-citizens; and sometimes by neighbour-Bishops, and sometimes (at the best) by Citizens and Presbyters together, Bishops approving it, and sometimes by the Emperors of Rome, of Constantinople, or of Germany, and sometime by a sort of things called Cardinals. Now if none of these have more right to choose him than the rest, then either any body hath right that can carry it out, and get possession, or else no body hath right, or none can tell who hath it. Accordingly for above forty years together, the Emperour and his party chose one Pope, and the King of France and his party chose another; one reigned at Rome, and another at Avignion in France. Part of Europe chose or owned one, and part another; and at once, saith Wernerus, there were six alive that were then Popes, or had been Popes (of whom one honester than the rest, because he could not read himself, chose another Pope to be his partner to read the Mass, which he could not do, and to help him in the rest).
Here in the answer of W. J. 1. He durst not tell us who have the power of Election. 2. But he saith it must be those that are fit for the charge. If I should ask who must choose the Lord Mayor of London, and you should so answer me, Those that are fit for the charge, would not any sensible Reader judg by your answer that you were unfit for an honest disputation.
3. He saith, that the Electors must be so esteemed (fit for the charge) by those to whom it doth belong, To whom what doth belong? why, to esteem the Electors fit. But how should a man know to whom it doth belong to judg who is fit to be an Elector? Doth it belong to the World or to Rome? To the people, Presbyters, Bishops, Emperours or Cardinals? Here we have more difficulties than we thought of; we must know who is fit to be Pope, and who is fit to elect him, and to whom it belongs to judg who are fit to be Electors; that is, to elect Electors; and when shall we come to know all this? If he say that it is the people that must choose the Choosers, what people be they? they of Rome? or they of all Italy? or they of Germany? or of France? or of all Europe? or of all the World?
3. He saith that the choosers must be such as by custom are esteemed fit by these; But what custom doth the man mean? when there have been four or five ways or sorts of Election, had not every one of them a beginning? and at their beginning could they plead custom? O that your sword were no stronger than your reasons!
4. Yea, he saith, It must be approved customs. But not a word who must be the approvers of all these new customs.
5. And when all is done, no more is needful, but that the unknown persons to whom it belongs do esteem the Electors fit, and so be they fit or unfit their estimation carrieth it.
6. But yet the hardest part remaineth, The Church must be satisfied with the Election. But, 1. Either the Election is valid or invalid before: If valid, will the Churches dissatisfaction invalidate it? If invalid, will the Churches satisfaction make it valid, or make him Pope that was none before? Who would have thought that a Pope had been a wight so utterly unintelligible?
2. And what way must the Churches satisfaction be notified to me? Is it by some note of approbation, or by silence? It's in vain for men to contradict that have no power. But what if I believed in my conscience that most of the Church is unsatisfied in the Election? Must I take that man to be no Pope? Then I am necessitated to believe that when Whores and Murderers, and such like, brought in the fifty that Baronius and Genebrard called Apostatical, &c. there was an interruption of the Succession by the dissatisfaction of the Church. Good Sir, was the Church satisfied with such men? Was it satisfied with those that the foresaid Council condemned as Heretical, wicked, and one of them a Devil incarnate? Did those Councils signifie no dissatisfaction of the Church?
3. And must I suspend my reception of the Pope till the Abassines, Armenians, Greeks, yea or Mexicans, and the Antipodes signifie their satisfaction?
4. But what is the Church that must be satisfied? when half Europe was for one, and the rest for another for forty years and more, with which of them was the Church satisfied? Was France or Germany the Church?
5. Lastly, by this we are acquit from acknowledging your Pope at all, while we know that three fourth parts, or at least two third parts of Christs Church on Earth is unsatisfied with your Pope and Papacy it self. To all this he answers:
W. J. 1. Tour exceptions are fallacies, à sensu conjuncto ad sensum divisum.
R. B. See, Reader, what the Papacy is come to, if it had not the sword, or ignorance to uphold it? when he puts together so many things as necessary ad esse to the Election of a Pope, (and yet makes nothing but a meer name to deceive the ignorant of any one of them) is it fallacious of me to expect that all those things be found in the Election? Or is it not fallacious in him that can shew us never a one of them?
Next W. I. saith, If the Church did really acquiesce in such an elected person as Pope, it was satisfied according to the substance of the Election, though not in the circumstances.
R. B. 1. Reader, is this any answer to any of the foresaid Objections? what satisfaction? what Church? when part of the Church was divided, and the greater part abhor'd them all? And was he Pope or no before this acquiescing? If so, what made him so? And, 2. What doth he but cheat us by his distinction of the substance and circumstances of Election? Doth he not obstinately (but necessarily) refuse to tell what is the substance of Election? Have those that were brought in by Whores, Poyson and Murders, the substance? Had those that were chosen by people, Presbyters, Bishops, Emperours, and Cardinals, all the substance? If so, why may not twenty have the substance at once, or four or five at least? what is it that is the substance? Alas, we ask in vain that which cannot be told us!
Next he saith, If the Church never accepted them as Popes, they are not to be accounted Legal Popes.
Ans. Farewel the Papacy then: and yet must we be burnt for not being their Subjects: 1. Then it seems that Election and Consecration made them not Popes at all before the Sect. 4.Churches acceptance: And sure that never made them such afterward. 2. Then we have no Popes; now most of the Church (Abassines, Copties, Armenians, Syrians, Greeks, Moscovites, Protestants, &c. there are two to one) are against the Papacy. 3. And then Eugenius the 4th, and others disowned and damned by General Councils (your own Churches Representatives) were no Popes.
