The Disarmers Dexterities Examined, Chapter 5 · Section 2
SECT. II.
S. W his Arts. St. Paul's chaire at Ephesus, &c. Conversion of Britany before Peters coming to Rome. Exemption from the Pope's Jurisdiction a prejudice to his universall Pastorship. Car…hage's Contestation before Justinian's time. Justinian's Act approved, a President to England. The questioning it.
HIs fourth Section begins with one of his dexterities, of which we have had an instance or two formerly. To invalidate the title from conversion, I had regularly proved these two things: 1. That the Britains were not converted by them. 2. That for the Saxons, which were converted from Rome, that title of conversion was of no force; And these two together, were the full proving of my conclusion, which the former single did not pretend to do, yet had enough of prejudice to the pretence for universall Primacy, for one exception was destructive to that; and the Dominions of Wales as much so, as all England would have been.
Now S. W. his art was, to divide these two branches, and to make answer to the form…r of them, taken alone, Sect. 3. and by that meanes to gain opportunity of rejoycing, that I have left my self and my fellow Englishmen in the suds, and onelyonly proved the Welsh no Schismaticks (adding onelyonly, that now the Welsh are so subjected to the English Bishops, that they must be involved in the same Schism) & so he triumphantly ends that Section, beginning this fourth with a view of the branch which belonged to the Saxons, as of a second part of my text (as he calls it) by this imposing on his Reader, who if he had foreseen that there was any thing said to that of the Saxons, or could carry it in his memory from one section to another, must needs discern, that what was before said of leaving the English in the suds, had not the least degree of truth in it. For if indeed I equally proved it (though not by the same medium) of the English and the Welsh, how could it ever, with truth, be said, that I proved it of the Welsh onelyonly? Such arts as these, which receive all their force from a hope, that the Readers memory cannot hold out from the end of one Section to the beginning of another, are one of S. W. his Master pieces, which have rendred him so much a shrewder man, than the Catholick Gentleman.
What followes, 1. of S. Paul's Plantations, and the independency thereof, both from the See, where S. Paul sat at the time of converting them, and more especially from the See of Rome: And 2. of the independency and absolutenesse of Timothy, and Titus in their severall Provinces, hath been briefly vindicated in the Reply, cap. 61 sect. 3, 4. onelyonly when S W. here asks what I intend by the chaire where S. Paul sat, adding, that it was meerly a fiction, that S. Paul ever sat in any ch ire, or was first Bishop in any place, but at Rome onelyonly with S. Peter. I answer, 1. That this ought to have had some offer of proof annext to it, and not onelyonly be so magisterially affirmed by him: 2. By chaire I mean a place of his particular residence, and ruling (after he had planted) for some time, before he left a Bishop in one, and went to some othe… place; And thus 'tis sure he resided in many cities and Provinces as properly as at Rome he can be affirmed to have done. At Rome he so resided not, as not to make excursions very farre from thence, to plant and confirm Churches, and in the like manner he resided at Antioch for one season, at Ephesus, and in all Asia, under that Prime Metropolis, for no lesse than three yeares, and so at Co…inth, at Philippi, and at Thessalonica, and all these before ever he saw Rome, and to no one of these were all other Churches (where at that time he wrought conversions, founded and setled Churches) subjected by him, any farther than this, that the Churches of the Regions were subjected to the City church, the Churches of inferiour cities to the Metropoles, and those united again in the Prime Metr poles of each foreign. And so this was a competent instance of the point in hand, and Timothy and Titus cleare evidences of it, both those demonstrated to be clearly independent from Rome, whether upon the score of Peter's, or of Paul's presiding there (not by force of my negative, unsuffi…ient proofs, as he …alls them, but) upon this irrefragable evidence, that those were placed Bishop… at Ephesus, and Crete, before either of these were yet so much as come to that imperiall city. And the like upon the same account might, if we can believe story, be resolved of this Island of ours, where (saith Gildas Brito, or Badonicus, anciently styled Sapiens, Gildas Albanicus in his Book of the victory of Aurelius Ambrosius, and the Vatican M. S. in Baronius) a Church was planted before the end of Tiberius's reign, and that manifestly before S. Peter was come to Rome, secundo Claudii, as might be shewed by unquestioned records, if this were a place for it.
The next particular of the power of Princes to erect or translate Patriarchs, hath also been vindicated, Repl. c. 6. sec. 4. and there it appeares how little reason he hath to affirm, that this is the begging of the question, viz. that the Pope's power is meerly Patriarchal, when that on which my proofs proceed, the independency of those prime Churches, which have been erected by Emperours, is as destructive to ths Pope's pretended title of universal Pastorship, as to the immoveablenesse of his Patriarchal power; the exempting any from his jurisdiction being as contradictory to the universality of his jurisdiction, as any thing could be supposed to have been.
Next, when of one of my instances, Carthage, he concludes from my own words, that all that the Emperour did, was to restore it to its Primacy, after the Vandals were driven out, and so onelyonly an act of preserving the Canons inviolate, which every good Christian Emperour ought to doe] this is but a catching of any thing that comes, though it be but like Hierocles's Scholasticus, that in the shipwrack caught hold on, and meant to save himself by the anchor, which served onelyonly to discover his feare, and ascertaine his perishing. For 'tis certain, that before the Vandals inrode, Carthage, though within the Patriarchate of Rome, had refused to submit to her jurisdiction; or to allow of any appeale thither. The contest set down from the African Council, in the close of the fourth Chapter of this Reply, is an evidence of that; and he that knows any thing in Church story, cannot be ignorant of it. And if Justinian's restoring of that, after the expulsing of the Vandals, and (which is somewhat more, and yet was there subjoyned) his annexing two new Provinces, which had not before been under that Bishops jurisdiction, be that, which every good Emperour, not onelyonly may, but ought to doe, then shall I never desire any more to inferre my conclusion, 1. that Hen. VIII. in restoring that independency to the Church of England, which it had before Augustin's coming hither, nay, foreign from the first conversion, of this nation, and so ought to retain it by the Ephesine Canon, was but the preserving the Acts of the Church inviolate, and no more than every good Prince may, and ought to doe. 2. That by S W. his acknowledgement, Just…nian in this matter of Carthage, did but as a good Prince ought to doe, and then doing no more in the erection of Justiniana, than in the restitution of Carthage he had done; it must likewise follow, that herein also he no way misbehaved himself, and yet upon the presumption that he did, his whole answer depends, which next followes to my instance of Justiniana.
For though upon a former mention of this matter, he had never attempted to asperse Justinian, but in this second part, sec. 2. gave very plausible answers, that Justinian never intended to crop the aspiring growth of Rome, but sent to the Pope for a Pall for his new Archbishop, and a great deale more to the same purpose; yet now upon another incidentall glance on the same instance, as if the Catholick Gentleman and he had divided the cup of Lethe betwixt them, he now questions the power of Justinian to do what he did, and the legality of the act, and compares it with the Act of the late Parliament in taking away Bishops, having no power to take them away.
Thus every the most contrary colour (of answer) becomes S W. as well as ever it did Aristippus, but this slip having befallen him by following the footsteps of the Cath: Gent. I have spoken sufficiently to it there, Repl. c. 6. sec. 4. n. 11. 12. and fully manifested the legality of Justinians action, without any delegation from the Pope to do what he did. n. 13.