Romes Ruin(1), Answer · Paragraph 9
PAR. IX. Touching the third note, succession:
CHALLENGE.
The Roman church hath ever had a succession of true bishops and pastours, derived from the apostles, still teaching, &c.
Answer.
The third lame leg, on which your faith resteth it self, is the succession of Roman bishops and pastors, which, if it were strong and sound, yet the patriarchs of Constantinople, and Ierusalem, and Antiochia, and Alexandria, do set as good a leg forth for it as your bishop of Rome. They produce as uncontroulable a catalogue of Nicep…. lib. …. cap. 6. ecclesia Constant. a S. Andrea Apostol… … sua… …. Baron. …. 6. refert legati… nem a Gabriele Patriar… ad Clemen. 8. mis. sam, in cuj…titul… se 97. Patri…cham S. Marc. successerem indigita▪ Bellarm. de not. ecclesi….bishops and pastours, the one succeding the other in their sees, as you in the see of Rome; and some of them from the apostles themselvs. But what if this leg of yours prove a false leg, and will double under you (to use your owne phrase?) let the day be yours (as now the night of errour and ignorance is) if by the same evidence which you bring for your succession, we prove not many main defects and maims in it, which so deface and confound it, that it can be no note or mark of the true church, as you make it.
First, notes and marks of any thing ought to be very remarkable and visible, and after a sort notorious, else they are not notae, but ignotae. If then the succession of your Romish bishops remain but quessionable, such succession questionlesse cannot be a note of the church; and is it not questionable and very uncertain, when you stick in the very beginning of your catalogue, and your skilfullest ushers know not where to rank Clemens, in the second or the fourth Nutat adhuc mundus, sit quartus anne secundus. Helvic. Chr… n…g. & al….place? When during two and twenty schisms at least in the papacy, it was a meeting cast, and even lay between the Popes and anti-popes, whether were the true successours of Saint Peter? When, besides many flaws in your catalogue by vacancies for mon…ths & years, there was a great chasma or hiatus for almost one hundred years, during which time the Popes sate at Avinium & left Rome? When for one hundred and sixty years together you cannot name me one firm and allowable Pope, or such a one as he ought to be▪ Geneb. Chron. lib. 4. Baron. Annal. in An. 912. Quae tum facies S. Rom. ecclesiae? quam foed…ssima, cum Romae dominarentur potentissim… ▪ ae que ac sordidissimae merit…ices, quarū arbitrio m…tarentur sedes darentur episcopat. & quod horrendum & nefandum est intruderentur in sedem Petri … rum amasii pseudo-pontifices, qui non sunt nisi ad consignanda tempora in catalogo pontificū scripti? Virg. AEn Plat in vit, Clem …. Corruptis suffragiis, factiosus quis que dignitatem pontificatus consecucus est: By bought s…ff…ages, eve…y factious companion: spired …o the Pop… dom. Geneb. ch…ō. l. …. Pontifices prodigiosilnam non more majorum eligebantur, sed … Caesaribus intrudebantur. Mart. Pol…n. & alii. Glaber. R…d…l. Monach. Clun, Anastas. in vita Pelag. Dum non essent episcopi qui eum ordinarent, invent… sunt duo episcopi, Ioannes de Parasio, & Bonnus de Feren. & Andreas Pres…yter de Ostia, & ordinaverunt cum pontificem.your own Genebrard confesteth, that fifty of them, as I noted before, in that time deserved to be termed rather apostaticall, and disordered and irregular, t…a… canonicall and apostolicall. Baronius gives your succession yet a more terrible blow: what was then the face of the Roman church? how filthy, when as most potent and base queans bare all the sway at Rome? changed sees, and gave bishopricks at their pleasure? and, which is most abhominable, and not to be named, intruded their paramours into Peters chair? false bishops, whose names are written in the catalogue of Popes, only to note and design the times! Give me the clew (I pray you) by which you wind your sel…s out of this labryinth. Eugenius was deposed as schismaticall by the councell of Basit, and Amadeus was made Pope in his stead; yet afterwards this Eugenius, by the favour of princes and a strong hand, recovered the Popedom, and from him all Popes since reckon. Was Eugenius a schismaticall and unlawfull Pope, or not? If not, the generall councell of Basil could not judge of schism; and whether shall we believe you, or the generall councell of Basil? If he were a schismaticall and an unlawfull Pope, what shall we judge of all that succeeded him?
Hic labor ille domus, & inextricabilis error.