Next he saith, That the abuses of Election came from mingling Lay-authority with Church-Government, Sect. 5.which is out of their Sphere. Now this abuse is much consonant with the Doctrine of Protestants; so that those for the most part who conform their practice according to the Protestants Principles, introduced this abuse into th… Popes Election.
Ans. Reader, what doth this man deserve for thus murdering the Papal cause? 1. Our question was not who it was long of th… they had no true lawful Popes for a long time, but whether it be not true, and their succession interrupted?
2. And is he worthy to be accounted a man that ever read Church-History that knoweth not, that before there were any Christian Emperours, the Laity with the Presbyters chose the Bishop of Rome, and all other Bishops? so then, if this was the abuse, the first and ancient way was the abuse, which their innovation rectified; and who knoweth not what power the Emperours used from 320 till 1000 years, in disposing of all the Patriarchal seats? And seeing Cardinals are the newest way of Election, is not the newest likest to be the abuse?
3. But I desire the Reader specially to note, that this man confesseth that Popes, were formerly chosen according to Protestant principles; and that their present way is a Reformation of the Protestant way as abusive; and who then are the Innovators, and the culpable Reformers? even Hildebrand Greg. 7. after bloody Wars against the Emperours, and the perjury that he had involved a great part of the Clergy in. And yet they would perswade men that it is our Principles and Reformation that are new, and theirs is the old way.
4. We are not ashamed to own that the Protestant principles do assert the power of Christian Princes in matters of Religion so far as the sword is therein to interpose (which Bishop Bilson of Chris. Subjection hath well opened) and the power of the people in consenting to their Pastors; and that we abhor their forcing Princes to be their executioners.
R. B. Is consecration necessary, and by whom ad esse?Sect. 6.
W. J. It is not absolutely necessary ad esse.
R. B. If Consecration be not necessary to Papacy, then it is not necessary that this or that man consecrate him more than another; and then it is not necessary to a Bishop, and then the want of it makes no interruption in any Church, any more than in yours.
W. J. Neither Papal nor Episcopal Iurisdiction (as all the Learned know) depends of Episcopal or Papal ordination, nor was there ever interruption in successions in Episcopal Iurisdiction in any See Sect. 7.for want of that alone, that is necessary for consecrating others validly, and not for jurisdiction over them.
R. B. What multiplied self-destroying answers are you driven to? 1. See here, Reader, how short a solution you have from themselves, of all their old objections about the Bishops Ordination at the Nags. head-Tayern in Cheapside, and the interruption of our Succession, and nullity of our Priesthood; now you see that jurisdiction depends not on Ordination, but may be without it. Their Pope and Bishops may have all their Ecclesiastical Government, though they be Lay-men. And may not Parish-priests have so also over the people? These Papists are more kind to the Protestant-Churches that have not Episcopal Ordination, than some called Protestants in this age are; want of Ordination nulleth not their Government. But for my part I would the Church had never known any such Jurisdiction, as is neither the Magistrates by the sword, nor given by Ordinaion to the Pastors, called the power of the Keys: At least I thought that it had been necessary to Popes and Prelates that they be Priests. If some as seniors among Presbyters, may be the Governours of the rest, (as an Abbot among Monks) yet sure he must be a Presbyter (or Monk) himself. I take the Priestly Office or Ministry to be essentiated by a Subordination to Christ in the participation of the three parts of his Office ministerially, viz. to be Sub-teachers, Sub-rectors, and Sub-priests to guide the people in Gods worship.
If Ordination be not necessary to Iurisdiction (a presumptuous word for Clergy-men) then either such unordained Bishops may ordain or not. If not, they are no Bishops. What is their Jurisdiction? If yea, then they may give that which they never had, and Lay-men may ordain. And may not ordained Presbyters ordain much more? One would think that the reading of Voetius against Iansenius, De desperata causa Papatus, had driven this man to these desperate answers: But he was aware that some Popes having been unordained men, he had no other shift.
Join to this what Dr. Stillingfleet after others hath fully proved, that the Orders given by Schismaticks and Hereticks are valid in the opinion of their Doctors, and you will see that their talk against the English Ministry is such, as the men do not believe themselves.
R. B. Q. 3. What notice or proof is necessary to the Subjects?Sect. 8.
W. J. So much as is necessary to oblige subjects to accept of other elected Princes to be their Soveraigns.
R. B. 1. But what that is, you would not tell us.
2. But if this be so, it must be so much as sufficeth to the subjects to distinguish him from Usurpers; or else Kings and Usurpers must be equally obeyed; and if so, then 1. The greatest part of the Christian world (Abassines and the rest before named) have no such notice of your Pope; it was many ages before the Abassines heard of him. 2. And Greeks and Protestants have no such notice; nay you tell no man which way he should have it, when neither any one way of election, nor any Consecration is necessary to the Office. 3. And then what notice had men in the long Schisms, which was the true Pope?
But note, Reader, that a Kingdome is so narrow a space, that notice may be given to all the subjects who is their true King. But the Earth is so great, and so much of it unknown, and so few ever sailed about it since the Creation, and those few saw so few of the inhabitant, that verily it is a hard matter to satisfie all the world who is the true Pope, and that he is truly elected, and is no Usurper. And on these terms it is but little of the world that is obliged to be subject to the Pope.
And now, Reader, if this man hath taught thee to understand what a Pope is, and what makes him so, and who is he, thou art far more teachable than I am; for he leaveth me more at a loss than he found me.