IV. THE STATE OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH, AND THE MODE OF GOVERNMENT PRACTISED BEFORE THE PAPACY…

IV. THE STATE OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH, AND THE MODE OF GOVERNMENT PRACTISED BEFORE THE PAPACY

Hitherto we have treated of the mode of government in the Church, as it has been delivered to us by the pure word of God, and of the offices in it, as they were instituted by Christ. Now, that all these things may be more clearly and familiarly displayed, and more deeply impressed upon our minds, it will be useful to examine what was the form of the ancient Church, in these particulars. It will place before our eyes an actual exemplification of the Divine institution. For though the bishops of those times published many canons, in which they seemed to express more than had been expressed in the Holy Scriptures, yet they were so cautious in framing their whole economy according to the sole standard of the word of God, that in this respect scarcely any thing can be detected among them inconsistent with that word. But though there might be something to be regretted in their regulations, yet because they directed their sincere and zealous efforts to preserve the institution of God, without deviating from it to any considerable extent, it will be highly useful in this place to give a brief sketch of what their practice was. As we have stated that there are three kinds of ministers recommended to us in the Scripture, so the ancient Church divided all the ministers it had into three orders. For from the order of presbyters, they chose some for pastors and teachers; the others presided over the discipline and corrections. To the deacons was committed the care of the poor and the distribution of the alms. Readers and Acolytes were not names of certain offices, but young men, to whom they also gave the name of clergy, whom they accustomed from their youth to certain exercises in the service of the Church, that they might better understand to what they were destined, and might enter upon their office better prepared for it in due time; as I shall soon show more at large. Therefore Jerome, after having mentioned five orders of the Church, enumerates bishops, presbyters, deacons, the faithful, or believers at large, and catechumens, or persons who had not yet been baptized, but had applied for instruction in the Christian faith. Thus he assigns no particular place to the rest of the clergy and the monks.

II. All those to whom the office of teaching was assigned, were denominated presbyters. To guard against dissension, the general consequence of equality, the presbyters in each city chose one of their own number, whom they distinguished by the title of bishop. The bishop, however, was not so superior to the rest in honour and dignity, as to have any dominion over his colleagues; but the functions performed by a consul in the senate, such as, to propose things for consideration, to collect the votes, to preside over the rest in the exercise of advice, admonition, and exhortation, to regulate all the proceedings by his authority, and to carry into execution whatever had been decreed by the general voice;—such were the functions exercised by the bishop in the assembly of the presbyters. And that this arrangement was introduced by human agreement, on account of the necessity of the times, is acknowledged by the ancient writers themselves. Thus Jerome, on the Epistle to Titus, says, “A presbyter is the same as a bishop. And before dissensions in religion were produced by the instigation of the devil, and one said, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Cephas, the Churches were governed by a common council of presbyters. Afterwards, in order to destroy the seeds of dissensions, the whole charge was committed to one. Therefore, as the presbyters know that according to the custom of the Church they are subject to the bishop who presides over them, so let the bishops know that their superiority to the presbyters is more from custom than from the appointment of the Lord, and they ought to unite together in the government of the Church.” In another place, he shows the antiquity of this institution; for he says, that at Alexandria, even from Mark the Evangelist to Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters always chose one of their body to preside over them, whom they called their bishop. Every city, therefore, had its college of presbyters, who were pastors and teachers. For they all executed the duties of teaching, exhorting, and correcting, among the people, as Paul enjoins bishops to do;[848] and in order to leave successors behind them, they laboured in training young men, who had enlisted themselves in the sacred warfare. To every city was assigned a certain district, which received presbyters from it, and was reckoned as a part of that Church. Every assembly, as I have stated, for the sole purpose of preserving order and peace, was under the direction of one bishop, who, while he had the precedence of all others in dignity, was himself subject to the assembly of the brethren. If the territory placed under his episcopate was too extensive to admit of his discharging all the duties of a bishop in every part of it, presbyters were appointed in certain stations, to act as his deputies in things of minor importance. These were called chorepiscopi, or country bishops, because in the country they represented the bishop.

III. But with respect to the office of which we are now treating, the bishops and presbyters were equally required to employ themselves in the dispensation of the word and sacraments. For at Alexandria only, because Arius had disturbed the Church there, it was ordained that no presbyter should preach to the people; as is asserted by Socrates in the ninth book of his Tripartite History, with which Jerome hesitates not to express his dissatisfaction. It would certainly have been regarded as a prodigy, if any man had claimed the character of a bishop, who had not shown himself really such in his conduct. Such was the strictness of those times, that all ministers were constrained to discharge the duties which the Lord requires of them. I refer not to the custom of one age only; for even in the time of Gregory, when the Church was almost extinct, or at least had considerably degenerated from its ancient purity, it would not have been permitted for any bishop to abstain from preaching. Gregory somewhere says, “A priest dies, if his sound be not heard;[849] for he provokes the wrath of the invisible Judge against him, if he go without the sound of preaching.” And in another place: “When Paul declares that he is ‘pure from the blood of all,’[850] by this declaration, we, who are called priests, are convicted, confounded, and declared to be guilty, who to all our own crimes add the deaths of others; for we are chargeable with slaying all those whom we daily behold advancing to death, while we are indifferent and silent.” He calls himself and others silent, because they were less assiduous in their work than they ought to be. Since he spares not those who performed half of their duty, what is it probable he would have done, if any one had neglected it altogether? It was therefore long maintained in the Church, that the principal office of a bishop was to feed the people with the word of God, or to edify the Church both in public and private with sound doctrine.

IV. The establishment of one archbishop over all the bishops of each province, and the appointment of patriarchs at the Council of Nice, with rank and dignity superior to the archbishops, were regulations for the preservation of discipline. In this disquisition, however, what was of the least frequent use cannot be wholly omitted. The principal reason, therefore, for the institution of these orders was, that if any thing should take place in any Church which could not be settled by a few persons, it might be referred to a provincial synod. If the magnitude or difficulty of the case required a further discussion, the patriarchs were called to unite with the synods; and from them there could be no appeal but to a general council. This constitution of government some called a hierarchy—a name, in my opinion, improper, and certainly not used in the Scriptures. For it has been the design of the Holy Spirit, in every thing relating to the government of the Church, to guard against any dreams of principality or dominion. But if we look at the thing, without regarding the term, we shall find that the ancient bishops had no intention of contriving a form of government for the Church, different from that which God has prescribed in his word.

V. Nor was the situation of deacons at that time at all different from what it had been under the apostles. For they received the daily contributions of believers and the annual revenues of the Church, to apply them to their proper uses, that is, to distribute part to the ministers, and part for the support of the poor; subject, however, to the authority of the bishop, to whom they also rendered an account of their administration every year. For when the canons invariably represent the bishop as the dispenser of all the benefactions of the Church, it is not to be understood as if he executed that charge himself, but because it belonged to him to give directions to the deacon, who were to be entirely supported from the funds of the Church, to whom the remainder was to be distributed, and in what proportion to each person; and because he had the superintendence over the deacon, to examine whether he faithfully discharged his office. Thus the canons, ascribed to the apostles, contain the following injunction: “We ordain that the bishop do have the property of the Church in his own power. For if the souls of men, which are of superior value, have been intrusted to him, there is far greater propriety in his taking charge of the pecuniary concerns; so that all things may be distributed to the poor by his authority through the presbyters and deacons, and that they may be administered with reverence, and all concern.” And in the Council of Antioch it was decreed, that those bishops should be censured who managed the pecuniary concerns of the Church without the concurrence of the presbyters and deacons. But it is unnecessary to argue this point any further, since it is evident from many epistles of Gregory, that even in his time, when the administration of the Church was in other respects become very corrupt, yet this custom was still retained, that the deacons were the stewards for the relief of the poor, under the authority of the bishop. It is probable that subdeacons were at first attached to the deacons, to assist them in transacting the business of the poor; but this distinction was soon lost. Archdeacons were first erected when the extent of the property required a new and more accurate mode of administration; though Jerome states that there were such offices even in his time. In their hands was placed the amount of the annual revenues, of the possessions, and of the household furniture, and the management of the daily contributions. Whence Gregory denounces to the archdeacon of Thessalonica, that he would be held guilty, if any of the property of the Church should be lost by him, either through negligence or fraud. Their appointment to read the gospel, and to exhort the people to pray, and their admission to the administration of the cup in the sacred supper, were intended to dignify their office, that they might discharge it with the more piety, in consequence of being admonished by such ceremonies, that they were not executing some profane stewardship, but that their function was spiritual and dedicated to God.

VI. Hence it is easy to judge what use was made of the property of the Church, and in what manner it was dispensed. We often find it stated, both in the decrees of the councils, and by the ancient writers, that whatever the Church possessed, whether in lands or in money, was the patrimony of the poor. The bishops and deacons, therefore, are continually reminded that they are not managing their own treasures, but those destined to supply the necessity of the poor, which if they unfaithfully withhold or embezzle, they will be guilty of murder. Hence they are admonished to distribute this property to the parties entitled to it, with the greatest caution and reverence, as in the sight of God, and without respect of persons. Hence also the solemn protestations of Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, and other bishops, assuring the people of their integrity. Now, since it is perfectly equitable, and sanctioned by the law of the Lord, that those who are employed in the service of the Church should be maintained at the public expense of the Church,—and even in that age some presbyters consecrated their patrimonies to God, and reduced themselves to voluntary poverty,—the distribution was such, that neither were the ministers left without support, nor were the poor neglected. Yet, at the same time, care was taken that the ministers themselves, who ought to set an example of frugality to others, should not have enough to be abused to the purposes of splendour or delicacy, but only what would suffice to supply their necessities. “For,” says Jerome, “those of the clergy who are able to maintain themselves from their own patrimony, if they take what belongs to the poor, are guilty of sacrilege, and by such an abuse, they eat and drink judgment to themselves.”

VII. At first the administration was free and voluntary, the bishops and deacons acting with spontaneous fidelity, and integrity of conscience and innocence of life supplying the place of laws. Afterwards, when the cupidity or corrupt dispositions of some gave birth to evil examples, in order to correct these abuses, canons were made, which divided the revenues of the Church into four parts, assigning the first to the clergy, the second to the poor, the third to the reparation of Churches and other buildings, the fourth to poor strangers. For, though other canons assign this last part to the bishop, this forms no variation from the division which I have mentioned. For the intention was, that it should be appropriated to him, neither for his own exclusive consumption, nor for lavish or arbitrary distribution, but to enable him to support the hospitality which Paul requires of persons in that office.[851] And so it is explained by Gelasius and Gregory. For Gelasius adduces no other reason why the bishop should claim any thing for himself, than to enable him to communicate to captives and strangers. And Gregory is still more explicit. He says, “It is the custom of the apostolic see, at the ordination of a bishop, to command him that all the revenue received by him be divided into four portions; namely, one for the bishop and his family, for the support of hospitality and entertainment; the second for the clergy; the third for the poor; the fourth for the reparation of Churches.” It was unlawful for the bishop, therefore, to take for his own use any thing more than was sufficient for moderate and frugal sustenance and clothing. If any one began to transgress the due limits, either in luxury, or in ostentation and pomp, he was immediately admonished by his colleagues; and if he would not comply with the admonition, he was deposed from his office.

VIII. The portion which they applied to ornament the sacred edifices, at first was very small; and even after the Church was become a little more wealthy, they did not exceed moderation in this respect: whatever money was so employed, still continued to be held in reserve for the poor, if any pressing necessity should occur. Thus, when famine prevailed in the province of Jerusalem, and there was no other way of relieving their wants, Cyril sold the vessels and vestments, and expended the produce in purchasing sustenance for the poor. In like manner, when vast numbers of the Persians were almost perishing with hunger, Acatius, bishop of Amida, after having convoked his clergy, and made that celebrated speech, “Our God has no need of dishes or cups, because he neither eats nor drinks,” melted down the vessels, and converted them into money, to redeem the wretched, and buy food for them. Jerome also, while he inveighs against the excessive splendour of the temples, makes honourable mention of Exuperius, at that time bishop of Thoulouse, who administered the emblem of our Lord’s body in a wicker basket, and the emblem of his blood in a glass, but suffered no poor person to endure hunger. The same that I have just said of Acatius, Ambrose relates of himself; for when he was censured by the Arians for having broken up the sacred vessels to pay the ransom of some captives, he made the following most excellent defence: “He who sent forth the apostles without gold, gathered Churches together likewise without gold. The Church has gold, not to keep, but to expend, and to furnish relief in necessities. What need is there to keep that which is of no service? Do not we know how much gold and silver the Assyrians plundered from the temple of the Lord? Is it not better that it should be melted down by the priest for the sustenance of the poor, if other resources are wanting, than that it should be carried away by a sacrilegious enemy? Will not the Lord say, Wherefore hast thou suffered so many poor to die with hunger, and at the same time hadst gold, with which thou mightest have supplied them with food? Why have so many been carried away into captivity, and never been redeemed? Why have so many been slain by the enemy? It would have been better to preserve the vessels of living beings, than those of metals. To these questions you could make no answer. For what would you say? I was afraid that the temple of God would be destitute of ornament. God would reply, The sacraments require no gold, nor is gold any recommendation of that which is not purchased with gold. The ornament of the sacraments is the redemption of captives.” In short, we see that it was very true which was observed by the same writer in another place, “that whatever the Church possessed at that time, was appropriated to the relief of the necessitous,” and “that all that a bishop had, belonged to the poor.”

IX. These, which we have enumerated, were the offices of the ancient Church. Others, which are mentioned by ecclesiastical historians, were rather exercises and preparations, than certain offices. For to form a seminary, which should provide the Church with future ministers, those holy men took under their charge, protection, and discipline, such youths as, with the consent and sanction of their parents, enlisted themselves in the spiritual warfare; and so they educated them from an early age, that they might not enter on the discharge of their office ignorant and unprepared. All who were trained in this manner, were called by the general name of clergy. I could wish, indeed, that some other more appropriate name had been given them; for this appellation originated in error, or at least in some improper views; for Peter calls the whole Church the clergy, that is, the inheritance of the Lord.[852] The institution itself, however, was pious and eminently beneficial; that those who wished to consecrate themselves and their labours to the Church, should be educated under the care of the bishop; that no one might minister in the Church but one who had received sufficient previous instruction, who from his early youth had imbibed sound doctrine, who from a strict discipline had acquired a certain habitual gravity, and more than common sanctity of life, who had been abstracted from secular occupations, and accustomed to spiritual cares and studies. Now, as young soldiers by counterfeit battles are trained to real and serious warfare, so the clergy were prepared by certain probationary exercises, before they were actually promoted to offices. At first they were charged with the care of opening and shutting the temples, and they were called ostiarii, or door-keepers. Afterwards they were called acoluthi, or followers, waiting upon the bishop in domestic services, and accompanying him on all occasions, at first in a way of honour, and afterwards to prevent all suspicion; moreover, that by degrees they might become known to the people, and might acquire some consideration among them, and at the same time that they might learn to bear the presence of all, and have courage to speak before them, that after being made presbyters, when they should come to preach, they might not be confounded with shame, therefore they were appointed to read the Scriptures from the pulpit. In this manner they were promoted by degrees, that they might approve their diligence in the respective exercises, till they were made subdeacons. I only contend, that these were rather preparations for pupils, than functions reckoned among the real offices of the Church.

X. We have said, that the first point in the election of ministers related to the qualifications of the persons to be chosen, and the second to the religious reverence with which the business ought to be conducted. In both these points, the ancient Church followed the direction of Paul and the examples of the apostles. For it was their custom to assemble for the election of pastors with the greatest reverence and solemn invocation of the name of God. They had likewise a form of examination, in which they tried the life and doctrine of the candidates by that standard of Paul. Only they ran into the error of immoderate severity, from a wish to require in a bishop more than Paul requires, and especially, in process of time, by enjoining celibacy. In other things their practice was in conformity with the description of Paul.[853] In the third point which we have mentioned, namely, by whom ministers ought to be chosen, they did not always observe the same order. In the primitive times there was no one admitted among the number of the clergy, without the consent of all the people; so that Cyprian makes a laboured defence of his having appointed one Aurelius a reader, without consulting the Church, because he departed in this instance from the general custom, though not without reason. He begins in the following manner: “In appointing the clergy, my very dear brethren, we are accustomed first to consult you, and to weigh the morals and merits of every one of them in the general assembly.” But as there was not much danger in these inferior exercises, because they were admitted to a long probation, and not to a high office, the consent of the people ceased to be asked. Afterwards, in the other offices also, except the episcopate, the people generally left the judgment and choice to the bishop and presbyters, so that they determined who were capable and deserving; except when new presbyters were appointed to the parishes, for then it was necessary to have the express consent of the body of the people at each place. Nor is it any wonder that the people were not very solicitous for the preservation of their right in this case. For no one was made a subdeacon, who had not been tried for a considerable time as one of the clergy, under the severe discipline which was then practised. After he had been tried in that station, he was constituted a deacon; in which if he conducted himself with fidelity, he obtained the rank of a presbyter. Thus no one was promoted who had not really undergone an examination for many years, under the eyes of the people. And there were many canons for the punishment of their faults; so that the Church could not be troubled with wicked presbyters or deacons, unless it neglected the remedies within its reach. The election of presbyters, however, always required the consent of the inhabitants of the place; which is testified by the first canon, which is attributed to Anacletus. And all ordinations took place at stated times of the year, that no one might be introduced clandestinely, without the consent of the faithful, or be promoted with too much facility, without any attestation to his character.

XI. The right of voting in the election of bishops was retained by the people for a long time, that no one might be obtruded who was not acceptable to all. The Council of Antioch therefore decreed, that no bishop should be appointed without the consent of the people, which Leo the First expressly confirms. Hence the following injunctions: “Let him be chosen who shall be called for by the clergy and people, or at least by the majority of them.” Again: “Let him who is to preside over all, be chosen by all.” For he who is appointed without having been previously known and examined, must of necessity be intruded by force. Again: “Let him be elected who shall have been chosen by the clergy and desired by the people; and let him be consecrated by the bishops of that province, with the authority of the metropolitan.” So careful were the holy fathers that this liberty of the people should not by any means be infringed, that when the general council, assembled at Constantinople, appointed Nectarius, they would not do it without the approbation of all the clergy and people; as is evident from their epistle to the Council of Rome. Wherefore, when any bishop appointed his successor, the appointment was not confirmed but by the suffrages of all the people. Of such a circumstance we have not only an example, but the particular form in Augustine’s nomination of Eradius. And Theodoret, when he states that Peter was nominated by Athanasius as his successor, immediately adds, that this was confirmed by the clergy, and ratified by the acclamations of the magistracy, the nobility, and all the people.

XII. I confess that there was the greatest propriety in the decree of the Council of Laodicea, that the election should not be left to the populace. For it scarcely ever happens that so many heads concur in one opinion for the settlement of any business; and almost every case verifies the observation, that the uncertain vulgar are divided by contrary inclinations. But to this danger was applied an excellent remedy. For in the first place, the clergy alone made their choice, and presented the person they had chosen to the magistracy, or to the senate and governors. They deliberated on the election, and if it appeared to them a proper one, confirmed it, or otherwise chose another person whom they preferred. Then the business was referred to the multitude, who, though they were not bound to concur in these previous opinions, yet were less likely to be thrown into disorder. Or if the business commenced with the multitude, this method was adopted in order to discover who was the principal object of their wishes; and after hearing the wishes of the people, the clergy proceeded to the election. Thus the clergy were neither at liberty to elect whom they pleased, nor under a necessity of complying with the foolish desires of the people. This order is stated by Leo in another place, when he says, “It is requisite to have the votes of the citizens, the testimonies of the people, the authority of the governors, and the election of the clergy.” Again: “Let there be the testimony of the governors, the subscription of the clergy, the consent of the senate and people. Reason permits it not to be done in any other way.” Nor is there any other meaning in that decree of the Council of Laodicea, than that the clergy and governors should not suffer themselves to be carried away by the inconsiderate multitude, but by their prudence and gravity should check, on every necessary occasion, the folly and violence of popular desires.

