Brief Account of One Suggestion of the Romanist, Chapter 2 · Section 3
SECT. III.
His second Ground, evacuated from the Answers given to the first. Patriarchal power affording the Pope no authority over England.
1. HAving spent so much time in a large but necessary survey of his first ground, we shall reap some small fruit of it, in the brevity of the next. For the second ground being by him proposed in these terms, that This authority actually over England, and acknowledged there, was acknowledged likewise to be that of the Head of the Ʋniversal Church, and not of a Patriarchate only] and his Epiphonema affix'd to it, this, that this Ground is no lesse evident, than the former, by our adversaries confession, since that, i. e. the authority of the head of the Ʋniversal Church, above Patriarchs, and (as he addes in the close of the Paragraph) pretended to be instituted by Christ himself, is the authority they impugne as unlawfull, and from which they reformed, which last word implies the actual acknowledgement that Authority had before] the Answer is briefly this, that we have already superseded every the minutest part of this pretension, in what hath been so largely returned to the former ground, having there shew'd him, 1. That the Popes pretended authority, as of an head of the Ʋniversal Church, and as constituted by Christ himself, was not actually over England, and acknowledged there (though it is true that the Pope did then pretend it, and some ill subjects owned, or at least seemed to own and submit to those his pretensions) 2. by the way, that the dignity of a Patriarch includes not any authority over more than the Province or foreign that belongs to him as a Primate or Metropolitane, and therefore inferres no kind of authority over all those that belong to the circuit of his Patriarchate; which shewes the impropriety of his speech, that speaking of an Authority over England (which is no part of the foreign of the Primate of Rome) he saith it was not of a Patriarchate only] as if that of a Patriarchate only, were some authority over all whose Patriarch he were, though not so great as that of the head of the Church, whereas indeed the word Patriarch, as it differs from Primate, or in relation to any that are not his peculiar foreign, hath no connotation of authority or jurisdiction, but only of primacy of order and dignity. 3. That S. W's adversaries confession hath afforded him no advantage, their impugning the Papal pretensions as unlawfull, no way implying the actual acknowledgement which that authority had before, and 4. that they that disclaimed the Popes pretended authority in England, did not call themselves Reformers, so that S. W. is farre from a severe, as that is more moderate than a rigorous demonstrator, in all that he pretends from that word [Reforming.]
2. All that can with any colour of right be yielded him in this processe, is, that this second Ground is no lesse evident then the first, and that he hath indeed by his adversaries confession, who withall assignes his reasons of believing, that neither hath the least evidence in it.
3. So happy is S. W. in building of bulwarks, so hugely prosperous in the art of praepossessing his Readers, he might sure have vindicated his old answers as successefully, and demolished all the Doctors Replies to his second and third part, from which he was diverted by this more inviting employment of laying of grounds, if he had maturely considered and timely foreseen the advantages he hath reaped by it.