Besides this Eugenius, how many other Popes have thrust into the chair by usurpation and corruption? how many have cut it asunder by schism? how many have rayed and defiled it with heresie, and abhominable filthinesse? When you so confidently affirm, that the church of Rome hath had always a succession of true bishops and pastors, I pray you, tell us what you mean by true bishops and pastors? If men capable of the Popedom, Pope Ioan, and Benedict the ninth chosen Pope at ten years old, were no such; if faithfull pastors and bishops truely discharging their pastorall function, in feeding Christs flock by diligent preaching, and exemplary living name me two such Popes for every hundred of years since Christ, & Phyllida solus habeto, I… by true bishops and pastors you understand rightly consecrated, and canonically elected and invested. Pope Pelagius the first was not so who obtained the papacy by an imposture; no… Sylvester, who aspired to it by art magick; no… Eugenius, who was at the first promoted by faction, and afterwards held it by might, in despight of the councell of Basil; if by true bishops you mean orthodoxall bishops, and preachers of the truth; Liberius was no such, branded with the note of Arrianism by St. Catal. vir. illust. Synod. 6: Constant. Act. 12. & 13. Synod. …. Nicen 2. Act. 7. Synod. 8. Const. sub Adria 2. Act. 7.Ierome, and Pope Damasus; Honorius was no such, for he was condemned for the heresie of the Monotholites in three generall councels confirmed by three Popes: Iohn the 23. was no such, who is charged in the councell of Constance with the denyall of the immortality of the soul, and the life to come, and for that and for other blasphemies and enormous crimes deposed by the councell.
To come yet neerer to the quick; when you stand so much upon succession, and make it an infallible note, what mean you by succession? locall succession or doctrinall, that is, a succeeding of bishops and pastors in the same place onelyonly? or a succession, not only in the same place, but principally and especially in the same orthodoxall and catholike doctrine, which is the only true (and properly so called) succession? as Nazianzen affirmeth: foreign foreign Naz. Orat. de Sancto Athanasio. Vid. Irenaeum contra haer. l. 4. c. 43, 44. Adhaerete i is qui apostolorum doctrinam custodiunt & cum episcop…li successione charisma veritatis acceperunt.foreign foreign foreign foreign. This excellent passage consisting of divers agnominations and gracefull figures in the greek cannot be translated but to the losse, and therefore omitting the english of it, in stead thereof I will impart unto you a very pertinent note upon it, which I found in a friends book, contrived by him into these elegant Iambicks,
foreign:
foreign.
foreign.The Pope succeedeth Peter, papists say; So tempests calms succeed, and night the day.
If you take succession in this latter sense, you take up again a beggarly fallacy called petitio principii; you prove idem per idem; to wit, that your Romish saith is the true faith, and the Romish church the true church, because your Romish bishops and p… have always succeeded one another in the profession of one and the self-same orthodoxall faith. If you take succession in the former sense, for bare locall succession, or the sitting of divers bishops one after another in the same chair, you make a …oodden argument: much like to that wherewith the fool in Dion pers… ded himself that he must needs be some great commander, because he had sat in Caesars chair: or that wherewith Vibius R…fus was more than half induced to beleeve, that he had Tullies cloquence infused into him by sitting in Tullies pew, and leaning upon Tullies desk. By this argument you might prove profane Photius to be an holy bishop, because he succeeded Ignatius an holy man: and Athanasius to be an Arrian heretick, because he succeeded an Arrian bishop: and our renowned martyr Cranmer to be a papist, because he succeeded Warham a papist: and cardinall Pool to be a protestant, because he succeeded Cranmer a protestant. Nay, by this reason you might prove pope Adrian, who trampled upon the Emperour Fredericks neck, blasphemously abusing the words of the psalmist, thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder, to be a pattern of humility; Pope Hildedrand, who entred like a fox, and ruled like a lyon, and dyed like a dog, to have been a pattern of simplicitie: Pope Stephen the 6. and Sergius the 3. who pulled their predecessor Formosus out of the grave, the one cutting off his finger, the other his head, and casting his carkasse into Tiberis, to have been patterns of humanity: Pope Boniface the 7. who robbed S. Peters chair of all the jewels and pretious things in it, to have been a pattern of a faithfull steward: Pope Iohn the 12. who gave orders in a stable, gelded his Cardinals, drank an health to the devill, and at dice called for help of Iupiter and Venus, to have been a saint: Pope Sylvester, who gave himself wholly to the devill, to have been a devoto: Pope Sixtus the 4. who ware cloth of gold at home in his private house, eased nature in stools of silver, and deckt his harl…t Tiretia with shoos covered with pearl, to have been a modest and frugall man: Pope Alexander the 6. who carnally knew his own daughter, and Pope Iohn the 13. who was slain in the very act of adultery, to have been virgins: nay, by this argument you might prove Pope Ioan, who was said to be brought on bed in the street in a solemn procession, to have been a man, because she succeeded men in that see. The heralds, who have blazon'd the arms of the popes, are Platina, Genebrardus, Luitprandus, Sigonius, Sigebertus, Martinus Polonus, Baptista Fulgosus, Iovianus Pontanus, Wesselius Groning. Let me give you good counsell in your ear: invent better arguments for popery than these, or charge your elect ladies, sub sigillo confessionis, never to utter any of them before a learned protestant, for fear of scandalizing your Romish faith. Let this suffice for your note, succession; I will now canvas your note, unity.