XIII. This mode of election was still practised in the time of Gregory, and it is probable that it continued long after. There are many of his epistles which furnish sufficient evidence of this fact. For in every case relating to the creation of a new bishop in any place, he was accustomed to write to the clergy, the senate, and the people; and sometimes to the duke, according to the constitution of the government in the place to which he was writing. And if, on account of disturbances or dissensions in any Church, he confides the superintendence of the election to some neighbouring bishop, yet he invariably requires a solemn decree confirmed by the subscriptions of all. Even when one Constantius was created bishop of Milan, and on account of the incursions of the barbarians, many of the Milanese had retired to Genoa, he thought the election would not be legitimate, unless they also were called together, and gave their united consent. And what is more, it was within the last five hundred years that Pope Nicholas made this decree respecting the election of the Roman pontiff; that the cardinals should take the lead, that in the next place they should unite with them the rest of the clergy, and lastly that the election should be confirmed by the consent of the people. And at the conclusion he recites that decree of Leo, which I have just quoted, and commands it to be observed in future. If the cabals of the wicked should go to such a length as to constrain the clergy to quit the city in order to make a proper election, still he ordains that some of the people should be present at the same time. The consent of the emperor, as far as I can discover, was required only in two Churches, at Rome and at Constantinople, because they were the two capitals of the empire. For when Ambrose was sent to Milan with authority from Valentinian to preside at the election of a new bishop, that was an extraordinary measure, in consequence of the grievous factions which raged among the citizens. At Rome the authority of the emperor had anciently so much influence in the creation of a bishop, that Gregory speaks of himself as having been appointed to the government of the Church by the sole command of the emperor, notwithstanding he had been formally chosen by the people. But the custom was, that when any one had been chosen by the senate, clergy, and people, it was immediately reported to the emperor, that he might either ratify the election by his approbation, or rescind it by his negative. Nor is there any thing repugnant to this custom in the decrees collected by Gratian; which only say, that it is by no means to be suffered that a king should supersede all canonical election by appointing a bishop at his own pleasure, and that the metropolitans ought not to consecrate any one who shall thus have been promoted by the violence of power. For it is one thing to spoil the Church of its right, by transferring the whole to the caprice of an individual, and another to give a king or an emperor the honour of confirming a legitimate election by his authority.

XIV. It remains for us to state, by what ceremony the ministers of the ancient Church, after their election, were initiated into their office. This the Latins have called ordination or consecration. The Greeks have called it χειροτονια, extension or elevation of hands, and sometimes χειροθεσια, imposition of hands; though the former word properly signifies that kind of election in which the suffrages are declared by the lifting up of the hands. There is a decree of the Council of Nice, that the metropolitan should meet with all the bishops of the province, to ordain him who shall have been elected; but that if any of them be prevented by the length of the journey, by sickness, or by any other necessary cause, at least three should meet, and those who are absent should testify their consent by letters. And when this canon from disuse had grown obsolete, it was renewed in various councils. Now, the reason why all, or at least as many as had no sufficient excuse, were commanded to be present, was that there might be a more solemn examination into the learning and morals of the person to be ordained; for the business was not completed without examination. And it appears from the epistles of Cyprian, that in the beginning the bishops were not invited after the election, but used to be present at the election, and that for the purpose of acting as moderators, that nothing turbulent might take place among the multitude. For after having said that the people have the power either to choose the worthy for priests, or to reject the unworthy, he adds, “Wherefore it is to be carefully held and observed as a Divine and apostolical tradition, (which is observed among us, and in almost all the provinces,) that for the due performance of ordinations, all the neighbouring bishops of the same province should meet with the people over whom a bishop is to be ordained, and that the bishop should be chosen in the presence of the people.” But because such an assembly was sometimes very slowly collected, and there was danger that such a delay might be abused by some for the purposes of intrigue, it was deemed sufficient, if they assembled after the election was made, and upon due examination consecrated the person who had been chosen.

XV. This was the universal practice, without any exception. By degrees a different custom was introduced, and the persons elected went to the metropolitan city to seek ordination. This change arose from ambition and a corruption of the ancient institution, rather than from any good reason. And not long after, when the authority of the see of Rome had increased, another custom obtained, which was still worse; almost all the bishops of Italy went to Rome to be consecrated. This may be seen by the epistles of Gregory. Only a few cities, which did not so easily yield, preserved their ancient right; of which there is an example recorded by him in the case of Milan. Perhaps the metropolitan cities were the only ones that retained their privilege. For almost all the provincial bishops used to assemble in the metropolitan city to consecrate their archbishop. The ceremony was imposition of hands. For I read of no other ceremony practised, except that in the public assembly the bishops had some dress to distinguish them from the rest of the presbyters. Presbyters and deacons also were ordained solely by imposition of hands. But every bishop ordained his own presbyters, in conjunction with the assembly of the other presbyters of his diocese. Now, though they all united in the same act, yet because the bishop took the lead, and the ceremony was performed under his direction, therefore it was called his ordination. Wherefore it is often remarked by the ancient writers, that a presbyter differs from a bishop in no other respect, than that he does not possess the power of ordination.

Footnote 848:

Titus i. 9.

Footnote 849:

Exod. xxxviii. 35.

Footnote 850:

Acts xx. 26.

Footnote 851:

1 Tim. iii. 2, 3.

Footnote 852:

1 Peter v. 3.

Footnote 853:

1 Tim. iii. 2-7.

V. THE ANCIENT FORM OF GOVERNMENT ENTIRELY SUBVERTED BY THE PAPAL TYRANNY

Now, it is proper to exhibit the system of ecclesiastical government at present maintained by the see of Rome, and all its dependencies, with a full view of that hierarchy which is perpetually in their mouths, and to compare it with the description we have given of the primitive and ancient Church. This comparison will show what kind of a Church there is among those who fiercely arrogate this exclusive title, in order to oppress, or rather to overwhelm us. Now, it is best to begin with the vocation, that we may see who and what kind of men are called to the ministry, and how they are introduced to it. We shall then consider how faithfully they discharge their duty. We shall give the first place to the bishops; and I wish it might be to their honour to hold the first rank in this disquisition. But the subject itself will not permit me to touch on this argument ever so slightly, without involving their deepest disgrace. I shall remember, however, the nature of the work in which I am now engaged, and shall not suffer my discourse, which ought to be confined to simple doctrine, to exceed its proper bounds. But let some one of those who have not lost all shame, answer me; What kind of bishops are now generally chosen? To examine into their learning, is too obsolete; and if any regard be paid to it, they choose some lawyer, who understands pleading in a court, better than preaching in a Church. It is evident, that for a hundred years, scarcely one in a hundred that has been chosen, had any knowledge of the Holy Scripture. I say nothing of the preceding ages; not that they were much better, but because our business is only with the present Church. If we inquire into their morals, we shall find that there have been few or none who would not have been judged unworthy by the ancient canons. He who has not been a drunkard, has been a fornicator; and he who has been free from both these vices, has been either a gambler or a hunter, or dissolute in some part of his life. For the old canons exclude a man from the episcopal office for smaller vices than these. But the greatest absurdity of all is, that even boys, scarcely ten years of age, have by the permission of the pope been made bishops. And to such lengths of impudence and stupidity have they proceeded, as not to be afraid of that extreme and monstrous enormity, which is altogether repugnant to the common sense of nature. Hence it appears how solemn and conscientious must have been their elections, which were marked with such extreme negligence.

II. All the right of the people to choose has been entirely taken away. Their suffrages, assent, subscriptions, and every thing of this kind, have disappeared. All the power is transferred to the canons. They confer the bishopric on whom they please, and then produce him before the people, but to be adored, not to be examined. Leo, on the contrary, exclaims that no reason permits this, and pronounces it to be a violent imposition. When Cyprian declares it to be of Divine right, that an election should not be made without the consent of the people, he shows that a different method is repugnant to the word of God. The decrees of various councils most severely prohibit it to be done in any other way, and if it be done, command it to be void. If these things be true, there is now no canonical election remaining in all the Papacy, either according to Divine or ecclesiastical right. Now, though there were no other evil, how will they be able to excuse themselves for having thus deprived the Church of her right? But they say, the corruption of the times required, that as the people and magistrates, in the choice of bishops, were rather carried away by antipathies and partialities than governed by an honest and correct judgment, the decision of this business should be intrusted to a few. Let it be admitted that this was an extreme remedy for a disease under desperate circumstances. Yet as the medicine has been found more injurious than the disease itself, why is there no remedy provided against this new malady? They reply, The canons themselves have been particularly directed what course they ought to pursue in an election. But do we doubt, that the people formerly understood themselves to be bound by the most sacred laws, when they saw the word of God proposed as their rule, whenever they assembled for the election of a bishop? For that one declaration of God, in which he describes the true character of a bishop, ought to have more weight than millions of canons. Yet, corrupted by a most sinful disposition, they paid no regard to law or equity. So in the present day, though there are the best written laws, yet they remain buried in paper. At the same time, it has been the general practice, and, as if it were founded in reason, has obtained the general approbation, that drunkards, fornicators, and gamblers, have been promoted to this honour. I do not say enough. Bishoprics are the rewards of adulterers and panders. For when they are given to hunters and fowlers, the business must be considered as well managed. To attempt any excuse of such flagitious proceedings is abominable. The people, I say, had a most excellent canon, in the direction of the word of God, that “a bishop must be blameless, apt to teach, no striker,” &c.[854] Why, then, was the right of election transferred from the people to the canons? They reply, Because the word of God was not attended to, amidst the tumults and factions of the people. And why should it not now be again transferred from them, who not only violate all laws, but, casting off all shame, mingle and confound heaven and earth together, by their lust, avarice, and ambition?

III. But it is a false pretence when they say, that the present practice was introduced as a remedy. We read that in the early times, cities were frequently thrown into confusion at the election of their bishops; yet no one ever dared to think of depriving the citizens of their right. For they had other ways, either of guarding against these evils, or of correcting them when they occurred. But I will state the real truth of the case. When the people began to be negligent about choosing, and, considering this care as less suitable to themselves, left it to the presbyters, the latter abused this occasion to usurp a tyrannical power, which they afterwards confirmed to themselves by new canons. Their form of ordination is no other than a mere mockery. For the appearance of examination which they display in it, is so frivolous and jejune, that it is even destitute of all plausibility. The power of nominating bishops, therefore, which some princes have obtained by stipulation with the Roman pontiff, has caused no new injury to the Church, because the election has only been taken from the canons, who had seized, or rather stolen, it without any just claim. It is certainly a most disgraceful example, that courtiers are made bishops, and sent from the court to seize upon the Churches; and it ought to be the concern of all pious princes to refrain from such an abuse. For it is an impious robbery of the Church, whenever a bishop is imposed upon any people, who have not desired, or at least freely approved of him. But the disorderly custom which has long prevailed in the Churches, has given occasion to princes to assume the presentation of bishops to themselves. For they would rather have this at their own disposal, than in the hands of those who had no more right to it, and by whom it was not less abused.

IV. This is the goodly calling, in consequence of which bishops boast of being successors of the apostles. The power of creating presbyters, they say, belongs exclusively to them. But this is a gross corruption of the ancient institution; for by their ordination they create, not presbyters to rule and feed the people, but priests to offer sacrifice. So when they consecrate deacons, they have nothing to do with their true and proper office, but only ordain them to certain ceremonies about the chalice and patine. In the Council of Chalcedon, on the contrary, it was decreed, that there should be no absolute ordinations, that is, without some place being at the same time assigned to the persons ordained, where they were to exercise their office. This decree was highly useful, for two reasons—first, that the Churches might not be burdened with an unnecessary charge, and the money which ought to be distributed to the poor consumed upon idle men; secondly, that the persons ordained might consider themselves not as promoted to an honour, but as intrusted with an office to the discharge of which they were bound by a solemn engagement. But the Romish doctors, who think their belly ought to be all their care, even in matters of religion, first explain the requisite title to consist in an income sufficient for their support, whether arising from their own patrimony or from a benefice. Therefore, when they ordain a deacon or a presbyter, without giving themselves any concern where he is to officiate, they readily admit him, if he be only rich enough to maintain himself. But who can admit this, that the title which the decree of the council requires is a competent annual income? And because the more recent canons condemned the bishops to maintain those whom they had ordained without a sufficient title, in order to prevent their too great facility in the admission of candidates, they have even contrived a way to evade this penalty. For the person ordained mentions any title whatever, and promises that he will be content with it. By this engagement he is debarred from an action for maintenance. I say nothing of a thousand frauds practised in this business; as when some falsely exhibit empty titles of benefices, from which they could not derive five pence a year; others, under a secret stipulation, borrow benefices which they promise to return immediately, but which, in many instances, are never returned; and other similar mysteries.

V. But even though these grosser abuses were removed, is it not always absurd to ordain a presbyter without assigning him any station? For they ordain no one, but to offer sacrifice. Now, the legitimate ordination of a presbyter consists in a call to the government of the Church, and that of a deacon to the collection of the alms. They adorn their procedure, indeed, with many pompous ceremonies, that its appearance may gain the veneration of the simple; but with judicious persons, what can be gained by those appearances unaccompanied by any solidity or truth? For they use ceremonies either derived from Judaism, or invented among themselves, from which it would be better to refrain. But as to any real examination, the consent of the people, and other necessary things, they are not mentioned. The shadow they retain of these things, I consider not worthy of notice. By shadow, I mean those ridiculous gesticulations, used as a dull and foolish imitation of antiquity. The bishops have their vicars, to inquire before an ordination, into the learning of the candidates. But in what manner? They interrogate them, whether they can read their masses; whether they know how to decline some common noun that may occur in reading, or to conjugate a verb, or to tell the meaning of a word; for it is not necessary for them to know how to give the sense of a verse. And yet none are rejected from the priesthood, who are deficient even in these puerile elements, provided they bring some present or recommendation to favour. In the same spirit it is, that when the persons to be ordained present themselves at the altar, some one inquires three times, in a language not understood, whether they are worthy of that honour. One (who never saw them before, but, that no part of the process might be wanting, acts his part in the farce) answers, They are worthy. What accusation is there against these venerable fathers, but that by sporting with such manifest sacrileges they are guilty of unblushing mockery of God and men? But because they have been long in possession of it, they suppose it is now become right. For whoever ventures to open his mouth against these glaring and atrocious enormities, they hurry him away to execution, as if he had committed a capital crime. Would they do this if they believed that there was any God?

VI. Now, how much better do they conduct themselves in the collation of benefices?—a thing formerly connected with ordination, but now entirely separated from it. The ways in which this business is managed, are various. For the bishops are not the only persons who confer benefices, and in those the collation of which is ascribed to them, they do not always possess the full power, but while they retain the name of the collation for the sake of honour, the presentation belongs to others. Besides these, there are nominations from the colleges, resignations either absolute or made for the sake of exchange, commendatory rescripts, preventions, and the like. But they all conduct themselves in such a manner, that no one can reproach another for any thing. I maintain that scarcely one benefice in a hundred, in all the Papacy, is at present conferred without simony, according to the definition which the ancients gave of that crime. I do not say that they all purchase with ready money; but show me one in twenty who obtains a benefice without any indirect recommendation. Some are promoted by relationship, others by alliance, others by the influence of parents, others gain favour by their services. In short, the end for which sacerdotal offices are conferred, is not to provide for the Churches, but for the persons to whom they are given. And therefore they call them benefices, a name by which they sufficiently declare that they view them in no other light than as donatives of princes, by which they either conciliate the favour of their soldiers, or reward their services. I forbear to remark that these rewards are conferred upon barbers, cooks, muleteers, and other dregs of the people. And, in the present day, scarcely any litigations make more noise in the courts of justice than those respecting benefices; so that they may be considered as a mere prey thrown out for dogs to hunt after. Is it tolerable even to hear the name of pastors given to men who have forced themselves into the possession of a Church, as into an enemy’s farm; who have obtained it by a legal process; who have purchased it with money; who have gained it by dishonourable services; who, while infants just beginning to lisp, succeeded to it as an inheritance transmitted by their uncles and cousins, and sometimes even by fathers to their illegitimate children?

VII. Would the licentiousness of the people, however corrupt and lawless, ever have proceeded to such a length? But it is still more monstrous that one man—I say nothing of his qualifications, only a man not capable of governing himself—should preside over the government of five or six Churches. We may now see, in the courts of princes, young men who hold one archbishopric, two bishoprics, and three abbeys. It is a common thing for canons to be loaded with five, six, or seven benefices, of which they take not the least care, except in receiving the revenues. I will not object that this is every where condemned by the word of God, which has long ceased to have the least weight with them. I will not object that various councils have made many very severe decrees against such disorder; for these also, whenever they please, they fearlessly treat with contempt. But I maintain, that both these things are execrable enormities, utterly repugnant to God, to nature, and to the government of the Church—that one robber should engross several Churches at once, and that the name of pastor should be given to one who could not be present with his flock, even if he would; and yet, such is their impudence, they cover these abominable impurities with the name of the Church, in order to exempt them from all censure. And, moreover, that inviolable succession, to the merit of which they boast that the Church owes its perpetual preservation, is included in these iniquities.

VIII. Now, let us see how faithfully they exercise their office, which is the second mark by which we are to judge of a legitimate pastor. Of the priests whom they create, some are monks, others are called seculars. The former of these classes was unknown to the ancient Church, and to hold such a place in the Church was so incompatible with the monastic profession, that anciently, when any one was chosen from a monastery to be one of the clergy, he ceased to be a monk. And even Gregory, in whose time there was much corruption, yet suffered not this confusion to take place. For he enjoined, that they who became abbots should be divested of their clerical character; for that no one could be a monk and a clergyman at the same time, because the one would be an impediment to the other. Now, if I inquire how that man can duly discharge his office, whom the canons declare to be unfit for it, what answer will they make? I suppose they will cite those abortive decrees of Innocent and Boniface, by which monks are admitted to the honour and authority of the priesthood, so that they may still remain in their monasteries. But what reason is there, that any illiterate ass, as soon as he has once occupied the see of Rome, should by one diminutive word overturn all the usages of antiquity? But of this we shall say more hereafter. Suffice it at present to remark, that during the purer times of the Church, it was deemed a great absurdity for a monk to hold the office of a priest. For Jerome denies that he performed the office of a priest while he lived among the monks; but represents himself as one of the people who ought to be governed by the priests. But if we grant them this point, how do they execute their office? There are some of the mendicants, and a few of the others, who preach. All the rest of the monks either chant or mutter over masses in their cloisters, as if it were the design of Jesus Christ that presbyters should be appointed for this purpose, or as if the nature of their office admitted of it. While the Scripture clearly testifies that it is the duty of a presbyter to govern his own Church,[855] is it not an impious profanation to transfer to another object, or rather to make a total change in, God’s sacred institution? For when they are ordained monks, they are expressly forbidden to do things which the Lord enjoins upon all presbyters. This direction is given to them: Let a monk be content in his cloister, and not presume to administer the sacraments, or to execute any other branch of public duty. Let them deny, if they can, that it is a glaring mockery of God, to create a presbyter in order that he may refrain from discharging his true and genuine office, and to give a man the name, who cannot possess the thing.

