Epistles of the Popes of the first ages, in which they were represented as acting according to those high claims to which they were then beginning to pretend. Those ages were too blind and too ignorant to be capable of searching critically into the truth of this collection; it quickly passed for current; and though some in the beginning disputed it, yet that was soon borne down, and the credit of that work was established. It furnished them with precedents that they were careful enough not only to follow, but to outdo. Thus a work, which is now as universally rejected by the learned men of their own body as spurious, as it was then implicitly taken for genuine, gave the chief foundation during many ages to their unbounded authority: and this furnishes us with a very just prejudice against it, that it was managed with so much fraud and imposture; to which they added afterwards much cruelty and violence; the two worst characters possible, and the least likely to be found joined with infallibility for it is reasonable enough to apprehend, that, if God had lodged such a privilege any where, he would have so influenced those who were the de positaries of it, that they should have appeared somewhat like that authority to which they laid claim; and that he would not have forsaken them so, that for above eight hundred years the Papacy, as it is represented by their own writers, is perhaps the worst succession of men that is to be found in history.

But now to come more close, to prove what is here asserted in this part of the Article. If all those doctrines which were established at Trent, and that have been confirmed by Popes, and most of them brought into a new Creed, and made parts of it, are found to be gross errors; or if but any one of them should be found to be an error, then there is no doubt to be made but that the Church of Rome hath erred; so the proof brought against every one of these is likewise a proof against their infallibility. But I shall here give one instance of an error, which will not be denied by the greater part of the Church of Rome. They have now for above six hundred years asserted, that they had an authority over princes, not only to convict and condemn them of heresy, and to proceed against them with Church-censures; but that they had a power to depose them, to absolve their subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and to transfer their dominions to such persons as should undertake to execute their sentences. This they have often put in execution, and have constantly kept up their claim to it to this day. It will not serve them to get clear here, to say, that these were the violent practices

ART.

XIX.

1. 1.

XIX.

Ep. Greg.

7. post Ep. 55.

ART. of some Popes: what they did in many particular instances may be so turned off, and left as a blemish on the memories of some of them. But the point at present in question is, whether they have not laid claim to this, as a right belongDict. Papæ, ing to their See, as a part of St. Peter's authority descended to them? Whether they have not founded it on his being Christ's Vicar, who was the King of kings, and Lord of lords; to whom all power in heaven and in earth was given? Whether they have not founded it on Jeremy's being set over nations and kingdoms, to root out, pluck down, and to destroy? and on other places of Scripture; not forgetting, that the first words of the Bible are, In the beginning, and not In the beginnings; from which they inferred, that there is but one principle, from whence all power is derived: and that God made two great lights, the Sun to rule by day; which they applied to themselves.

Extravag. de Major.

et Obed. c. 1.

Conc. Lat.

3. cap. 27.

Con. Lar.

4. Can. 3. Con. Lug.

Card. Per

ron Harangue au

tiers estat.

This, I say, is the question: Whether they did not assume this authority as a power given them by God? As for the applying it to particular instances, to those kings and emperors whom they deposed, that is, indeed, a personal thing, whether they were guilty of heresy, or of being favourers of it, or not? And whether the Popes proceeded against them with too much violence or not?

The point now in question is, Whether they declared this to be a doctrine, that there was an authority lodged with their See for doing such things, and whether they alleged Scripture and Tradition for it?

Now this will appear evident to those who will read their bulls: in the preambles of which those quotations will be found, as some of them are in the body of the Canon Law; and it is decreed in it, that the belief of this is absolutely necessary to salvation.

This was pursued in a course of many ages. General Councils, as they are esteemed among them, have concurred with the Popes both in general decrees asserting this power to be in them, and in special sentences against Princes: this became the universally received doctrine of those ages: No university nor nation declaring against it; not so much as one divine, civilian, canonist, or casuist writ against it, as Card. Perron truly said. It was so certainly believed, that those writers, whom the deposed Princes got to undertake their defence, do not in any of their books pretend to call the doctrine in general in question.

Two things were disputed: one was, Whether Popes had a direct power in temporals over Princes; so that they were as much subject to them as feudatory Princes were to their superior Lords? This, to which Boniface the

XIX.

Eighth laid claim, was indeed contradicted. The other ART. point was, Whether those particulars for which Princes had been deposed, such as the giving the investiture to bishoprics, were heresies or not? This was much contested: but the power, in the case of manifest heresy, or of favouring it, to depose Princes, and transfer their crowns to others, was never called in question. This was certainly a definition made in the chair, ex cathedra: for it was addressed to all their community, both Laity and Clergy: plenary pardons were bestowed with it on those who executed it: the Clergy did generally preach the Croisades upon it. Princes, that were not concerned in him that was deposed, gave way to the publication of those bulls, and gave leave to their subjects to take the Cross, in order to the executing of them and the people did in vast multitudes gather about the standards that were set up for leading on armies to execute them; while many learned men writ in defence of this power, and not one man durst write against it.