IX. I proceed to the seculars; of whom some are called beneficiaries, that is, they have benefices by which they are maintained; others hire themselves to labour by the day, in saying mass or singing, and live on the wages which they gain from these employments. Benefices are either attended with cure of souls, as bishoprics and parishes; or they are the stipends of delicate men, who gain a livelihood by chanting, as prebends, canonries, dignities, chaplainships, and the like. But in the confusion which has been introduced, abbeys and priories are conferred not only on secular priests, but also on boys, by privilege, that is, by common and ordinary custom. As to the mercenaries, who seek their daily sustenance, how could they act otherwise than they do, that is, to offer themselves to hire in a mean and shameful manner; especially among such a vast multitude as now swarms in the world? Therefore, when they are ashamed of open begging, or think they should gain but little by that practice, they run about like hungry dogs, and by their importunity, as by barking, extort from reluctant hands some morsels to put into their mouths. Here if I should endeavour to describe what a great disgrace it is to the Church, that the office and dignity of the presbytery has been so degraded, there would be no end. My readers, therefore, have no reason to expect from me a long discourse, corresponding to such a flagitious enormity. I only assert, in few words, that if it be the duty of a presbyter, as the word of God prescribes, and the ancient canons require, to feed the Church and administer the spiritual kingdom of Christ,[856] all those priests who have no work or wages, except in making merchandise of masses, not only fail of executing their office, but have no legitimate office to execute. For there is no place assigned to them to teach; they have no people to govern. In short, nothing remains to them but the altar upon which to offer up Christ in sacrifice; and this is not sacrificing to God, but to demons, as we shall see in another place.

X. Here I touch not on the external vices, but only on the intestine evil which is deeply rooted in their institution, and cannot be separated from it. I shall add a remark, which will sound harshly in their ears, but because it is true, it must be expressed—that canons, deans, chaplains, provosts, and all who are supported by sinecures, are to be considered in the same light. For what service can they perform for the Church? They have discarded the preaching of the word, the superintendence of discipline, and the administration of the sacraments, as employments attended with too much labour and trouble. What have they remaining, then, to boast of as true presbyters? They have chanting and the pomp of ceremonies. But what is all this to the purpose? If they plead custom, usage, prescription of long continuance, I will confront them with the decision of Christ, where he has given us a description of true presbyters, and what qualifications ought to be possessed by those who wish to be considered as such. If they cannot bear so hard a law as to submit themselves to the rule of Christ, let them at least allow this cause to be decided by the authority of the primitive Church. But their condition will not be at all better, if we judge of their state by the ancient canons. Those who have degenerated into canons, ought to be presbyters, as they were in former times, to govern the Church in common with the bishop, and to be his colleagues in the pastoral office. These chapter dignities, as they call them, have nothing to do with the government of the Church; much less have the chaplainships, and the other dregs of similar offices. In what estimation, then, shall we hold them all? It is certain that the word of Christ and the practice of the ancient Church agree in excluding them from the honour of the presbytery. They contend, however, that they are presbyters; but the mask must be torn off. Then we shall find, that their whole profession is most foreign and remote from the office of presbyters, which is described to us by the apostles, and which was required in the primitive Church. All such orders, therefore, by whatever titles they may be distinguished, since they are of modern invention, or at least are not supported by the institution of God, or the ancient usage of the Church, ought to have no place in a description of the spiritual government, which the Church has received, consecrated by the mouth of the Lord himself. Or, if they wish me to use plainer language, since chaplains, canons, deans, provosts, and other idlers of this description, do not even with their little fingers touch a particle of that duty which is necessarily required in presbyters, it is not to be endured that they should falsely usurp the honour, and thus violate the sacred institution of Jesus Christ.

XI. There remain the bishops and the rectors of parishes, who would afford me great pleasure if they exerted themselves to support their office. For we would readily admit to them, that they have a pious and honourable office, provided they discharged it. But when they wish to be considered as pastors, notwithstanding they desert the churches committed to them, and transfer the care of them to others, they act just as if the office of a pastor consisted in doing nothing. If a usurer, who never stirred his foot out of the city, should profess himself a ploughman or vinedresser,—if a soldier, who had spent all his time in the camp and in the field of battle, and had never seen a court of justice or books, should offer himself as a lawyer,—who could endure such gross absurdities? But these men act in a manner still more absurd, who wish to be accounted and called legitimate pastors of the Church, and yet are not willing to be so in reality. For how few of them are there, who execute the government of their Churches even in appearance! Many of them all their lifetime devour the revenues of Churches, which they never approach even to look at them. Others either go themselves, or send an agent once every year, that nothing may be lost by farming them out. When this abuse first intruded itself, they who wished to enjoy this kind of vacation from duty, exempted themselves by special privileges. Now, it is a rare case for any one to reside in his own Church; for they consider their Churches as no other than farms, over which they place their vicars, as bailiffs or stewards. But it is repugnant to common sense, that a man should be pastor of a flock, who never saw one of the sheep.

XII. It appears that some seeds of this evil had sprung up in the time of Gregory, and that the rectors of Churches began to be negligent in preaching and teaching; for he heavily complains of it in the following passages: “The world is full of priests; but yet there are few labourers found in the harvest; because we undertake the sacerdotal office, but perform not the work of the office.” Again: “Because they have no bowels of charity, they wish to be considered as lords; they do not acknowledge themselves to be fathers. They change the place of humility into an aggrandizement of dominion.” Again: “But, O ye pastors, what are we doing, who receive the wages and are not labourers? We have fallen into extraneous employments; we undertake one thing, and perform another. We relinquish the office of preaching; and it is our misfortune, I conceive, that we are called bishops, since we hold a title of honour, but not of virtue.” Since he uses such severity of language against those who were only chargeable with a want of sufficient assiduity, or diligence, in their office, what would he have said, if he had seen scarcely any, or very few of the bishops, and among the rest hardly one in a hundred, ascend a pulpit once in their lives? For things are come to such a pitch of frenzy, that it is generally esteemed beneath the dignity of a bishop to deliver a sermon to a congregation. In the time of Bernard there had been some declension; but we see how sharply he reproves and inveighs against the whole body of the clergy, who, it is probable, however, were far less corrupt in that age than they are in the present.

XIII. Now, if any one will closely observe and strictly examine this whole form of ecclesiastical government, which exists at the present day under the Papacy, he will find it a nest of the most lawless and ferocious banditti in the world. Every thing in it is clearly so dissimilar and repugnant to the institution of Christ, so degenerated from the ancient regulations and usages of the Church, so at variance with nature and reason, that no greater injury can be done to Christ, than by pleading his name in defence of such a disorderly government. We (they say) are the pillars of the Church, the prelates of religion, the vicars of Christ, the heads of the faithful, because we have succeeded to the power and authority of the apostles. They are perpetually vaunting of these fooleries, as if they were talking to blocks of wood; but whenever they repeat these boasts, I will ask them in return, what they have in common with the apostles. For the question is not respecting any hereditary honour, which may be given to men while they are asleep, but of the office of preaching, which they so carefully avoid. So, when we assert that their kingdom is the tyranny of Antichrist, they immediately reply, that it is that venerable hierarchy, which has been so often commended by great and holy men. As though the holy fathers, when they praised the ecclesiastical hierarchy, or spiritual government, as it had been delivered to them by the hands of the apostles, ever dreamed of this chaos of deformity and desolation, where the bishops for the most part are illiterate asses, unacquainted with the first and plainest rudiments of the faith, or, in some instances, are children just out of leading-strings; and if any be more learned,—which, however, is a rare case,—they consider a bishopric to be nothing but a title of splendour and magnificence; where the rectors of Churches think no more of feeding the flock, than a shoemaker does of ploughing; where all things are confounded with a dispersion worse than that of Babel, so that there can no longer be seen any clear vestige of the administration practised in the time of the fathers.

XIV. What if we proceed to inquire into their manners? “Where is that light of the world,” which Christ requires? where that “salt of the earth?”[857] where that sanctity, which might serve as a perpetual example to others? There is no class of men in the present day more infamous for profusion, delicacy, luxury, and profligacy of every kind; no class of men contains more apt or expert masters of every species of imposture, fraud, treachery, and perfidy; nowhere can be found equal cunning or audacity in the commission of crime. I say nothing of their pride, haughtiness, rapacity, and cruelty; I say nothing of the abandoned licentiousness of every part of their lives;—enormities which the world is so wearied with bearing, that there is no room for the least apprehension lest I should be charged with excessive exaggeration. One thing I assert, which it is not in their power to deny—that there is scarcely one of the bishops, and not one in a hundred of the parochial clergy, who, if sentence were to be passed upon his conduct according to the ancient canons, would not be excommunicated, or, at the very least, deposed from his office. That ancient discipline, which required a more accurate investigation to be made into the conduct of the clergy, has so long been obsolete, that I may be considered as making an incredible assertion; but such is the fact. Now, let all, who fight under the standards and auspices of the Roman see, go and boast of their sacerdotal order. It is evident that the order which they have is not derived from Christ, from his apostles, from the fathers, or from the ancient Church.

XV. Now, let the deacons come forward, with that most sacred distribution which they have of the property of the Church. They do not at present, however, create their deacons for any such purpose; for they enjoin them nothing but to serve at the altar, to say or chant the gospel, and do I know not what trifles. Nothing of the alms, nothing of the care of the poor, nothing of the whole function which they executed in primitive times. I speak of the institution itself. For if we advert to the fact, it is now become no office at all, but only a step towards the priesthood. In one circumstance, those who act the part of a deacon at the mass, exhibit a useless and frivolous resemblance of antiquity, in receiving the offerings before the consecration. Now, it was the ancient custom, that before the communion of the supper, the faithful kissed each other, and then offered their alms at the altar; thus they expressed their charity, first by a sign, and then by active beneficence. The deacon, who was steward for the poor, received what was given, in order to distribute it. Of the alms given at present, no more reaches the poor than if they were thrown into the sea. This false appearance of deaconship, therefore, is a mockery of the Church. It contains nothing resembling the apostolic institution, or the ancient usage. Even the distribution of the property they have turned into another channel; and have ordered it in such a way, that it is impossible to imagine any thing more disorderly. For as robbers, after having murdered some ill-fated travellers, divide the plunder among themselves, so these men, after having extinguished the light of God’s word, and, as it were, cut the throat of the Church, have concluded that whatever had been dedicated to sacred uses, was abandoned to plunder and rapine. They have therefore made a division of it, and every one has seized as large a share as he could.

XVI. Here, all the ancient usages which we have described, have not only been disturbed, but entirely expunged and abolished The principal part of this plunder was seized by the bishops and the presbyters of cities, who, being enriched by it, were converted into canons. That the partition was made in confusion is evident from the contentions which prevail among them, even to this day, about their respective limits. But, however it may be managed, they have taken care that not a penny of all the property of the Church should reach the poor, who were at least entitled to half of it. For the canons expressly allot them one fourth part, and assign another fourth part to the bishops, to be laid out in hospitality and other offices of charity. I say nothing of what the clergy ought to do with their portion, and to what use they ought to apply it. The residue, which is appropriated to the reparation of temples, edifices, and other expenses, it has been sufficiently shown, ought to be at the service of the poor in time of necessity. If they had a single spark of the fear of God in their hearts, could they bear this reflection of conscience, that every thing they eat, and drink, and wear, is the fruit of robbery, and even of sacrilege? But though they are little affected with the judgment of God, they should at least consider that those, whom they wish to persuade into a belief of their possession of such an excellent and well regulated system in their Church as they are accustomed to boast, are men endued with sense and reason. Let them answer me, in a word, whether deaconship be a license for theft and robbery? If they deny this, they will also be obliged to confess, that they have no such office left; seeing that among them the whole administration of the revenues of the Church has been openly perverted into a system of sacrilegious depredation.

XVII. But here they advance a most plausible plea. They allege that the dignity of the Church is becomingly sustained by this magnificence. And such is the impudence of some of their faction, that they dare to boast in express terms, that this princely state of the priesthood constitutes the only fulfilment of those predictions in which the ancient prophets describe the splendour of the kingdom of Christ. It is not in vain, they say, that God has made the following promises to his Church: “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him.”[858] “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem.”[859] “All they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee.”[860] If I should dwell long on a refutation of this presumption, I fear I should expose myself to the charge of folly. Therefore I am not inclined to spend my words in vain. But I ask, if any Jew were to abuse these passages in the same manner, what reply would they make to him? There is no doubt but they would reprove his stupidity, in transferring to the flesh and the world things which are spiritually spoken of the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah. For we know that, under the image of earthly things, the prophets have represented to us the heavenly glory of God, which ought to shine in the Church. For of those external blessings which their words express, the Church never had less abundance than in the days of the apostles; and yet it is acknowledged by all that the kingdom of Christ, then flourished in its greatest vigour. What, then, it will be asked, is the meaning of these passages? I reply, that every thing precious, high, and excellent, ought to be in subjection to the Lord. In regard to the express declaration, that kings shall submit their sceptres to Christ, cast their crowns at his feet, and consecrate their wealth to the Church, when (they will say) was it more truly and fully exemplified, than when Theodosius, casting off the purple robes, and relinquishing the ensigns of imperial majesty, submitted himself, like one of the common people, to do solemn penance before God and the Church? than when he and other such pious princes devoted their cares and exertions to the preservation of pure doctrine in the Church, and to the support and protection of sound teachers? But how far the priests of that age were from rioting in superfluous riches, a single expression of the Council of Aquileia, at which Ambrose presided, sufficiently declares. “Poverty is honourable in the priests of the Lord.” It is true that the bishops at that time had some wealth, which they might have employed to display the honour of the Church, if they had considered them as the Church’s real ornaments. But knowing that there was nothing more inconsistent with the office of pastors, than to display and to pride themselves on the luxury of their tables, the splendour of their apparel, a large retinue, and magnificent palaces, they followed and maintained the humility and modesty, and even the poverty which Christ has consecrated in all his ministers.

XVIII. But not to dwell too long on this point, let us again collect into a brief summary, how very much the present dispensation, or rather dissipation, of the property of the Church, differs from that true office of deacons, which the word of God commends to us, and which the ancient Church observed. That portion which is employed in the ornaments of temples, I assert, is grossly misapplied, if it be not regulated by that moderation which the nature of sacred things requires, and which the apostles and holy fathers have prescribed both by precept and by examples. But what is there seen like this, in the temples at the present day? Whatever is conformable, I do not say to that primitive frugality, but to any honourable mediocrity, is rejected. Nothing pleases, but what savours of the profusion and corruption of the present times. At the same time they are so far from feeling any just concern for the living temples, that they would suffer thousands of the poor to perish with hunger, rather than convert the smallest chalice or silver pitcher into money, to relieve their wants. And, not of myself to pronounce any thing more severe, I would only request my pious readers to indulge this one reflection. If it could happen that Exuperius,—that bishop of Toulouse whom we have mentioned,—if Acacius, if Ambrose, or any other such,—should be raised from the dead, what would they say? In such extreme necessity of the poor, they surely would not approve of the riches of the Church being applied to another use, and that an unnecessary one. I forbear to remark, that these purposes for which they are employed, even if there were no poor, are in many respects injurious, but of no utility whatever. But I will not appeal to the authority of men. The property has been dedicated to Christ, and therefore ought to be dispensed according to his will. It will be useless for them to allege, that this portion has been employed for Christ, which they have squandered in a manner inconsistent with his command. To confess the truth, however, there is not much of the ordinary revenue of the Church lost in these expenses. For there are no bishoprics so opulent, no abbeys so rich, in short, no benefices so numerous or ample, as to satisfy the voraciousness of the priests. Wishing to spare themselves, therefore, they induce the people, from superstitious motives, to take what ought to be bestowed upon the poor, and apply it to the building of temples, the erection of statues, the purchase of chalices and shrines for relics, and the provision of costly vestments. This is the gulf which swallows up all the daily alms.

XIX. Of the revenue which they derive from lands and possessions, what can I say more than I have already said, and which is evident to the observation of all men? We see with what fidelity the principal portion is disposed of by those who are called bishops and abbots. What folly is it to seek here for any ecclesiastical order! Was it reasonable that they, whose life ought to be an eminent example of frugality, modesty, temperance, and humility, should emulate the pomp of princes, in the number of their attendants, the splendour of their palaces, the elegance of their apparel, and the luxury of their tables? And how very inconsistent it was with the office of those whom the eternal and inviolable decree of God forbids to be greedy of filthy lucre,[861] and commands to be content with simple fare, not only to lay their hands upon towns and castles, but to seize on the largest provinces, and even to assume the reins of empire! If they despise the word of God, what reply will they make to those ancient decrees of councils, by which it is ordained that a bishop shall have a small house near the Church, a frugal table, and humble furniture? What will they say to that sentence of the Council of Aquileia, which declares poverty to be honourable in the priests of the Lord? For the direction given by Jerome to Nepotian, that poor persons and strangers, and Christ among them, should be familiar guests at his table, they will perhaps reject as too austere. But they will be ashamed to contradict what he immediately subjoins—“that it is the glory of a bishop to provide for the poor, and the disgrace of all priests to seek to enrich themselves.” Yet they cannot receive this, but they must all condemn themselves to ignominy. But it is not necessary to pursue them with any further severity at present, as it was only my intention to show, that the legitimate office of deacon has long been entirely abolished among them, to prevent their continuing to pride themselves on this title, for the purpose of recommending their Church. And this design, I think, I have fully accomplished.

Footnote 854:

1 Tim. iii. 2-7.

Footnote 855:

Acts xx. 28.

Footnote 856:

1 Cor. iv. 1.

Footnote 857:

Matt. v. 13, 14.

Footnote 858:

Psalm lxxii. 10, 11.

Footnote 859:

Isaiah iii. 1.

Footnote 860:

Isaiah lx. 6, 7.

Footnote 861:

Titus i. 7.

VI. THE PRIMACY OF THE ROMAN SEE

Hitherto we have treated of those ecclesiastical orders which existed in the government of the ancient Church, but which afterwards, in process of time, being corrupted and gradually more and more perverted, now in the Papal Church merely retain their names, while in reality they are nothing but masks. And this we have done, that by the comparison the pious reader might judge what sort of a Church the Romanists have, for the sake of which they represent us as guilty of schism, because we have separated from it. But the head and summit of the whole establishment, that is, the primacy of the Roman see, by which they endeavour to prove that the Catholic Church is exclusively theirs, we have not yet touched on; because it originated neither in the institution of Christ nor in the usage of the ancient Church, as did the other offices, which we have shown were handed down from antiquity, but since, through the corruption of the times, have degenerated, and even assumed altogether a new form. And yet they endeavour to persuade the world, that the principal and almost only bond of the unity of the Church is adherence to the see of Rome, and perseverance in obedience to it. This is the foundation on which they principally rest, when they wish to deny us all claim to the Church, and to arrogate it to themselves; that they retain the head, on which the unity of the Church depends, and without which it must be torn asunder and crumble to pieces. For their notion is, that the Church is like a mutilated and headless body, unless it be subject to the Roman see as its head. Therefore, when they dispute respecting their hierarchy, they always commence with this axiom, that the Roman pontiff, as the vicar of Christ, who is Head of the Church, presides over the universal Church in his stead, and that the Church cannot be well constituted, unless that see holds the primacy above all others. Wherefore it is necessary to discuss this subject also, that nothing belonging to the good government of the Church may be omitted.

II. Let the question, therefore, be stated thus: Whether it be necessary to the true system of what they call the hierarchy or government of the Church, that one see should have the preëminence above all the rest in dignity and power, so as to be the head of the whole body. Now, we subject the Church to very unreasonable laws, if we impose this necessity upon it without the word of God. Therefore, if our adversaries wish to gain their cause, it is necessary for them, in the first place, to show that this economy was instituted by Christ. For this purpose they allege the high-priesthood ordained in the law, and the supreme jurisdiction of the high-priest which God appointed at Jerusalem. But it is easy to give an answer to this, or, indeed, various answers, if they would not be satisfied with one. In the first place, there is no reason for extending to the whole world what was useful in a single nation; on the contrary, the case of a single nation and that of the whole world are widely different. Because the Jews were surrounded on all sides with idolaters, God, in order to prevent their being distracted by a variety of religions, fixed the seat of his worship in the centre of the country, and there he set over them one principal priest, to whom they were all to be subject, for the better preservation of unity among them. Now, when the true religion has been diffused over the whole world, who does not perceive it to be utterly absurd to assign the government of the east and west to one man? It is just as if it were contended, that the whole world ought to be governed by one magistrate, because there is only one in a small district. But there is another reason why this ought not to be made a precedent for imitation. Every one knows that the Jewish high-priest was a type of Christ: now that the priesthood has been transferred, that right must also be transferred. To whom, then, is it transferred? Certainly not to the pope, as he impudently presumes to boast, when he assumes this title to himself; but to Christ, who exercises that office alone without vicar or successor, and resigns the honour to no other. For this priesthood, which was prefigured in the law, consists not only in preaching or doctrine, but in the propitiation of God, which Christ effected in his death, and in that intercession which he is now making with the Father.

III. There is no reason, therefore, why they should confine us to this example, as if it were a law perpetually binding, whereas we see it was only of temporary duration. From the New Testament they have nothing to adduce in support of their opinion, but that it was said to one, “Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church.”[862] Again: “Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.”[863] But to render these proofs substantial, it is necessary for them first to show that he who is commanded to feed the flock of Christ, is invested with authority over all Churches, and that binding and loosing are no other than governing the whole world. But as Peter had received the command from the Lord to feed the Church, so he exhorts all other presbyters to do the same.[864] Hence it is easy to infer, that this charge of Christ conferred nothing peculiar upon Peter beyond others, or that Peter communicated equally to others the right which he had received. But, not to dispute to no purpose, we have in another place, from the mouth of Christ himself, a clear explanation of what he intends by binding and loosing, namely, “remitting and retaining sins.”[865] The manner of binding and loosing is shown by the whole tenor of Scripture, and particularly by Paul, when he says that the ministers of the gospel have received a commission to reconcile men to God,[866] and that they have authority to inflict punishment on those who shall reject this favour.[867]

IV. How grossly they pervert those passages which make mention of binding and loosing, I have hinted before, and shall hereafter have to state more at large. At present it is worth while to see what they can extract from that celebrated answer of Christ to Peter. He promised him “the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” He said, “Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven.”[868] If we can agree respecting the word keys, and the manner of binding, all dispute will immediately cease. For the pope himself will readily relinquish the charge committed to the apostles, which, being full of labour and trouble, would deprive him of his pleasures without yielding him any profit. Since it is the doctrine of the gospel that opens heaven to us, it is beautifully expressed by the metaphorical appellation of keys.—There is no other way in which men are bound and loosed, than when some are reconciled to God by faith, and others are more firmly bound by their unbelief. If the pope assumed nothing but this to himself, I am persuaded there is no man who would either envy him or contend with him.—But this succession being laborious, and by no means lucrative, and, therefore, not at all satisfactory to the pope, hence arises a controversy on the meaning of Christ’s promise to Peter. Therefore I infer from the subject itself, that it only denotes the dignity of the apostolic office, which cannot be separated from the burden of it. For if the definition which I have given be admitted,—and it cannot without the greatest effrontery be rejected,—then here is nothing given to Peter that was not also common to his colleagues; because otherwise there would not only be a personal injury done to them, but the majesty of the doctrine would be diminished. This our adversaries strenuously oppose. But what does it avail them to strike upon this rock? For they can never prove, but that as the preaching of the same gospel was enjoined upon all the apostles, so they were all equally armed with the power of binding and loosing. They allege that Christ, when he promised to give the keys to Peter, constituted him head of the universal Church. But what he there promised to one, he in another passage confers upon all the rest together, and delivers it, as it were, into their hands.[869] If the same power, which had been promised to one, was granted to all, in what respect is he superior to his colleagues? His preëminence, they say, consists in this—that he receives separately by himself, as well as in common with them, that which is only given to the others in common. What if I reply, with Cyprian and Augustine, that Christ did this, not to prefer one man before others, but to display the unity of the Church? For this is the language of Cyprian: “That in the person of one man God gave the keys to them all, to signify the unity of them all; that, therefore, the rest were, the same as Peter, endued with an equal participation both of honour and of power; but that Christ commences with one, to show that the Church is one.” Augustine says, “If there had not been in Peter a mysterious representation of the Church, the Lord would not have said to him, I will give thee the keys; for if this was said to Peter alone, the Church possesses them not; but if the Church has the keys, Peter, when he received them, must have represented the whole Church.” And in another place: “When a question was put to them all, Peter alone answers, Thou art the Christ; and to him Christ says, I will give thee the keys, as if the power of binding and loosing had been conferred upon him alone; whereas he made that answer on behalf of all, and received this power in common with all, as sustaining the character of unity. He is mentioned, therefore, one for all, because there is unity in all.”

V. But this declaration, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,”[870] they say, is no where to be found addressed to any other. As if in this passage Christ affirmed any thing respecting Peter, different from what Paul, and even Peter himself, asserts, respecting all Christians. For Paul makes “Christ the chief corner-stone,” upon which they are built who “grow unto a holy temple in the Lord.”[871] And Peter enjoins us to be “as lively stones,” who, being founded on that “corner-stone, elect and precious,”[872] are by this connection at once united to our God and to each other. This belongs to Peter, they say, above the rest, because it is expressly attributed to him in particular. I readily allow Peter the honour of being placed among the first in the structure of the Church, or, if they insist upon it, the very first of all the faithful; but I will not permit them to infer from this that he possessed a primacy over the rest. For what kind of reasoning is this: he excels the rest in ardour of zeal, in doctrine, in magnanimity; therefore he possesses authority over them? As though we might not with greater plausibility conclude that Andrew was superior to Peter, because he preceded him in time, and introduced him to Christ;[873] but this I pass over. I am willing that Peter should have the precedence, but there is a great difference between the honour of preceding others, and authority over them. We see that the apostles generally paid this deference to Peter, that he used to speak first in their assembly, and took the lead in proposing, exhorting, and admonishing; but we read not a word of his power.

VI. We are not yet, however, come to that question; I only mean at present to show, that they have no solid argument, when they wish to erect an empire over the universal church upon no other foundation than the name of Peter. For those antiquated fooleries with which they endeavoured at first to impose on the world, are not worthy of a relation, much less of a refutation—that the Church was founded on Peter, because it is said, “Upon this rock I will build my Church.”[874] They allege in their defence, that it has been so explained by some of the fathers. But when this is contradicted by the whole tenor of Scripture, what avails it to set up their authority in opposition to God? And why do we dispute about the meaning of those words, as though they were ambiguous or obscure? whereas nothing can be expressed with greater clearness or precision. Peter, in his own name and that of his brethren, had confessed that Christ was “the Son of God.”[875] Upon this rock Christ builds his Church, because it is the only foundation, as Paul says, “other” than which “can no man lay.”[876] Nor do I reject the authority of the fathers in this case, from a want of testimonies in their writings to support what I maintain, if I were inclined to adduce them. But as I have observed, I am unwilling to be unnecessarily tedious to my readers in arguing so clear a subject; especially as it has been long ago discussed with sufficient copiousness and care by other writers on our side of the question.

VII. Yet, in fact, we can obtain no better decision of this point than from the Scripture itself, if we compare all the places where it shows what office and power Peter held among the apostles, how he conducted himself, and in what manner he was received by them. On an examination of the whole, we shall only find that he was one of the twelve, equal to the rest, their companion, not their master. He proposes to the assembly indeed, if there be any thing to be done, and delivers his opinion on what is necessary to be done; but he hears the observations of others, and not only gives them the opportunity of speaking their sentiments, but leaves them to decide, and when they have determined, he follows and obeys.[877] When he writes to pastors, he does not command them with authority like a superior; but makes them his colleagues, and exhorts them with a courteousness which is usual among equals.[878] When he is accused for having associated with the Gentiles, though this is an unjust accusation, yet he answers it, and vindicates himself.[879] Commanded by his colleagues to go with John to Samaria, he refuses not.[880] The apostles, by sending him, declared that they did not consider him as their superior. By his compliance and undertaking the commission intrusted to him, he confessed that he was a colleague with them, but had no authority over them. If none of these facts had remained upon record, yet the Epistle to the Galatians might alone easily remove every doubt; where Paul devotes nearly two whole chapters to the sole purpose of showing that he was equal to Peter in the dignity of the apostleship. Hence he relates that he went to Peter, not to profess subjection to him, but to testify to all the harmony of their doctrine; and that Peter required no such thing as submission, but gave him the right hand of fellowship, that they might labour together in the vineyard of the Lord; that no less grace had been conferred upon him among the Gentiles, than upon Peter among the Jews; and lastly, that when Peter acted with some degree of unfaithfulness, he was reproved by him, and stood corrected by the reproof.[881] All these things fully prove, either that there was an equality between Paul and Peter, or at least that Peter had no more power over the rest than they had over him. And this, as I have already observed, is the professed object of Paul—to prevent his being considered as inferior in his apostolic character to Peter or John, who were his colleagues, not his masters.

VIII. But though I grant them what they require respecting Peter, by admitting that he was the chief of the apostles, and superior in dignity to all the others, yet there is no reason why they should convert a particular instance into a universal rule, and make what was done but once a perpetual precedent; for the cases are widely different. There was one chief among the apostles; doubtless because they were few in number. If there be one president over twelve men, will it therefore follow that there ought to be but one president over a hundred thousand men? That twelve should have one among them to preside over the rest, is no wonder. For this is consistent with nature, and the common sense of mankind requires, that in every assembly, even though they are all equal in power, yet there should be one to act as moderator, by whom the others should be regulated. There is no court, council, parliament, or assembly of any description, which has not its president or chairman. So there would be no absurdity, if we acknowledged that the apostles gave this preëminence to Peter. But that which obtains among a small company is not immediately to be applied to the whole world, to the government of which no one man is sufficient. But the whole economy of nature, they say, teaches us, that there ought to be one supreme head over all. And in proof of this they adduce the example of cranes and bees, which always choose for themselves one leader, and no more. I admit the examples which they produce; but do bees collect together from all parts of the world to choose one king? Each king is content with his own hive. So, among cranes, every flock has its own leader. What will they prove from this, but that every Church ought to have its own bishop? Next they call us to consider examples from civil governments. They quote an observation from Homer, that it is not good to have many governors, with similar passages of other profane writers in commendation of monarchy. The answer is easy; for monarchy is not praised by Ulysses in Homer, or by any others, from an opinion that one king ought to govern the whole world. Their meaning is, that one kingdom does not admit of two kings, and that no prince can bear a partner in his throne.

IX. But supposing it to be, as they contend, good and useful that the whole world should be comprehended in one monarchy, which, however, is a monstrous absurdity; but if this were admitted, I should not, therefore, grant the same system to be applicable to the government of the Church. For the Church has Christ for its sole Head, under whose sovereignty we are all united together, according to that order and form of government which he himself has prescribed. They offer a gross insult to Christ, therefore, when they assign the preëminence over the universal Church to one man, under the pretence that it may not be destitute of a head. For “Christ is the head; from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body.”[882] We see how he places all men, without exception, in the body, reserving to Christ alone the honour and name of head. We see how he assigns to all the members respectively a certain measure, and a determinate and limited function; so that the perfection of grace, as well as the supreme power of government, resides in Christ alone. I am aware of their usual cavil in evasion of this argument—that Christ is properly styled the sole Head, because he alone governs by his own authority and in his own name, but that this is no reason why there may not be under him another ministerial head, as their phrase is, to act as his vicegerent on earth. But they gain nothing by this cavil, except they first prove that this ministry was ordained by Christ. For the apostle teaches, that all the subordinate ministration is distributed among the members, but that the power proceeds from that one heavenly Head.[883] Or, if they wish me to speak in plainer terms, since the Scripture declares Christ to be the Head, and ascribes this honour to him alone, it ought not to be transferred to any other, except to one whom Christ himself has appointed his representative. But such an appointment is not only nowhere to be found, but may be abundantly refuted by various passages.

X. Paul gives us a lively description of the church on various occasions, but without making any mention of its having one head upon earth. On the contrary, from the description which he gives, we may rather infer that such a notion is foreign from the institution of Christ. Christ, at his ascension, withdrew from us his visible presence; nevertheless “he ascended that he might fill all things.”[884] He is still, therefore, present, and will always continue present with the Church. With a view to show us the manner in which he manifests himself, Paul calls our attention to the offices which he employs. There is “one Lord,” he says, “in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. And he gave some, apostles; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.”[885] Why does he not say, that he has appointed one to preside over all as his vicegerent? For his subject absolutely required it, and it ought by no means to have been omitted, if it had been true. “Christ,” he says, “is present with us.” How? “By the ministry of men whom he has appointed to the government of the Church.” Why not rather, “By the ministerial head, to whom he has delegated his authority?” He mentions a unity; but it is in God, and in the faith of Christ. He attributes nothing to men but a common ministry, and to every individual his particular share. In that commendation of unity, after having said, “There is one body, one Spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,”[886] why has he not likewise immediately added, “one supreme pontiff to preserve the Church in unity?” For if it had been true, nothing could have been more proper. Let that passage be duly considered. There is no doubt that he intends there a representation of the sacred and spiritual government of the Church, which has since received the name of hierarchy. Monarchy among ministers, or the government of one over all the rest, he not only does not mention, but indicates that there is no such thing. There is no doubt also that he meant to express the nature of the union, by which the faithful are connected with Christ their Head. Now, he not only makes no mention of any ministerial head, but attributes to every one of the members a particular operation, according to the measure of grace distributed to each. Nor is there any foundation for their far-fetched argument from a comparison of the heavenly and earthly hierarchy; for, in judging of the former, it is not safe to go beyond the discoveries of the Scripture, and in constituting the latter, it is not right to follow any other model than that which the Lord himself has delineated in his word.

XI. Now, though I should make them another concession, which they will never obtain from judicious persons, that the primacy of the Church was established in Peter, and to be continued by a perpetual succession, how will they prove that its seat was fixed at Rome, so that whoever is bishop of that city must preside over the whole world? By what right do they restrict to one place this dignity, which was conferred without the mention of any place? Peter, they say, lived and died at Rome. What shall we say of Christ himself? Was it not at Jerusalem that he exercised the office of a bishop while he lived, and fulfilled the priestly office by his death? The Prince of pastors, the supreme Bishop, the Head of the Church, could not obtain this honour for the place where he lived and died; how then could Peter, who was far inferior to him? Are not these follies worse than puerile? Christ gave the honour of primacy to Peter; Peter settled at Rome; therefore he fixed the seat of the primacy in that city. For the same reason the ancient Israelites ought to have fixed the seat of their primacy in the desert, because it was there that Moses, their chief teacher, and the prince of their prophets, exercised his ministry, and died.

XII. Let us see how wretchedly they reason. Peter, they say, had the preëminence among the apostles. Therefore, the Church in which he settled ought to have this privilege. But where was he first stationed? They reply, at Antioch. Then I infer that the Church of Antioch is justly entitled to the primacy. They confess that it was originally the first, but allege that Peter, on his removal from it, transferred the honour which was attached to him to Rome. For there is an epistle of Pope Marcellus to the presbyters of Antioch, in which he says, “The see of Peter was at first among you, but at the command of the Lord was afterwards removed to this city.” So the Church of Antioch, which was originally the first, has given place to the see of Rome. But I ask, By what oracle did that wise pope know that the Lord had commanded this? For if this cause is to be decided on the footing of right, it is necessary for them to answer, whether this privilege be personal, or real, or mixed. It must be one of these. If they affirm it to be personal, then it has nothing to do with the place. If they allege it to be real, then when it has once been given to a place, it cannot be taken away from it by the death or removal of the person. It remains, therefore, for them to declare it to be mixed; and then it will not be sufficiently simple to consider the place, unless there be an agreement also with respect to the person. Let them choose which they will, I shall immediately conclude, and will easily prove, that the assumption of the primacy by the see of Rome is without any foundation.

XIII. Let us suppose the case, however, that the primacy was, as they pretend, transferred from Antioch to Rome. Why did not Antioch retain the second place? For, if Rome has the preëminence of all other sees, because Peter presided there till the close of his life, to what city shall the second place be assigned, but to that which was his first see? How came Alexandria, then, to have the precedence of Antioch? Is it reasonable that the Church of a mere disciple should be superior to the see of Peter? If honour be due to every Church according to the dignity of its founder, what shall we say of the other Churches? Paul mentions three apostles, “who seemed to be pillars, James, Peter, and John.”[887] If the first place be given to the see of Rome, in honour of Peter, are not the second and third places due to Ephesus and Jerusalem, the sees of John and James? But among the patriarchates, Jerusalem had the last place; Ephesus could not be allowed even the farthest corner. Other Churches also, as well those which were founded by Paul, as those over which the other apostles presided, were left without any distinction. The see of Mark, who was only one of the disciples, obtained the honour. Either let them confess that this was a preposterous arrangement, or let them concede to us, that it is not a perpetual rule, that every Church should be entitled to the degree of honour which was enjoyed by its founder.

XIV. All that they say of the settlement of Peter in the Church of Rome appears to me of very questionable authority. The statement of Eusebius, that he presided there twenty-five years, may be refuted without any difficulty. For it appears, from the first and second chapter to the Galatians, that about twenty years after the death of Christ, he was at Jerusalem, and that from thence he went to Antioch, where he remained for some time, but it is not certain how long. Gregory says seven years, and Eusebius twenty-five. But from the death of Christ to the end of the reign of Nero, under whom they affirm Peter to have been slain, there were only thirty-seven years. For our Lord suffered in the eighteenth year of the reign of Tiberius. If we deduct twenty years, during which, according to the testimony of Paul, Peter dwelt at Jerusalem, there will remain only seventeen years, which must now be divided between those two bishoprics. If he continued long at Antioch, he could not have resided at Rome, except for a very short time. This point is susceptible of still clearer proof. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans on a journey when he was going to Jerusalem,[888] where he was seized, and from whence he was sent to Rome. It is probable, therefore, that this Epistle was written four years before his arrival at Rome. Yet it contains no mention of Peter; which ought on no account to have been omitted, if he had presided over that Church. And in the conclusion, where he recites a long catalogue of pious persons to whom he sends his salutations, where, in short, he enumerates all that were known to him, he still says not a word of Peter.[889] It is unnecessary to use any long or laboured arguments with persons of sound judgment; for the case itself, and the whole argument of the Epistle proclaims, that if Peter had been at Rome, he ought not to have been omitted.