This argument lies not only against the infallibility of Popes, but against that of General Councils likewise; and also against the authority of oral tradition: for here, in a succession of many ages, the tradition was wholly changed from the doctrine of former times, which had been, that the Clergy were subject to Princes, and had no authority over them or their crowns. Nor can it be said, that that was a point of discipline; for it was founded on an article of doctrine, whether there was such a power in the Popes or not? The prudence of executing or not executing it, is a point of discipline and of the government of the Church: but it is a point of doctrine, whether Christ has given such an authority to St. Peter and his followers. And those points of speculation, upon which a great deal turns as to practice, are certainly so important, that in them, if in any thing, we ought to expect an infallibility: for in this case a man is distracted between two contrary propositions: the one is, that he must obey the civil powers, as set over him by an ordinance of God; so that if he resists them, he shall receive in himself damnation: the other is, that the Pope being Christ's Vicar, is to be obeyed when he absolves him from his former oath and allegiance; and that the new Prince set up by him, is to be obeyed under the pain of damnation likewise.

Here a man is brought into a great strait, and therefore he must be guided by infallibility, if in any thing.

So the whole argument comes to this head; that we must either believe that the deposing power is lodged by

ART.

XIX.

Christ in the See of Rome; or we must conclude, with the Article, that they have erred; and by consequence, that they are not infallible: for the erring in any one point, and at any one time, does quite destroy the claim of infallibility.

Before this matter can be concluded, we must consider what is brought to prove it: what was laid down at first must be here remembered, that the proofs brought for a thing of this nature must be very express and clear. A privilege of such a sort, against which the appearances and prejudices are so strong, must be very fully made out, before we can be bound to believe it: nor can it be reasonable to urge the authority of any passages from Scripture, till the grounds are shewn for which the Scriptures themselves ought to be believed.

Those who think that it is in general well proved, that there must be an infallibility in the Church, conclude from thence, that it must be in the Pope: for if there must be a living speaking judge always ready to guide the Church, and to decide controversies, they say this cannot be in the diffusive body of Christians; for these cannot meet to judge. Nor can it be in a General Council, the meeting of which depends upon so many accidents, and on the consent of so many Princes, that the infallibility will lie dormant for some ages, if the General Council is the seat of it. Therefore they conclude, that since it is certainly in the Church, and can be no where else but in the Pope, therefore it is lodged in the See of Rome. Whereas we, on the other hand, think this is a strong argument against the infallibility in general, that it does not appear in whom it is vested and we think that every side does so effectually confute the other, that we believe them all as to that; and think they argue much stronger when they prove where it cannot be, than when they pretend to prove where it must be.

This, in the point now in hand, concerning the Pope, seems as evident as any thing can possibly be it not appearing, that, after the words of Christ to St. Peter, the other Apostles thought the point was thereby decided, who among them should be the greatest. For that debate was still on foot, and was canvassed among them in the very night in which our Saviour was betrayed. Nor does it appear, that after the effusion of the Holy Ghost, which certainly inspired them with the full understanding of Christ's words, they thought there was any thing peculiarly given to St. Peter beyond the rest. He was questioned upon his baptizing Cornelius: he was not

XIX.

singly appealed to in the great question of subjecting the ART. Gentiles to the yoke of the Mosaical Law; he delivered his opinion as one of the Apostles: after which St. James summed up the matter, and settled the decision of it. He was charged by St. Paul as guilty of dissimulation in that matter, for which St. Paul withstood him to his face : and he justifies that in an Epistle that is confessed to be writ by divine inspiration. St. Paul does also in the same Epistle plainly assert the equality of his own authority with his; and that he received no authority from him, and owed him no dependence: nor was he ever appealed to in any of the points that appear to have been disputed in the times that the Epistles were written. So that we see no characters of any special infallibility that was in him, besides that which was the effect of the inspiration, that was in the other Apostles as well as in him: nor is there a tittle in the Scripture, not so much as by a remote intimation, that he was to derive that authority, whatsoever it was, to any successor, or to lodge it in any particular city or see.

The silence of the Scripture in this point seems to be a full proof, that no such thing was intended by God: otherwise we have all reason to believe that it would have been clearly expressed. St. Peter himself ought to have declared this: and since both Alexandria and Antioch, as well as Rome, pretend to derive from him, and that the succession to those sees began in him, this makes a decision in this point so much the more necessary.

When St. Peter writ his second Epistle, in which he mentions a revelation that he had from Christ, of his approaching dissolution, though that was a very proper occasion for declaring such an important matter, he says nothing that relates to it, but gives only a new attestation of the truth of Christ's divine mission, and of what he himself had been a witness to in the Mount, when he saw the 2 Pet. i. 17. excellent glory, and heard the voice out of it. He leaves a provision in writing for the following ages, but says nothing of any succession or see: so that here the greatest of all privileges is pretended to be lodged in a succession. of bishops, without any one passage in Scripture importing

it.

Another set of difficulties arise, concerning the persons who have a right to choose these Popes in whom this right is vested, and what number is necessary for a canonical election: how far simony voids it, and who is the competent judge of that; or who shall judge in the case of two different elections, which has often happened.