XV. Paul was afterwards brought as a prisoner to Rome. Luke says that he was received by the brethren, but says nothing of Peter.[890] From that city Paul wrote to several Churches. In some of these epistles he introduces salutations, in the names of certain brethren who were with him; but they contain not a single word implying that Peter was there at that time. Who will think it credible that, if he had been there, Paul could have passed him over in total silence? Moreover, in his Epistle to the Philippians, after having said that he had no one who discovered such sincere concern respecting the work of the Lord as Timothy, he complains that “all seek their own.”[891] And to Timothy himself he makes yet a heavier complaint: “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.”[892] Where was Peter then? For if they say that he was at Rome, how deep is the ignominy which Paul fixes upon him, that he was a deserter of the gospel? For he is speaking of the faithful, because he adds his prayer, “that it may not be laid to their charge.” How long, then, and at what time, did Peter hold that see? It will be said, it is the uniform opinion of ancient writers, that he governed that Church till his death. But those writers themselves are not agreed who was his successor. Some say it was Linus; and others, Clement. They likewise relate many absurd and fabulous stories respecting the disputation held between him and Simon Magus. And Augustine, when treating of superstitions, acknowledges that the custom, which obtained at Rome, of not fasting on the day on which Peter gained the victory over Simon Magus, arose from an opinion entertained without any sufficient authority. In the last place, the transactions of that age are so perplexed by a variety of representations, that we must not give implicit credit to every thing that is recorded. Yet, in consequence of this agreement of the ancient writers, I will not dispute his having died at Rome; but that he was bishop there, and especially for any considerable time, is what I cannot be persuaded to believe. Nor am I anxious respecting this point, because Paul testifies that the apostleship of Peter particularly belonged to the Jews, and that his own was directed to us. To add our confirmation, therefore, to the compact which they established between themselves, or rather to admit the validity of the ordinance of the Holy Spirit, it becomes us rather to look up to the apostleship of Paul than to that of Peter. For their different provinces were allotted to them by the Holy Spirit, who sent Peter to the Jews, and Paul to us. The Romanists, therefore, may seek for their primacy elsewhere, but not in the word of God, which affords not the least foundation for it.

XVI. Let us now proceed to show, that our adversaries have no more reason for boasting of the authority of the ancient Church than of the testimony of the word of God. For when they bring forward this principle, that the unity of the Church cannot be preserved, unless it have one supreme head upon earth, to whom all the members should be subject, and that, therefore, the Lord gave the primacy to Peter, and afterwards by right of succession, to the see of Rome, that it might remain there to the end of time,—they also assert that this has been the usage from the beginning. Now, as they grossly pervert various testimonies, I would first make this preliminary remark. I do not deny that the ancient writers uniformly give great honour to the Roman Church, and speak of it in respectful terms. This I consider as arising principally from three causes. In the first place, that opinion which, I know not how, had been received, that it had been founded and settled by the ministry of Peter, operated very powerfully to gain it credit and authority, and, therefore, among the Western churches it was called the Apostolic See. In the second place, because it was the capital of the empire; and on this account it is probable that it contained men superior in learning and prudence, skill and experience, to those of any other place; due regard was paid to this circumstance, that the glory of the city and other far more excellent gifts of God might not appear to be undervalued. In the third place, while the Eastern and Greek Churches, and even those in Africa, were agitated by numerous dissensions of opinion among themselves, the Church of Rome was more peaceable and less disturbed. Hence it happened, that pious and holy bishops, on being expelled from their sees, frequently resorted thither, as to an asylum or port of safety. For as the people of Europe have less subtlety and activity of mind than the inhabitants of Asia and Africa, so they are not so volatile or desirous of novelty. It considerably increased the authority of the Church of Rome, therefore, that in those uncertain times it was not so much agitated as the other Churches, and was more tenacious of the doctrine which it had once received than all the rest, as we shall presently show more at large. On account of these three causes, I say, it was held in more than common respect, and received many honourable testimonies from ancient writers.

XVII. But when our adversaries wish to make this a reason for ascribing to that Church the primacy and sovereign power over other Churches, they run, as I have already observed, into a gross error. To make this the more evident, I will first briefly show what the ancient writers thought respecting this unity, on which our opponents so urgently insist. Jerome, writing to Nepotian, after having enumerated many examples of unity, at length descends to the hierarchy of the Church. “Every Church,” he says, “has its distinct bishop, archpresbyter, and archdeacon, and all the order of the Church depends upon its governors.” This is the language of a Roman priest, recommending unity in the order of the Church. Why does he not mention that all Churches are connected together under one head, as by a common bond? Nothing would have been more in favour of his argument; nor can it be pretended that he omitted it for want of recollection; he would most readily have mentioned it, if the fact had permitted him. It is beyond all doubt, therefore, that he saw this to be the true kind of unity, which is most excellently described by Cyprian in the following passage: “There is only one bishopric, of which every bishop holds an integral part; and there is but one Church, which is widely extended into a multitude by the offspring of its fertility. As the sun has many rays, but only one light; as a tree has many branches, but only one trunk, fixed on a firm root; and as many rivers issue from one spring, and notwithstanding the number of the streams in which its overflowing abundance is diffused, yet the unity of the source remains the same;—so also the Church, illuminated with the light of the Lord, extends its rays over the whole earth, yet it is one and the same light which is universally diffused, nor is the unity of the body destroyed. It stretches its branches, it pours out its ample streams, all over the world; yet there is but one root, and one source.” Again: “The spouse of Christ cannot be corrupted; she acknowledges one Master, and preserves her fidelity to him inviolate.” We see how he attributes the universal bishopric, which comprehends the whole Church, to Christ alone, and says that integral portions of it are confided to all those who discharge the episcopal office under this head. Where is the primacy of the see of Rome, if the universal bishopric be vested in Christ alone, and every bishop hold an integral portion of it? My object, in these quotations, has been, to convince the reader, by the way, that this principle, which the Romanists assume as an admitted and indubitable maxim, namely, that the unity of the Church requires the supremacy of some earthly head, was altogether unknown to the ancients.

Footnote 862:

Matt. xvi. 18.

Footnote 863:

John xxi. 16.

Footnote 864:

1 Peter v. 2.

Footnote 865:

John xx. 23.

Footnote 866:

2 Cor. v. 18.

Footnote 867:

2 Cor. x. 6.

Footnote 868:

Matt. xvi. 19.

Footnote 869:

Matt. xviii. 18. John xx. 23.

Footnote 870:

Matt. xvi. 18.

Footnote 871:

Eph. ii. 21, 22.

Footnote 872:

1 Peter ii. 4, 5.

Footnote 873:

John i. 40-42.

Footnote 874:

Matt. xvi. 18.

Footnote 875:

Matt. xvi. 16.

Footnote 876:

1 Cor. iii. 11.

Footnote 877:

Acts xv. 6-29.

Footnote 878:

1 Peter v. 1.

Footnote 879:

Acts xi. 2, &c.

Footnote 880:

Acts viii. 14, 15.

Footnote 881:

Gal. i. 2.

Footnote 882:

Eph. iv. 15, 16.

Footnote 883:

Eph. i. 22; iv. 15; v. 23. Col. i. 18; ii. 10.

Footnote 884:

Eph. iv. 10.

Footnote 885:

Eph. iv. 5-7, 11.

Footnote 886:

Eph. iv. 4, 5.

Footnote 887:

Gal. ii. 9.

Footnote 888:

Rom. xv. 25.

Footnote 889:

Rom. xvi.

Footnote 890:

Acts xxviii. 15.

Footnote 891:

Phil. ii. 20, 21.

Footnote 892:

2 Tim. iv. 16.

CHAPTER VII. THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPAL POWER TO ITS PRESENT EMINENCE, ATTENDED WITH THE LOSS OF LIBERTY TO THE CHURCH, AND THE RUIN OF ALL MODERATION.

In support of the antiquity of the primacy of the see of Rome, there is nothing to be found anterior to the decree of the Council of Nice, by which the bishop of Rome is allotted the first place among the patriarchs, and is directed to superintend the neighbouring Churches. When the council makes a distinction between him and the other patriarchs, so as to assign to all their respective limits, it clearly does not constitute him the head of them all, but only makes him one of the principal. Vitus and Vincentius attended the council on the behalf of Julius, who at that time presided over the Church of Rome. They were seated in the fourth place. If Julius had been acknowledged as the head of the Church, would his representatives have been degraded to the fourth seat? Would Athanasius have presided in a general council, where the form of the hierarchical system ought most particularly to have been observed? In the council of Ephesus, it appears that Celestine, who was then bishop of Rome, made use of a disingenuous artifice to secure the dignity of his see. For when he sent his legates thither, he requested Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, who was otherwise to preside, to act on his behalf. For what purpose could this request be made, but that his name might, at any rate, occupy the first place? For his legates sat in a lower station, were asked their sentiments among others, and subscribed in their order; at the same time the patriarch of Alexandria united Celestine’s name with his own. What shall I say of the second Council of Ephesus, where, though the legates of Leo were present, yet Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, presided as in his own right? They will object, that this was not an orthodox council, because it condemned Flavianus, a holy man, bishop of Constantinople, and acquitted Eutyches, and sanctioned his heresy. But when the council was assembled, and the bishops took their respective seats, it is certain that the legates of the Roman Church were present among the others, as in a holy and legitimate council. Yet they contended not for the first place, but yielded it to another, which they would not have done if they had considered it as belonging to them. For the bishops of Rome have never been ashamed of raising the greatest contentions for their dignity, and they have not hesitated, on this account alone, to harass and agitate the Church with various and pernicious controversies. But because Leo saw that it would be too presumptuous a demand to require the first place for his legates, therefore he waived it.

II. Next follows the Council of Chalcedon, in which, by the permission of the emperor, the legates of the Roman Church occupied the first place. But Leo himself confessed that this was an extraordinary privilege. For when he requested it from Marcian the emperor, and Pulcheria the empress, he did not pretend it to be his right, but only alleged, in support of his claim, that the Eastern bishops who presided in the Council of Ephesus had thrown every thing into confusion, and abused their power. Since it was necessary, therefore, to have a discreet moderator, and it was improbable that those who had once been so unsteady and disorderly would be fit for the office, he requested that, on account of the misconduct and incompetence of the others, the task of presiding should be transferred to him. That which is sought as a special privilege and an exception to a common custom, certainly does not arise from a general rule. Where the only pretext is, that it was necessary to have a new president, because the former ones had violated their duty, it is evident that this had not been the case before, and it ought not to be perpetual, but was merely done in the contemplation of present danger. The bishop of Rome, therefore, had the first place in the Council of Chalcedon, not because it was the right of his see, but because the council was in want of a discreet and suitable president, in consequence of those to whom that honour belonged having excluded themselves from it by their own intemperance and violence. And what I say was proved, in fact, by Leo’s successor. For when he sent his legates to the fifth Council of Constantinople, which was held a considerable time after, he contended not for the first seat, but without any difficulty suffered it to be taken by Menna, patriarch of Constantinople. So in the Council of Carthage, at which Augustine was present, the place of president was filled by Aurelius, archbishop of that city, and not by the legates of the Roman see, though the express object of their attendance was to support the authority of the Roman pontiff. And, moreover, there was a general council held in Italy, at which the bishop of Rome was not present. This was the Council of Aquileia, at which Ambrose presided, who was then in high credit with the emperor. There was no mention made of the bishop of Rome. We see, therefore, that the dignity of Ambrose caused the see of Milan at that time to have the precedence above that of Rome.

III. With respect to the title of primacy, and other titles of pride, of which the pope now strangely boasts, it is not difficult to judge when and in what manner they were introduced. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, makes frequent mention of Cornelius, who was bishop of Rome. He distinguishes him by no other appellation than that of brother, or fellow bishop, or colleague. But when he writes to Stephen, the successor of Cornelius, he not only treats him as equal to himself and others, but even addresses him with considerable severity, charging him at one time with arrogance, and at another with ignorance. Since the time of Cyprian, we know what was the decision of the whole African Church on this subject. For the Council of Carthage prohibited that any one should be called “the prince of priests,” or “the first bishop,” but only “the bishop of the first see.” But any one who examines the more ancient records, will find that at that time the bishop of Rome was content with the common appellation of brother. It is certain that as long as the Church retained its true and uncorrupted form, all those names of pride, which in succeeding times have been insolently usurped by the Roman see, were altogether unknown: nothing was heard of a supreme pontiff or a sole head of the Church upon earth. And if the bishop of Rome had been presumptuous enough to make any such assumption, there were judicious men who would immediately have repressed his folly. Jerome, being a Roman presbyter, was not reluctant to assert the dignity of his Church as far as matter of fact and the state of the times admitted; yet we see how he also reduces it to an equality with others. “If it be a question of authority,” he says, “the world is greater than a city. Why do you allege to me the custom of a single city? Why do you set up a few instances, which have given rise to pride, against the laws of the Church? Wherever there is a bishop, whether at Rome, at Eugubium, at Constantinople, or at Rhegium, he is of the same dignity and of the same priesthood. The power of riches, or the abasement of poverty, makes no bishop superior or inferior to another.”

IV. Respecting the title of universal bishop, the first contention arose in the time of Gregory, and was occasioned by the ambition of John, bishop of Constantinople. For he wanted to make himself universal bishop—an attempt which had never been made by any one before. In that controversy Gregory does not plead against this as the assumption of a right which belonged to himself, but resolutely protests against it altogether, as a profane and sacrilegious application, and even as the forerunner of Antichrist. He says, “If he who is called universal falls, the foundation of the whole Church sinks at once.” In another place: “It is a most melancholy thing to hear with any patience, that our brother and companion in the episcopal office should look down with contempt on all others, and be called sole bishop. But what does this pride of his indicate, but that the times of Antichrist are already at hand? For indeed he imitates him, who, despising the society of angels, endeavoured to usurp supreme power to himself.” In another place, writing to Eulogius, bishop of Alexandria, and Anastasius, bishop of Antioch, he says, “None of my predecessors would ever use this profane word. For if one patriarch be called universal, the name of patriarch is taken away from all the rest. But far be it from any Christian heart to wish to arrogate to himself any thing that would in the least degree diminish the honour of his brethren. To consent to that execrable term is no other than to destroy the faith. Our obligation to preserve the unity of the faith is one thing, and to repress the haughtiness of pride is another. But I confidently assert, that whoever calls himself universal bishop, or desires to be so called, in such aggrandizement is the precursor of Antichrist, because he proudly sets up himself above all others.” Again, to Anastasius, bishop of Antioch: “I have said that the bishop of Constantinople can have no peace with us, unless he would correct the haughtiness of that superstitious and proud title which has been invented by the first apostate; and to say nothing of the injury done to your dignity, if one bishop be called universal, when he falls, the whole Church sinks at once.” But his assertion that this honour was offered to Leo in the Council of Chalcedon has not the least appearance of truth. For there is not a word of this in the acts of that council. And Leo himself, who in many of his epistles censures the decree passed there in favour of the see of Constantinople, would certainly not have passed over this argument, which would have been the most plausible of all, if that honour had really been offered to him, and he had refused it; and, having otherwise an immoderate thirst for honour, he would not readily have omitted a circumstance so much to his praise. Gregory was mistaken, therefore, in supposing that title to have been given to the see of Rome by the Council of Chalcedon. I forbear to remark how ridiculous it is for him to assert that the holy council conferred such a title, which he at the same time declares was profane, execrable, abominable, proud, and sacrilegious, and even invented by the devil, and published by the herald of Antichrist. And yet he adds that his predecessor refused it, lest, by the dignity given to one individual, all other bishops should be deprived of the honour due to them. In another place he says, “No one has ever wished to be called by such a name; no one has arrogated to himself this presumptuous title; lest, by assuming to himself the exclusive dignity of supreme bishop, he might seem to deny the episcopal honour to all his brethren.”

V. I come now to the jurisdiction which the Roman pontiff asserts that he indisputably holds over all churches. I know what violent contentions there were in ancient times on this subject. For there has never been a period when the Roman see did not aspire to some authority over other Churches. And it will not be unsuitable to the present occasion to investigate the means by which it gradually rose to some power. I am not yet speaking of that unbounded empire which it has more recently usurped; that I shall defer to its proper place. But here it will be necessary to point out in a few words in what manner and by what methods it formerly exalted itself, so as to assume any jurisdiction over other Churches. When the Eastern Churches were disturbed and divided by the factions of the Arians, in the reign of Constantius and Constans, sons of Constantine the Great, and Athanasius, the principal defender of the orthodox faith, was driven from his see, that calamity constrained him to go to Rome, in order that, by the authority of the Roman see, he might in some degree repress the rage of his enemies, and confirm the faithful, who were in extreme distress. He was honourably received by Julius, then bishop of Rome, and prevailed on the bishops of the West to undertake the defence of his cause. Thus the pious in the Eastern Churches, finding themselves in great want of foreign aid, and seeing that their principal succour was to be obtained from the Church of Rome, readily ascribed to it all the authority that they possibly could. But all this amounted to nothing more than that communion with it was held in high estimation, and it was accounted ignominious to be excommunicated from it. This dignity was afterwards considerably augmented by men of wicked and abandoned lives; for to escape the punishments which they deserved, they resorted thither as to a common asylum. Therefore, if a priest was condemned by his bishop, or a bishop by the synod of his province, they immediately appealed to Rome. And the bishops of Rome received such appeals with culpable eagerness, considering it as a kind of extraordinary power to interfere in the concerns of distant Churches. Thus when Eutyches was condemned by Flavianus, patriarch of Constantinople, he complained to Leo that he had been treated with injustice. Leo, without any delay, but with equal temerity and expedition, undertook the patronage of a bad cause, issued bitter invectives against Flavianus, as if he had condemned an innocent man without hearing his defence, and by this ambitious conduct he for some time afforded considerable support to the impiety of Eutyches. It appears that similar circumstances frequently happened in Africa. For as soon as any wicked man was convicted before the ordinary tribunal, he flew to Rome, and brought various false accusations against his superiors; and the see of Rome was always ready to interpose. This presumption constrained the African bishops to pass a decree that no one should appeal beyond the sea on pain of excommunication.

VI. But however this might be, let us examine what jurisdiction or power the Roman see then possessed. Now, ecclesiastical power consists in these four things—the ordination of bishops, the calling of councils, the hearing of appeals, or jurisdiction, and corrective admonitions, or censures. All the ancient councils command bishops to be ordained by their own metropolitans; and they never direct the bishop of Rome to be called to this office except in his own province. By degrees, however, a custom was introduced for all the bishops of Italy to go to Rome to be consecrated, except the metropolitans, who did not suffer themselves to be subjected to this bondage. But when any metropolitan was to be ordained, the bishop of Rome sent one of his priests to assist at the ceremony, but not to preside. There is an example of this in an epistle of Gregory, respecting the consecration of Constantius, archbishop of Milan, after the death of Laurentius. I do not suppose, however, that this was a very ancient practice. It is probable that at first they sent legates to each other, from a principle of respect and affection, to witness the ordination, and testify their mutual communion; and that what was originally voluntary, was afterwards considered as necessary. However this may be, it is evident that in ancient times the bishop of Rome did not possess the power of consecrating bishops, except in his own province, that is, in the Churches dependent upon his see; as is declared by one of the canons of the Council of Nice. Consecration was followed by the sending of a synodical epistle; and in this the bishop of Rome had no superiority over others. It was the custom of the patriarchs, immediately after their consecration, to make a solemn declaration of their faith in a written communication to their brethren, professing their adherence to the doctrine of the holy and orthodox councils. Thus, by making a confession of their faith, they mutually approved themselves to each other. If the bishop of Rome had received such a confession from others, and not given it to other bishops in his turn, this would have been an instance of acknowledged superiority; but, as he was under the same obligation to give it as to require it, and was subject to the common law, it was certainly a token of equality, and not of dominion. We have examples of this in the epistles of Gregory to Anastasius and Cyriacus of Constantinople, and to all the patriarchs together.

VII. Next follow admonitions or censures, which, as the bishops of Rome formerly employed them towards others, they also received from others in their turn. Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, sharply reproved Victor, bishop of Rome, for having raised a pernicious dissension in the Church on subjects of no importance. Victor submitted to the reproof without any opposition. It was a liberty at that time commonly used by the holy bishops to exercise the privilege of brethren towards the bishop of Rome, by admonishing and reproving him whenever he committed any fault. He, in like manner, when occasion required, admonished others of their duty, and reproved them for their faults. For Cyprian, when he exhorts Stephen, bishop of Rome, to admonish the bishops of France, argues not from any superior authority, but from the common rights which priests enjoy among each other. If Stephen had then possessed any authority over France, would not Cyprian have said, You should chastise them, because they are subject to you? But he expresses himself in a very different manner. “This fraternal union,” says he, “by which we are connected together, requires us to administer to each other mutual admonition.” And we see with what severity of language, though otherwise a man of a mild disposition, he censures even Stephen himself, when he considered him assuming too much consequence. In this respect, also, there is yet no appearance of the bishop of Rome having been invested with any jurisdiction over those who were not of his province.

VIII. With respect to the calling of councils, it was the duty of every metropolitan, at stated seasons, to summon a provincial synod. There the bishop of Rome had no authority. But a universal council could only be called by the emperor. For if any one of the bishops had attempted this, not only he would not have been obeyed by those who were out of his province, but such an attempt would have led to immediate confusion. Therefore the emperor sent a summons to attend to all of them alike. Socrates, indeed, in his Ecclesiastical History, states that Julius, bishop of Rome, expostulated with the Eastern bishops, for not having invited him to the Council of Antioch; whereas the canons had forbidden that any thing should be decreed without the knowledge of the bishop of Rome. But who does not see that this is to be understood of those decrees which bind the universal Church? Now, it is no wonder if there was so much respect paid to the antiquity and eminence of the city, and to the dignity of the see, as to determine that no general decree respecting religion should be passed in the absence of the bishop of Rome, unless he refused to be present. But what is this towards dominion over the whole Church? For we do not deny that the bishop of Rome was one of the principal, but we will not admit, what the Romanists now contend, that he had the authority over all.

IX. There remains the fourth kind of ecclesiastical power, which consists in appeals. It is evident that he possesses supreme authority, to whose tribunal appeals are made. Many often appealed to the bishop of Rome; and he also attempted to assume the cognizance of causes; but he always became an object of derision whenever he exceeded his proper limits. I shall say nothing of the East, or of Greece; but it appears that the bishops of France strenuously resisted him, when he discovered an inclination to usurp authority over them. In Africa, this subject occasioned a long controversy. For when the Council of Milevum, at which Augustine was present, had denounced excommunication against all who should appeal beyond the sea, the bishop of Rome endeavoured to get this decree rescinded. He sent legates to state that this privilege had been given to him by the Council of Nice. The legates produced certain acts which they alleged to be the acts of the Council of Nice, and which they had brought from the archives of their Church. They were resisted by the Africans, who denied that the bishop of Rome ought to be credited in his own cause. They therefore determined to send to Constantinople, and other cities of Greece, to obtain copies liable to less suspicion. It was found that these copies contained no such passages as the Roman legates had pretended. So the decree was confirmed, which had taken the supreme cognizance of appeals from the bishop of Rome. This transaction discovered the scandalous impudence of the Roman pontiff. For when he had fraudulently substituted the council of Sardis for that of Nice, he was disgracefully detected in a manifest falsehood. But still greater wickedness and effrontery were betrayed by those who added to the acts of the council a forged epistle, in which a bishop of Carthage condemns the arrogance of his predecessor, Aurelius, for having dared to withdraw himself from obedience to the apostolic see, presents the submission of himself and his Church, and humbly supplicates for pardon. These are the glorious monuments of antiquity upon which the majesty of the Roman see is founded; while, under the pretext of antiquity, they advance such puerile falsehoods, as require not the least penetration to detect. “Aurelius,” says this famous epistle, “elated with diabolical audacity and obstinacy, was a rebel against Christ and St. Peter, and therefore deserved to be anathematized.” But what said Augustine? What said all the fathers who were present at the Council of Milevum? But what necessity is there for spending many words to refute that stupid fabrication, which even the Romanists themselves, if they have any modesty left, cannot look at without being exceedingly ashamed? So Gratian, the compiler of the decretal,—whether from wickedness or ignorance I know not,—after having recited that canon, that those who appealed beyond the sea should be excommunicated, adds this exception, unless they appeal to the see of Rome. What can be done with such men, who are so destitute of common sense as to make that one case an exception to a law, to guard against which every one sees that the law was made? For the council, in condemning appeals beyond the sea, only prohibited any one from appealing to Rome; and this admirable expositor excepts Rome from the general prohibition!

X. But to put an end at once to this question, a single transaction, related by Augustine, will be sufficient to show what kind of jurisdiction was anciently possessed by the bishop of Rome. Donatus, bishop of Casæ Nigræ, had accused Cæcilianus, bishop of Carthage. The accused was condemned without a hearing; for, knowing that the bishops had conspired against him, he would not appear. The matter was then brought before the Emperor Constantine. With a view to have the cause decided by an ecclesiastical judgment, he referred the cognizance of it to Melchiades, bishop of Rome, with whom he associated some other bishops from Italy, France, and Spain. If it was part of the ordinary jurisdiction of the see of Rome to hear an appeal in an ecclesiastical cause, why did Melchiades suffer any colleagues to be appointed with him at the pleasure of the Emperor? and, moreover, why did he himself undertake the business rather at the command of the Emperor than from his own authority? But let us hear what took place afterwards. Cæcilianus was victorious. Donatus of Casæ Nigræ was convicted of calumny. He appealed. Constantine referred the appeal to the bishop of Arles. He sat in judgment on the decision of the bishop of Rome. If the Roman see possessed the supreme jurisdiction, subject to no appeal, how did Melchiades submit to such an insult, as for the bishop of Arles to be preferred before him? And who was the Emperor that did this? It was Constantine the Great, of whom they boast that he not only devoted all his attention, but employed almost all the power of his empire, to exalt the dignity of their see. We see, then, how very far the bishop of Rome was at that time from that supreme dominion which he pretends to have been given him by Christ over all Churches, and which he falsely boasts of having exercised in all ages with the consent of the whole world.

XI. I know what numerous epistles, and rescripts, and edicts, there are, in which the pontiffs have confidently advanced the most extravagant claims respecting this power. But it is also known to every person, possessed of the least sense or learning, that most things contained in them are so extremely absurd, that it is easy to discover at the first glance from what source they have proceeded. For what man of sound judgment, and in his sober senses, can suppose that Anacletus was the author of that curious interpretation, which Gratian quotes under his name—that Cephas means a head? There are many such fooleries collected together by Gratian without any judgment, which the Romanists in the present day employ against us in defence of their see; and such phantoms with which they used to delude the ignorant in the darkest times, they still persist in bringing forward amidst all the light of the present age. But I have no intention to devote much labour to the refutation of such things, which manifestly refute themselves by their extreme absurdity. I confess that there are also genuine epistles of the ancient pontiffs, in which they extol the majesty of their see by the most magnificent titles. Such are some epistles of Leo; who, though he was a man of learning and eloquence, had likewise an immoderate thirst for glory and dominion; but whether the Churches at that time gave credit to his testimony when he thus exalted himself, is a subject of inquiry. Now, it appears that many were offended at his ambition, and resisted his claims. In one epistle he deputes the bishop of Thessalonica to act as his representative in Greece and other adjacent countries; in another he delegates the bishop of Arles, or some other bishop, to be his vicar in France. So he appoints Hormisdas, bishop of Seville, his vicar in Spain. But in all cases he mentions, by way of exception, that he makes such appointments on condition that they shall in no respect infringe the ancient privileges of the metropolitans. But Leo himself declares this to be one of their privileges, that if any difficulty should arise, the metropolitan was to be consulted in the first place. These delegations, therefore, were accompanied with this condition—that there was to be no interference with any bishop in his ordinary jurisdiction, with any metropolitan in hearing appeals, or with any provincial synod in the regulation of the Churches. Now, what was this but to abstain from all jurisdiction, and only to interpose for the settlement of disputes, as far as was consistent with the law and nature of ecclesiastical communion?

XII. In the time of Gregory, this ancient custom had already undergone a considerable change. For when the empire was convulsed and torn asunder, when France and Spain were afflicted with repeated and numerous wars and distresses, Illyricum laid waste, Italy harassed, and Africa almost ruined with incessant calamities,—in order to preserve the unity of the faith amidst such a violent convulsion of civil affairs, or at least to prevent its total destruction, all the bishops round about connected themselves more closely with the bishop of Rome. The consequence was, that the power as well as the dignity of that see was greatly increased. I am not much concerned, however, respecting the methods by which this was effected. It is at least evident, that it was greater at that period than in the preceding ages. And even then it was very far from an unlimited dominion, for one man to govern all others according to his own pleasure. But the see of Rome was held in such reverence, that its authority would repress and correct the refractory and obstinate, who could not be confined to their duty by the other bishops. For Gregory embraces every opportunity of protesting, that he as faithfully maintained the rights of others, as he required them to maintain his. “Nor under the influence of ambition,” says he, “do I withhold from any one that which is his right; but I desire to honour my brethren in all things.”—There is not a sentence in his writings which contains a prouder boast of the majesty of his primacy than the following: “I know no bishop who is not subject to the apostolic see, when he is found in fault.” But he immediately adds, “Where there is no fault to require subjection, all are equal by right of humility.” He attributes to himself the authority to correct those who have transgressed; if all do their duty, he places himself on an equality with them. But he assumed this authority to himself, and they who were willing consented to it, while others, who disapproved of it, were at liberty to oppose it with impunity; and this, it is notorious, was the conduct of the majority. Besides, it is to be remarked, that he is there speaking of the primate of Constantinople, who had been condemned by a provincial synod, and had disregarded the united judgment of the assembly. His colleagues complained to the emperor of his obstinacy. The emperor appointed Gregory to decide the cause. We see, then, that he made no attempt to interfere with the ordinary jurisdiction; and that the very thing which he does for the assistance of others, he does only at the command of the emperor.

XIII. This, therefore, was all the power which was then possessed by the bishop of Rome,—to oppose rebellious and refractory persons, in cases which required some extraordinary remedy, and that in order to assist, not to hinder, other bishops. Therefore he assumes to himself no more power over others than he grants to all others over himself, when he professes that he is ready to be reproved by all, and to be corrected by all. So in another epistle he commands the bishop of Aquileia to come to Rome to plead his cause in a controversy which had arisen between him and his neighbours, respecting an article of faith; nevertheless he gives this command, not from his own authority, but in consequence of the mandate of the emperor. Nor does he announce himself as the sole judge, but promises to assemble a synod to judge of the whole affair. But though there was still such moderation, that the power of the Roman see had its certain limits, which it was not permitted to exceed, and the bishop of Rome himself no more presided over others than he was subject to them, yet it appears how very displeasing this situation was to Gregory. For he frequently complains, that under the name of being a bishop, he was forced back to the world, and that he was more involved in secular cares than ever he had been while he was a layman; so that in that honour he was oppressed with the tumult of worldly business. In another passage he says, “Such a vast burden of occupations presses me down, that my mind is incapacitated for any elevation towards things above. I am tossed about with numerous causes, like so many waves; and after my former seasons of retirement and tranquillity, I am disquieted with the tempests of a tumultuous life; so that I may truly say, I am come into the depth of the sea, and the tempest has drowned me.” Judge, then, what he would have said, if he had fallen upon these times. If he did not fulfil the office of a pastor, yet he was employed in it. He refrained from all interference in the civil government, and acknowledged himself to be subject to the emperor in common with others. He never intruded into the care of other Churches, except when he was constrained by necessity. And yet he considered himself to be in a labyrinth, because he could not wholly devote himself to the exclusive duties of a bishop.

XIV. The bishop of Constantinople, as we have already stated, was at that time engaged in a contest with the bishop of Rome, respecting the primacy. For after the seat of the empire was fixed at Constantinople, the majesty of the government seemed to require that Church to be the next in dignity to the Church of Rome. And indeed at the beginning nothing contributed more to establish the primacy in the Church of Rome than the circumstance of that city being then the capital of the empire. Gratian recites a rescript under the name of Pope Lucinus, in which he says that the distinction of cities appointed to be the residence of metropolitans and primates, was regulated by no other rule than the nature of the civil government previously established in them. There is another similar rescript, also, under the name of Pope Clement, in which he says, that patriarchs had been appointed in those cities which had anciently been the stations of arch-flamens. This statement, though erroneous, approaches to the truth. For it is certain, that in order to make as little change as possible, the provinces were divided according to the existing state of things, and that primates and metropolitans were placed in those cities which had precedence of the rest in dignity and power. Therefore, in the Council of Turin, it was decreed, that those which were the chief cities of the respective provinces in the civil government, should be the principal sees of bishops; and that if the honour of the civil government should happen to be transferred from one city to another, the seat of the metropolitan should be removed to the same place. But Innocent, the Roman pontiff, seeing the ancient dignity of his city beginning to decline, after the translation of the seat of the empire to Constantinople, and trembling for the honour of his see, enacted a contrary law; in which he denies the necessity of a change of the ecclesiastical capitals, in consequence of a change of the imperial capitals. But the authority of a council ought to be preferred to the sentence of an individual, and we may justly suspect Innocent himself in his own cause. He proves by his decree, however, that the original regulation had been for the seats of metropolitans to be disposed according to the civil rank of the respective cities.

XV. According to this ancient ordinance, it was decreed in the first Council of Constantinople, that the bishop of that city should have the next rank and dignity to the bishop of Rome, because that was a new Rome. But when a similar decree was passed long after in the Council of Chalcedon, Leo strenuously opposed it. And he not only took the liberty of pouring contempt on what had been decided by upwards of six hundred bishops, but likewise heavily reproached them with having taken from other sees the honour which they had ventured to confer on the Church of Constantinople. Now, what could incite him to disturb the world for so insignificant a cause, but mere ambition? He says, that what had once been determined by the Council of Nice, ought to have been maintained inviolable. As if the Christian faith were endangered by the preference of one Church to another, or as if the patriarchates had been distributed by the Council of Nice with any other view than the preservation of external order. Now, we know that external order admits, and even requires, various changes, according to the various circumstances of different periods. It is a futile pretence, therefore, of Leo, that the honour, which the authority of the Nicene council had given to the see of Alexandria, ought not to be conferred on that of Constantinople. For common sense dictates, that this was such a decree as might be abolished according to the state of the times. And besides, the repeal met with no opposition from the bishops of the East, who were most interested in the matter. Proterius, who had been appointed bishop of Alexandria instead of Dioscorus, was present; as were other patriarchs, whose dignity was lessened by this measure. It was for them to oppose it, and not Leo, who retained his original station unaltered. When they all suffered it to pass without any objection, and even assented to it, and the bishop of Rome was the only one who resisted it, it is easy to judge by what motive he was influenced. He foresaw, what actually came to pass not long after, that as the glory of Rome was declining, Constantinople would not be content with the second place, but would contend for the primacy. Yet all his clamour was unavailing; the decree of the council was confirmed. Therefore his successors, seeing themselves vanquished, peaceably refrained from such obstinacy; for they decreed that he should be accounted the second patriarch.

XVI. But a little while after, John, who presided over the Church of Constantinople while Gregory was bishop of Rome, had the arrogance to assume the title of universal patriarch. Gregory, not afraid of defending his see in a good cause, resolutely opposed this assumption. And certainly it betrayed intolerable pride and folly in John to wish to make the limits of his bishopric the same with those of the empire. Now, Gregory did not claim to himself what he denied to another; but execrated the title, by whomsoever it might be usurped, as wicked and impious. In one of his epistles he expresses his displeasure with Eulogius, bishop of Alexandria, for having complimented him with such a title. “Behold,” says he, “in the preface of the epistle which you have directed to myself, who have forbidden it, you have taken care to introduce that appellation of pride, by calling me universal pope. Which I entreat that your holiness will not do any more; because all that you give to another beyond what is reasonable, is deducted from yourself. I consider nothing an honour to me, by which I see the honour of my brethren diminished. For my honour is the honour of the universal Church, and the perfect vigour of my brethren. If your holiness calls me universal pope, this is denying that you have any share in that which is wholly attributed to me.” Gregory’s was a good and honourable cause; but John, being supported by the favour of Mauritius the emperor, could not be diverted from his purpose; and Cyriacus, his successor, was equally inflexible.

XVII. At length Phocas, who ascended the throne after the murder of Mauritius, being more favourable to the Romans,—for what reason I know not, unless because he had been crowned at Rome without any difficulty,—granted to Boniface the Third what Gregory had never demanded,—that Rome should be the head of all Churches. Thus the controversy was decided. Yet this grant of the emperor could not have been so much to the advantage of the see of Rome, if it had not been followed by other things. For Greece and all Asia soon after separated from its communion. France reverenced it only so far as not to carry its obedience beyond its inclinations; nor was it reduced to entire subjection, till Pepin had usurped the crown. For after Zachary, the Roman pontiff, had assisted Pepin in the commission of treason and robbery, in deposing his lawful sovereign, and taking possession of the throne, he was rewarded by having the see of Rome invested with jurisdiction over the Gallican Churches. As robbers are accustomed to divide their common booty, so those worthy persons concerted together, that Pepin should have the temporal and civil sovereignty after the deposition of the rightful monarch, and that Zachary should be made the head over all bishops, and enjoy the spiritual power. At first this was feeble, as is generally the case with new establishments; but it was afterwards confirmed by the authority of Charlemagne, and almost from a similar cause; for he also was indebted to the Roman pontiff, for his exertions in raising him to the dignity of emperor. Now, though it is probable that the Churches, before that time, had in general been greatly disfigured, it is evident that in France and Germany the ancient form of the Church was then entirely obliterated. The archives of the parliament of Paris still contain brief registers of those times, which, in relating ecclesiastical events, make frequent mention of the treaties both of Pepin and Charlemagne with the Roman pontiff; from which it may be concluded that an alteration was then made in the ancient state of the Church.

XVIII. From that time, as things daily became worse and worse, the tyranny of the Roman see was gradually established and increased, and that partly through the ignorance, and partly through the indolence, of the bishops. For while the Roman pontiff was usurping every thing to himself, and proceeding from one assumption to another, without any limits, in defiance of law and justice, the bishops did not exert themselves with the zeal which became them to repress his cupidity, and where there was no want of inclination, they were destitute of real learning and knowledge, so that they were not at all equal to such an important undertaking. We see, therefore, what a horrible profanation of every thing sacred, and what a total disorganization of the Church there was at Rome in the days of Bernard. He complains that the ambitious, the avaricious, the simoniacal, the sacrilegious, the adulterous, the incestuous, and all who were chargeable with the most atrocious crimes, from every part of the world, resorted to Rome, in order to procure or to retain ecclesiastical honours by the apostolical authority; and that fraud, circumvention, and violence, were generally practised. He says, that the judicial process which was then pursued was execrable, and not only unbecoming of the Church, but disgraceful to any civil court. He exclaims, that the Church is full of ambitious men, and that there is not one who is any more afraid of perpetrating the most flagitious crimes, than robbers in their den when they are distributing the plunder which they have seized on the highway. “Few,” he says, “regard the mouth of the legislator; they all look at his hands, and that not without cause, for those hands transact all that is done by the pope. What a business it is, that they are bought with the spoils of the Church, who say to you, Well done, well done! The life of the poor is sown in the streets of the rich; silver glitters in the mire; people run to it from all parts; it is borne away, not by the poorest, but by the strongest, or perhaps by him who runs fastest. This custom, or rather this mortal corruption, commenced not with you; I wish it may end with you. In these circumstances you, a pastor, are proceeding, covered with abundant and costly attire. If I might dare to use the expression, these are rather the pastors of devils than of sheep. Did Peter act in this manner? Was Paul guilty of such trifling? Your court has been accustomed to receive men good, more than to make them so. For the wicked are not improved in it, but the good are corrupted.” The abuses of appeals which he relates, no pious person can read without the greatest horror. At length, respecting the insatiable cupidity of the see of Rome in the usurpation of jurisdiction, he concludes in the following manner: “I speak the murmur and common complaint of the Churches. They exclaim that they are divided and dismembered. There are few or none of them who do not either bewail or dread this plague. Do you inquire what plague? Abbots are torn away from their bishops, bishops from their archbishops. It is wonderful if this can be excused. By such conduct you prove that you have a plenitude of power, but not of justice. You act thus because you can, but the question is whether you ought. You are appointed to preserve to all their respective honour and rank, and not to envy them.” These few passages I have thought proper to recite, out of a great many, partly that the readers may see how sadly the Church had then declined, and partly that they may know into what sorrow and lamentation all good men were plunged by this calamity.

XIX. But though we should grant to the Roman pontiff in the present day the same eminence and extent of jurisdiction which this see possessed in the middle ages, as in the times of Leo and Gregory, what is that to the Papacy in its present state? I am not yet referring to the temporal and secular power, which we shall afterwards examine in its proper place; but the spiritual government itself of which they boast, what resemblance has it to the condition of those times? For the Romanists designate the pope no otherwise than as the supreme head of the Church on earth, and universal bishop of the whole world. And the pontiffs themselves, when they speak of their authority, pronounce with great superciliousness, that they have the power to command, and that to others is only left the necessity to obey; that all their decrees are to be received as if they were confirmed by the voice of St. Peter; that for want of their presence, provincial synods have no authority; that they have the power to ordain priests and deacons for all the Churches, and to summon to their see those who have been elsewhere ordained. In the Decretal of Gratian there are innumerable pretensions of this kind, which I forbear to recite, lest I should be too tedious to my readers. But the sum of them all comes to this; that the Roman pontiff alone has the supreme cognizance of all ecclesiastical causes, whether in judging and determining doctrines, in enacting laws, in regulating discipline, or in exercising jurisdiction. It would also be tedious and superfluous to enumerate the privileges which they assume to themselves in reservations, as they call them. But what is the most intolerable of all, they leave no judgment on earth to curb or restrain their cupidity, if they abuse such unlimited power. “It cannot be lawful,” they say, “for any one to reject the judgment of this see, on account of the primacy of the Roman Church.” Again: “The judge shall not be judged, either by the emperor or by kings, or by all the clergy, or by the people.” This is arrogance beyond all bounds, for one man to constitute himself judge of all, and to refuse to submit to the judgment of any. But what if he exercise tyranny over the people of God, if he divide and desolate the kingdom of Christ, if he disturb and overturn the whole Church, if he pervert the pastoral office into a system of robbery? Even though he should go to the greatest extremes of profligacy and mischief, he denies that he is at all accountable for his conduct. For these are the very words of the pontiffs: “God has been pleased to decide the causes of other men by the judgment of men, but the prelate of this see he has, without all question, reserved to his own judgment.” Again, “The actions of our subjects are judged by us; but ours by God alone.”

XX. And that such edicts might have the more weight, they have falsely substituted the names of ancient pontiffs, as if things had been so regulated from the beginning; whereas it is very certain, that every thing, which attributes to the Roman pontiff more than we have stated to have been given him by the ancient councils, is a novel and recent fabrication. They have even gone to such a pitch of impudence as to publish a rescript, under the name of Anastasius, patriarch of Constantinople, which declares that it had been ordained by the ancient canons, that nothing should be done even in the remotest provinces, without being first reported to the Roman see. Beside the notorious falsehood of this, what man will think it credible, that such a eulogium of the Roman see proceeded from the adversary and rival of its honour and dignity? But it was necessary that these Antichrists should be carried to such an extreme of madness and blindness, that their iniquity may be evident to all men of sound understanding, who only choose to open their eyes. But the Decretal Epistles, complied by Gregory the Ninth, as well as the Constitutions of Clement the Fifth, and the Decrees of Martin, still more openly and expressly betray, in every page, the inhuman ferocity and tyranny of barbarous kings. But these are the oracles from which the Romanists wish their Papacy to be appreciated. Hence proceeded those famous axioms, which at the present day are universally received by them as oracles: That the pope cannot err; that the pope is superior to all councils; that the pope is the universal bishop of all Churches, and supreme head of the Church upon earth. I pass over the far greater absurdities, which foolish canonists maintain in their schools; which, however, the Roman theologians not only assent to, but even applaud, in order to flatter their idol.

XXI. I shall not treat them with all the severity which they deserve. To this consummate insolence, another person would oppose the declaration of Cyprian among the bishops at the Council of Carthage, of which he was president: “No one of us calls himself bishop of bishops, or, by tyrannical fear, constrains his colleagues to the necessity of obeying him.” He would object what was decreed at Carthage some time after, “That no one should be called prince of priests, or first bishop.” He would collect many testimonies from histories, many canons of councils, and various passages from the writings of the fathers, by which the Roman pontiff would be reduced to the rank of other bishops. I pass over these things, however, that I may not appear to lay too much stress upon them. But let the most able advocates of the Roman see answer me, with what face they can dare to defend the title of universal bishop, which they find to have been so often anathematized by Gregory. If the testimony of Gregory be entitled to any credit, they cannot make their pontiff universal bishop without thereby declaring him to be Antichrist. Nor was the title of head any more in use at that time; for in one of his epistles he says, “Peter is the principal member in the body; John, Andrew, and James, were heads of particular people. Yet they are all members of the Church under one head. Even the saints before the law, the saints under the law, the saints under grace, are all placed among the members, and no one ever wished himself to be called universal.” The arrogant pretensions of the pontiff to the power of commanding are very inconsistent with an observation made by Gregory in another passage. For when Eulogius, bishop of Alexandria, had represented himself as commanded by him, he replies in the following manner:—“I beseech you, let me not hear the word command mentioned again; for I know what I am, and what you are. In station, you are my brethren; in holiness, you are my fathers. Therefore I gave no command, but intended to suggest to you such things as appeared to be useful.” By extending his jurisdiction, as he does, without any limits, the pope does a grievous and atrocious injury, not only to other bishops, but to all other Churches, which he distracts and divides by such conduct, in order to establish his own see upon their ruins. But when he exempts himself from all the judgments of others, and determines to reign in such a tyrannical manner as to have no law but his own pleasure, this is certainly so unbecoming, and foreign from the order of the Church, that it is altogether intolerable, and incapable of any defence. For it is utterly repugnant, not only to every sentiment of piety, but even of humanity.

XXII. But that I may not be obliged to pursue and discuss every particular point, I again appeal to those of my contemporaries, who would be considered as the most able and faithful advocates of the Roman see, whether they are not ashamed to defend the present state of the Papacy, which is evidently a hundred times more corrupt than it was in the times of Gregory and Bernard, but which even then so exceedingly displeased those holy men. Gregory every where complains, that he was excessively distracted with occupations unsuitable to his office; that under the name of being a bishop, he was carried back to the world; that he was involved in secular cares, to a greater extent than he could remember to have been while he was a layman; that he was oppressed with the tumult of worldly business, so that his mind was incapacitated for any elevation towards things above; that he was tossed about with numerous causes like so many waves, and disquieted with the tempests of a tumultuous life, so that he might justly say, “I am come into the depth of the sea.” Amidst these worldly avocations, however, he could still instruct the people by public preaching, give private admonition and reproof to those who required it, regulate his Church, give advice to his colleagues, and exhort them to their duty; beside these things, he had some time left for writing; yet he deplores his calamity, in being plunged into the depth of the sea. If the administration of that age was a sea, what must be said of the Papacy in its present state? For what resemblance is there between them? Here we find no sermons preached, no attention to discipline, no concern for the Churches, no spiritual function performed; in a word, nothing but the world. Yet this labyrinth is praised, as though nothing could be found better constituted, or better administered. What complaints are poured out by Bernard, what lamentations does he utter, when he beholds the vices of his times? What would he say, then, if he could behold this our iron, or, if possible, worse than iron age? What impudence is it, not only pertinaciously to defend as sacred and Divine what all the holy fathers have reprobated with one voice, but also to abuse their testimony in vindication of the Papacy, which it is evident was utterly unknown to them! In the time of Bernard, however, I confess the corruption was so great that there was no great difference between that age and the present; but those who adduce any plea for the existing state of things from the time of Leo, Gregory, and others in that middle period, must be destitute of all shame. This conduct resembles that of any one, who, to vindicate the monarchy of the Roman emperors, should commend the ancient state of the Roman government; which would be no other than borrowing the praises of liberty to adorn a system of tyranny.

XXIII. Lastly, though all these things were conceded to them, they would be called to a new controversy, when we deny that there exists at Rome a Church in which such privileges can reside, or a bishop capable of exercising these dignified prerogatives. Supposing, therefore, all these things to be true, which, however, we have already refuted,—that, by the voice of Christ, Peter had been constituted head of the universal Church; that the honour vested in him he had committed to the Roman see; that this had been established by the authority of the ancient Church, and confirmed by long usage; that all men, with one consent, had invariably acknowledged the supreme power of the Roman pontiff; that he had been the judge in all causes and of all men, and had been subject to the judgment of none;—though they should have all these concessions, and any more that they wished, yet I reply in one word, that none of them would be of any avail, unless there be at Rome a Church and a bishop. They must of necessity allow, that Rome cannot be the mother of Churches, unless it be itself a Church, and that he cannot be the prince of bishops, who is not a bishop himself. Do they wish, then, to make Rome the apostolic see? Let them show me a true and legitimate apostleship. Do they wish to have the supreme pontiff? Let them show me a bishop. But where will they show us any form or appearance of a Church? They mention it, indeed, and have it frequently in their mouths. But the Church is known by certain marks, and a bishopric is a name of office. I am not now speaking of the people, but of the government itself, which ought always to appear in the Church. Where is the ministry, such as Christ’s institution requires? Let us remember what has already been said of the office of presbyters and bishops. If we bring the office of cardinals to that rule, we shall confess that they have no resemblance to presbyters. And I should wish to know what resemblance the pontiff himself bears to a bishop. The first duty of the episcopal office is to instruct the people from the word of God; the second duty, closely connected with the first, is to administer the sacraments; the third is to admonish, exhort, and reprove those who offend, and to regulate the people by holy discipline. Which of these duties does he perform? Which of them does he even pretend to perform? Let them tell me, then, upon what principle they require him to be considered as a bishop, who never, even in appearance, with his little finger touches the least portion of the duty.

XXIV. The case of a bishop is different from that of a king, who still retains the honour and title of a king, though he execute none of the royal functions. But in judging of a bishop, regard is to be paid to the commission of Christ, which ought always to continue in force in the Church. Let the Romanists, therefore, furnish me with a solution of this difficulty. I deny that their pontiff is the chief of bishops, because he is not a bishop himself. Now, they must prove this second member of my position to be false, if they will obtain the victory in the first. But what must be the conclusion, if he not only has no characteristic of a bishop, but every thing contrary to it? But here where shall I begin? with his doctrine, or his conduct? What shall I say? What shall I omit? Where shall I stop? I will make this assertion—that as the world is at present filled with so many corrupt and impious doctrines, loaded with such various kinds of superstitions, blinded with such numerous errors, and immerged in such profound idolatry,—there is not one of these evils which has not originated from the see of Rome, or at least been confirmed by it. Nor is there any other cause for the violent rage of the pontiffs against the revived doctrine of the gospel, and for their exertion of all their power to crush it, and their instigation of all kings and princes to persecute it, but that they see that their whole kingdom will decline and fall to the ground, where the primitive gospel of Christ shall be received. Leo was cruel; Clement was sanguinary; Paul is ferocious. But it is not so much that nature has impelled them to impugn the truth, as that this was the only way to defend their power. As they cannot be safe, therefore, without ruining Christ, they labour in this cause as if it were in the defence of their religion, their habitations, their lives. What, then, shall we consider that as the apostolic see, where we behold nothing but a horrible apostasy? Shall he be regarded as the vicar of Christ, who, by his furious exertions in persecuting the gospel, unequivocally declares himself to be Antichrist? Shall he be deemed Peter’s successor, who rages with fire and sword to demolish all that Peter built? Shall we acknowledge him to be head of the Church, who, after severing the Church from Christ, its only true Head, divides and tears it in pieces? Though it be admitted that Rome was once the mother of all Churches, yet from the time when it began to be the seat of Antichrist, it has ceased to be what it was before.

XXV. Some persons think us too severe and censorious, when we call the Roman pontiff Antichrist. But those who are of this opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself, after whom we speak, and whose language we adopt. And lest any one should object, that we improperly pervert to the Roman pontiff those words of Paul, which belong to a different subject, I shall briefly show that they are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the Papacy. Paul says, that Antichrist “sitteth in the temple of God.”[893] In another place, also, the Holy Spirit, describing his image in the person of Antiochus, declares that his kingdom will consist in “speaking great words,” or blasphemies, “against the Most High.”[894] Hence we conclude, that it is rather a tyranny over the souls of men, than over their bodies, which is erected in opposition to the spiritual kingdom of Christ. And in the next place, that this tyranny is one which does not abolish the name of Christ or of his Church, but rather abuses the authority of Christ, and conceals itself under the character of the Church, as under a mask. Now, though all the heresies and schisms which have existed from the beginning belong to the kingdom of Antichrist, yet when Paul predicts an approaching apostasy, he signifies by this description that that seat of abomination shall then be erected, when a universal defection shall have seized the Church, notwithstanding many members, dispersed in different places, persevere in the unity of the faith. But when he adds, that even in his days “the mystery of iniquity” did “already work”[895] in secret what it was afterwards to effect in a more public manner, he gives us to understand that this calamity was neither to be introduced by one man, nor to terminate with one man. Now, when he designates Antichrist by this character,—that he would rob God of his honour in order to assume it to himself,—this is the principal indication which we ought to follow in our inquiries after Antichrist, especially where such pride proceeds to a public desolation of the Church. As it is evident therefore that the Roman pontiff has impudently transferred to himself some of the peculiar and exclusive prerogatives of God and Christ, it cannot be doubted that he is the captain and leader of this impious and abominable kingdom.

XXVI. Now, let the Romanists go and object antiquity against us; as if, in such a subversion of every thing, the honour of the see could remain, where no see exists. Eusebius relates that God, in order to make way for his vengeance, removed the Church from Jerusalem to Pella. What we are informed did happen once, may have happened oftener. Therefore to attach the honour of the primacy to any particular place, so that he who is in fact the most inveterate enemy of Christ, the greatest adversary of the gospel, the desolater and destroyer of the Church, the most cruel murderer and butcher of all the saints, must nevertheless be accounted the vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter, the chief prelate of the Church, merely because he occupies what was anciently the first see, is a thing extremely ridiculous and absurd. I forbear to remark the immense difference between the pope’s chancery, and a well regulated administration of the Church; though this one thing is sufficient to remove every difficulty on this subject. For no man in his sound senses will include the episcopal office in lead and in bulls, much less in that school of frauds and chicaneries, in which the pope’s spiritual government consists. It has justly been remarked, therefore, that the Roman Church which is boasted of, has long ago been converted into a secular court, which is all that is now to be seen at Rome. Nor am I here accusing the vices of individuals, but proving that the Papacy itself is diametrically opposite to the legitimate order of the Church.

XXVII. But if we proceed to persons, it is well known what kind of men we shall find sustaining the character of vicars of Christ. Julius, and Leo, and Clement, and Paul, will be pillars of the Christian faith, and the principal oracles of religion, who never knew any thing of Christ, except what they had learned in the school of Lucian. But why do I enumerate three or four pontiffs, as though it were doubtful what kind of religion the pontiffs and the whole college of cardinals have professed long ago, and profess in the present day? For of the secret theology which prevails among them, the first article is, that there is no God; the second, that all that is written and preached concerning Jesus Christ is falsehood and imposture; the third, that the doctrine of a future life, and that of the final resurrection, are mere fables. This opinion, I confess, is not entertained by all, and is expressed by few of them; yet it long ago began to be the ordinary religion of the pontiffs. Though this is notorious to all who are acquainted with Rome, yet the Roman theologians persist in boasting that the possibility of error in the pope has been prevented by the privilege of Christ, because he said to Peter, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.”[896] What can they gain by such impudent mockery, except it be to convince the whole world of their having arrived at such an extreme of presumption, that they neither fear God nor regard men?

XXVIII. But let us suppose the impiety of those pontiffs, whom I have mentioned, to be concealed, because they have not published it by sermons or by writings, but only betrayed it in their chambers and at their tables, or at least within the walls of their palaces. But if they wish to establish this privilege to which they pretend, they must expunge from the number of the pontiffs John the Twenty-second, who publicly maintained that souls are mortal, and that they perish together with the bodies till the day of resurrection. And to show that the whole see, with its principal pillars, was then entirely overturned, not one of the cardinals resisted this capital error; but the university of Paris urged the king of France to compel the pope to a retraction. The king interdicted his subjects from all communion with him, unless he should speedily repent; and he caused this to be proclaimed, in the usual manner, by a herald. Compelled by necessity, the pontiff abjured his error. This example renders it unnecessary for me to dispute any longer against the assertion of our adversaries, that the see of Rome and its pontiffs cannot err respecting the faith, because Christ said to Peter, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” John certainly fell from the true faith in so disgraceful a manner, that he might furnish to posterity a signal proof, that those who succeed Peter in his bishopric are not all Peters. The argument itself, however, is too puerile to need any answer. For if they are determined to apply to Peter’s successors every thing that was said to Peter, it will follow that they are all Satans, because the Lord also said to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me.”[897] It will be as easy for us to retort this passage against them, as it is for them to object the other against us.

XXIX. But it affords me no pleasure to contend with them in such fooleries, and therefore I return from the digression. To confine Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the Church, to one particular place, so that whoever presides there, even though he be a devil, must, nevertheless, be deemed the vicar of Christ, and the head of the Church, because that place was formerly the see of Peter, I maintain to be not only impious and dishonourable to Christ, but altogether absurd and repugnant to common sense. The Roman pontiffs for a long time have either been totally indifferent to religion, or have shown themselves its greatest enemies. They are no more made the vicars of Christ, therefore, by the see which they occupy, than an idol is to be taken for God, because it is placed in his temple. Now, if a judgment is to be formed on their conduct, let the pontiffs answer for themselves in what part of it they can at all be recognized as bishops. In the first place, the mode of life generally pursued at Rome, not only without any opposition from them, but with their connivance, and even tacit approbation, is altogether disgraceful to bishops, whose duty it is to restrain the licentiousness of the people by a rigid discipline. I will not, however, be so severe against them as to charge them with the faults of other persons. But while both themselves and their families, with almost the whole college of cardinals, and the whole host of their clergy, are so abandoned to all kinds of debauchery, impurity, and obscenity, and to every species of enormity and crime, that they resemble monsters rather than men, they prove themselves to have no just claim to the character of bishops. They need not be afraid, however, that I shall proceed to a further disclosure of their turpitude. For it is unpleasant to meddle with such abominable pollution, and it is necessary to spare chaste ears. Besides, I conceive, I have more than sufficiently proved what I intended, that even if Rome had anciently been the head of all Churches, yet at the present day she is not worthy of being accounted one of the smallest toes of the Church’s feet.

XXX. With respect to the cardinals, as they are called, I know not how it has come to pass that they have so suddenly risen to such high dignity. In the time of Gregory, this title was exclusively applied to bishops; for whenever he mentions cardinals, he speaks of them not only as belonging to the Church of Rome, but to any other Churches; so that, in short, a cardinal priest is no other than a bishop. I find no such title at all in the writers of any preceding age; and at that time, I observe, they were far inferior to bishops, to whom they are now so far superior. This passage of Augustine is well known: “Though, according to the titles of honour which have long been used in the Church, a bishop is superior to a presbyter, yet Augustine is in many things inferior to Jerome.” He clearly makes not the least distinction between a presbyter of the Roman Church and those of other Churches, but places them all alike below the bishops. And this order was so long observed, that in the Council of Carthage, when two legates attended from the Roman see, one a bishop, the other a presbyter, the presbyter was obliged to take the lowest seat. But not to go too far into antiquity for examples, we have the acts of a council held under Gregory at Rome, at which the presbyters sat in the lowest place, and subscribed separately; and the deacons were not allowed to subscribe at all. And, indeed, the priests had no other office at that time, than to attend and assist the bishop in the ministry of the word and the administration of the sacraments. Now, their condition is so changed, that they are become the cousins of kings and emperors. And there is no doubt but they rose by degrees, together with their head, till they reached their present high dignity. This also I have thought proper to suggest by the way in a few words, that the reader may more fully understand, that the Roman see, in its present circumstances, is widely different from its ancient state, under the pretext of which it is now maintained and defended. But whatever they may have been in former times, since they have now no true and legitimate office in the Church, and only retain a mere name and useless mask of one, and since every thing belonging to them is quite contrary to it, it was necessary that what Gregory often forebodes should actually befall them: “I say it with tears, I denounce it with groans, that since the sacerdotal order is fallen within, it will not long be able to stand without.” Or rather it was necessary that what Malachi declares of similar characters should be fulfilled in them: “Ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people.”[898] I now leave it to all pious persons to consider the nature of the lofty fabric of the Roman hierarchy, to which the Papists, with nefarious impudence, and without any hesitation, sacrifice even the word of God itself, which ought to have been held venerable and sacred by heaven and earth, by men and angels.

Footnote 893:

2 Thess. ii. 4.

Footnote 894:

Dan. vii. 25.

Footnote 895:

2 Thess. ii. 7.

Footnote 896:

Luke xxii. 32.

Footnote 897:

Matt. xvi. 23.

Footnote 898:

Mal. ii. 8, 9.

CHAPTER VIII. THE POWER OF THE CHURCH RESPECTING ARTICLES OF FAITH, AND ITS LICENTIOUS PERVERSION, UNDER THE PAPACY, TO THE CORRUPTION OF ALL PURITY OF DOCTRINE.

The next subject is the power of the Church, which is to be considered as residing, partly in the respective bishops, partly in councils, and those either provincial or general. I speak only of the spiritual power which belongs to the Church. Now, it consists either in doctrine, in legislation, or jurisdiction. The subject of doctrine contains two parts—the authority to establish doctrines, and the explication of them. Before we enter on the particular discussion of each of these points, we would apprize the pious readers, that whatever is asserted respecting the power of the Church, they should be mindful to refer to the end for which Paul declares it to have been given, namely, “to edification, and not to destruction;”[899] and all who make a legitimate use of it, consider themselves as nothing more than “servants of Christ,”[900] and the people’s “servants for Jesus’ sake.”[901] Now, the only way to edify the Church is, for the ministers themselves to study to preserve to Jesus Christ his rightful authority, which can no longer be secure than while he is left in possession of what he has received from the Father, that is, to be the sole Master in the Church.[902] For of him alone, and of no other, is it said, “Hear ye him.”[903] The power of the Church, therefore, is not to be depreciated, yet it must be circumscribed by certain limits, that it may not be extended in every direction, according to the caprice of men. It will, therefore, be highly useful to observe how it is described by the prophets and apostles. For if we simply grant to men the power which they may be pleased to assume, it must be obvious to every one, what a door will be opened for tyranny, which ought never to be seen in the Church of Christ.

II. Here, therefore, it is necessary to remember, that whatever authority and dignity is attributed by the Holy Spirit, in the Scripture, either to the priests and prophets under the law, or to the apostles and their successors, it is all given, not in a strict sense to the persons themselves, but to the ministry over which they were appointed, or, to speak more correctly, to the word, the ministration of which was committed to them. For if we examine them all in succession, we shall not find that they were invested with any authority to teach or to answer inquiries, but in the name and word of the Lord. For when they were called to their office, it was at the same time enjoined that they should bring forward nothing of themselves, but should speak from the mouth of the Lord. Nor did he send them forth in public to address the people, before he had instructed them what they should say, that they might speak nothing beside his word. Moses himself, the prince of all the prophets, was to be heard above all others; but he was first furnished with his commission, that he might not be able to announce any thing except from the Lord. Therefore the people, when they received his doctrine, were said to “believe the Lord and his servant Moses.”[904] The authority of the priests also, that it might not fall into contempt, was confirmed by the severest punishments.[905] But, on the other hand, the Lord shows on what condition they were to be heard, when he says, “My covenant was with Levi. The law of truth was in his mouth.” And just afterwards, “The priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”[906] Therefore, if a priest would be heard, it was necessary for him to prove himself the messenger of God, by faithfully communicating the commands which he had received from his master; and where attention to the priests is enjoined, it is expressly stated, that “they shall teach the sentence of the law”[907] of God.

III. The power of the prophets is fully and beautifully described in Ezekiel. “Son of man,” says the Lord, “I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.”[908] When he is commanded to hear from the mouth of the Lord, is he not prohibited to invent any thing of himself? And what is it to give warning from the Lord, but, to speak in such a manner as to be able to declare with confidence that the message he has brought is not his own, but the Lord’s? The Lord expresses the same thing in other words in the prophecy of Jeremiah: “The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.”[909] He clearly delivers a law for them all; its import is, that he permits no one to teach more than he has been commanded; and he afterwards gives the appellation of “chaff” to every thing that has not proceeded from himself alone. Not one of the prophets opened his mouth, therefore, without having first received the words from the Lord. Hence their frequent use of these expressions: “The word of the Lord,” “The burden of the Lord,” “Thus saith the Lord,” “The mouth of the Lord hath spoken;” and this was highly necessary; for Isaiah exclaimed, “I am a man of unclean lips;”[910] and Jeremiah said, “Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child.”[911] What could proceed from the pollution of the one, and the folly of the other, but impure and foolish speeches, if they had spoken their own words? But their lips were holy and pure, when they began to be the organs of the Holy Spirit. While the prophets were bound by this law to deliver nothing but what they had received, they were likewise adorned with eminent power and splendid titles. For when the Lord declares, “See, I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, and to build, and to plant,” he at the same time assigns the reason—“Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.”[912]

IV. If we advert to the apostles, they are certainly honoured with many extraordinary characters. It is said that they are “the light of the world,” and “the salt of the earth;”[913] that “he that heareth” them “heareth Christ;”[914] that “whatsoever” they “shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever” they “shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”[915] But their very name shows what degree of liberty they were allowed in their office; that if they were apostles, they were not to declaim according to their own pleasure, but to deliver with strict fidelity the commands of him who had sent them. And the language of Christ is sufficiently clear, in which he has defined their message by the following commission: “Go ye, and teach all nations whatsoever I have commanded you.”[916] He had even received and imposed on himself the same law, in order that no one might refuse to submit to it. “My doctrine,” says he, “is not mine, but his that sent me.”[917] He who was always the eternal and only counsellor of the Father, and was constituted by the Father the Lord and Master of all, yet because he sustained the office of a teacher, prescribed, by his own example, the rule which all ministers ought to follow in their teaching. The power of the Church, therefore, is not unlimited, but subject to the word of the Lord, and, as it were, included in it.

V. But whereas it has been a principle received in the Church from the beginning, and ought to be admitted in the present day, that the servants of God should teach nothing which they have not learned from him, yet they have had different modes of receiving instruction from him, according to the variety of different periods; and the present mode differs from those which have preceded it. In the first place, if the assertion of Christ be true, that “no man knoweth the Father except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him,”[918] it must always have been necessary for those who would arrive at the knowledge of God, to be directed by that eternal wisdom. For how could they have comprehended the mysteries of God, or how could they have declared them, except by the teaching of him, to whom alone the secrets of the Father are intimately known? The saints in former ages, therefore, had no other knowledge of God than what they obtained by beholding him in the Son, as in a mirror. By this observation I mean that God never manifested himself to man in any other way than by his Son, his only wisdom, light, and truth. From this fountain Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others, drew all the knowledge which they possessed of heavenly doctrine; from this fountain the prophets themselves drew all the celestial oracles which they spoke and wrote. But this wisdom has not always manifested itself in the same way. With the patriarchs God employed secret revelations; for the confirmation of which, however, he at the same time added such signs that they could not entertain the least doubt that it was God who spake to them. What the patriarchs had received, they transmitted from hand to hand to their posterity; for the Lord had committed it to them on the express condition that they should so propagate it. Succeeding generations, from the testimony of God in their hearts, knew that what they heard was from heaven, and not from the earth.

VI. But when it pleased God to raise up a more visible form of a church, it was his will that his word should be committed to writing, in order that the priests might derive from it whatever they would communicate to the people, and that all the doctrine which should be delivered might be examined by that rule. Therefore, after the promulgation of the law, when the priests were commanded to teach “out of the mouth of the Lord,” the meaning is, that they should teach nothing extraneous, or different from that system of doctrine which the Lord had comprised in the law; it was not lawful for them to add to it or to diminish from it. Afterwards followed the prophets, by whom God published new oracles, which were to be added to the law; yet they were not so new but that they proceeded from the law, and bore a relation to it. For in regard to doctrine, the prophets were merely interpreters of the law, and added nothing to it except prophecies of things to come. Except these, they brought forward nothing but pure explication of the law. But because it pleased God that there should be a more evident and copious doctrine, for the better satisfaction of weak consciences, he directed the prophecies also to be committed to writing, and to be accounted a part of his word. To these likewise were added the histories, which were the productions of the prophets, but composed under the dictation of the Holy Spirit. I class the Psalms with the prophecies, because what we attribute to the prophecies is common to the Psalms. That whole body of Scripture, therefore, consisting of the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, and the Histories, was the word of God to the ancient Church; and to this standard the priests and teachers, even to the coming of Christ, were bound to conform their doctrine; nor was it lawful for them to deviate either to the right hand or to the left, because their office was wholly confined within these limits, that they should answer the people from the mouth of God. And this may be inferred from that remarkable passage of Malachi, where he commands the Jews to remember the law, and to be attentive to it, even till the publication of the gospel.[919] For in that injunction he drives them off from all adventitious doctrines, and prohibits even the smallest deviation from the path which Moses had faithfully showed them. And it is for this reason that David so magnifies the excellence of the law, and recounts so many of its praises; to prevent the Jews from desiring any addition to it, since it contained every thing necessary for them to know.

VII. But when, at length, the Wisdom of God was manifested in the flesh, it openly declared to us all that the human mind is capable of comprehending, or ought to think, concerning the heavenly Father. Now, therefore, since Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, has shone upon us, we enjoy the full splendour of Divine truth, resembling the brightness of noonday, whereas the light enjoyed before was a kind of twilight. For certainly the apostle intended to state no unimportant fact when he said, that “God, who, at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son;”[920] for he here suggests, and even plainly declares, that God will not in future, as in ages past, speak from time to time by one and another, that he will not add prophecies to prophecies, or revelations to revelations, but that he has completed all the branches of instruction in his Son, so that this is the last and eternal testimony that we shall have from him; for which reason this whole period of the New Testament, from the appearance of Christ to us in the first promulgation of his gospel, even to the day of judgment, is designated as “the last time,” “the last times,” “the last days;” in order that, being content with the perfection of the doctrine of Christ, we may learn neither to invent any thing new or beyond it ourselves, nor to receive any such thing from the invention of others. It is not without cause, therefore, that the Father has given us his Son by a peculiar privilege, and appointed him to be our teacher, commanding attention to be paid to him, and not to any mere man. He has recommended his tuition to us in few words, when he says, “Hear ye him;”[921] but there is more weight and energy in them than is commonly imagined; for they call us away from all the instructions of men, and place us before him alone; they command us to learn from him alone all the doctrine of salvation, to depend upon him, to adhere to him, in short, as the words express, to listen solely to his voice. And, indeed, what ought now to be either expected or desired from man, when the Word of Life himself has familiarly presented himself before us? It is rather necessary that the mouths of all men should be shut, since he has once spoken, in whom it has pleased the heavenly Father that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge should be hidden,[922] and has spoken in a manner becoming the wisdom of God, in which there is no imperfection, and the Messiah, who was expected to reveal all things;[923] that is, has spoken in such a manner as to leave nothing to be said by others after him.

VIII. Let us lay down this, then, as an undoubted axiom, that nothing ought to be admitted in the Church as the word of God, but what is contained first in the law and the prophets, and secondly in the writings of the apostles, and that there is no other method of teaching aright in the Church than according to the direction and standard of that word. Hence we conclude, also, that the apostles were allowed no more discretion than the prophets before them—namely, to expound the ancient Scripture, and to show that the things delivered in it were accomplished in Christ; but this they were only to do from the Lord, that is to say, under the guidance and dictation of the Spirit of Christ. For Christ limited their mission by this condition, when he ordered them to go and teach, not the fabrications of their own presumption, but whatsoever he had commanded them.[924] And nothing could be more explicit than what he said on another occasion: “Be not ye called Rabbi; for one is your Master, even Christ.”[925] To fix this more deeply in their minds, he repeats it twice in the same place. And because their weakness was such that they were unable to comprehend the things which they had heard and learned from the lips of their Master, the Spirit of truth was promised to them, to lead them into the true understanding of all things.[926] For that restriction is to be attentively remarked, which assigns to the Holy Spirit the office of suggesting to their minds all that Christ had before taught them with his mouth.

IX. Therefore Peter, who had been fully taught by his Master how far his office extended, represents nothing as left for himself or others, but to dispense the doctrine committed to them by God. “If any man speak,” says he, “let him speak as the oracles of God;”[927] that is, not with hesitation or uncertainty, like persons conscious of no sufficient authority, but with the noble confidence which becomes a servant of God furnished with his certain commission. What is this but rejecting all the inventions of the human mind, from whatever head they may proceed, in order that the pure word of God may be taught and learned in the Church of believers? What is this but removing all the decrees, or rather inventions of men, whatever be their station, that the ordinances of God alone may be observed? These are the spiritual “weapons, mighty through God to the pulling down of strong-holds,” by which the faithful soldiers of God “cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”[928] This is the extent of the power with which the pastors of the Church, by whatever name they may be distinguished, ought to be invested;—that by the word of God they may venture to do all things with confidence; may constrain all the strength, glory, wisdom, and pride of the world to obey and submit to his majesty; supported by his power, may govern all mankind, from the highest to the lowest; may build up the house of Christ, and subvert the house of Satan; may feed the sheep, and drive away the wolves; may instruct and exhort the docile; may reprove, rebuke, and restrain the rebellious and obstinate; may bind and loose; may discharge their lightnings and thunders, if necessary; but all in the word of God. Between the apostles and their successors, however, there is, as I have stated, this difference—that the apostles were the certain and authentic amanuenses of the Holy Spirit, and therefore their writings are to be received as the oracles of God; but succeeding ministers have no other office than to teach what is revealed and recorded in the sacred Scriptures. We conclude, then, that it is not now left to faithful ministers to frame any new doctrine, but that it behoves them simply to adhere to the doctrine to which God has made all subject, without any exception. In making this observation, my design is to show, not only what is lawful to individuals, but also to the universal Church. With respect to particular persons, Paul had certainly been appointed by the Lord an apostle to the Corinthians; yet he denies that he had any dominion over their faith.[929] Who can now dare to arrogate to himself a dominion which Paul testifies did not belong to him? If he had sanctioned such a license of teaching, that whatever the pastor delivered, he might require, as a matter of right, that the same should be implicitly believed, he would never have recommended to the same Corinthians such a regulation as this: “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace.”[930] For here he exempted none, but made the authority of every one subject to the control of the word of God. But the case of the universal Church, it will be said, is different. I reply—Paul has obviated this objection in another place, when he says that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing, by the word of God.”[931] But if it be the word of God alone upon which faith is suspended, towards which it looks, and on which it relies, I ask what is there left for the word of the whole world? Here it will be impossible for any man to hesitate who has really known what faith is. For it ought to rest on such firm ground as to stand invincible and undismayed in opposition to Satan, to all the machinations of hell, and to all the assaults of the world. This stability we shall find in the word of God alone. Besides the reason which we are here required to consider is of universal application—that God denies to man the right of promulgating any new article of faith, in order that he alone may be our Master in spiritual doctrine, as he alone is true beyond all possibility of deceiving or being deceived. This reason is no less applicable to the whole Church than to every individual believer.

X. But if this power, which we have shown to belong to the Church, be compared with that which has now for some ages past been claimed over the people of God by the spiritual tyrants who have falsely called themselves bishops and prelates of religion, there will be no more resemblance than there is between Christ and Belial. It is not my intention here to expose the shameful methods in which they have exercised their tyranny: I shall only state the doctrine, which they defend in the present age, not only by their writings, but also by fire and sword. As they take it for granted that a universal council is the true representative of the Church, having assumed this principle, they at once determine, as beyond all doubt, that such councils are under the immediate direction of the Holy Spirit, and therefore cannot err. Now, as they themselves influence the councils, and even constitute them, the fact is, that they assume to themselves all that they contend for as belonging to the councils. They wish our faith, therefore, to stand or fall at their pleasure, that whatever they may have determined on one side or the other, may be implicitly received by our minds as fully decided; so that if they approve of any thing, we must approve of the same without any hesitation; and if they condemn any thing, we must unite in the condemnation of it. At the same time, according to their own caprice, and in contempt of the word of God, they fabricate doctrines which, for no other reason than this, they require to be believed. For they acknowledge no man as a Christian, who does not fully assent to all their dogmas, affirmative as well as negative, if not with an explicit, at least with an implicit faith, because they pretend that the Church has authority to make new articles of faith.

XI. First, let us hear by what arguments they prove this authority to have been given to the Church; and then we shall see how far their allegations respecting the Church contribute to support their cause. The Church, they say, has excellent promises, that she is never to be forsaken by Christ, her spouse, but will be led by his Spirit into all truth.[932] But of the promises which they are accustomed to allege, many are given no less to each believer in particular, than collectively to the whole Church. For though the Lord was addressing the twelve apostles when he said, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world;”[933] and “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, even the Spirit of truth;”[934] he made these promises not only to the apostles considered as a body, but to every one of the number, and even to the other disciples whom he had already received, or who were afterwards to be added to them. Now, when they interpret these promises, replete with peculiar consolation, in such a sense as if they were given to no individual Christian, but only to the whole Church collectively, what is this but depriving all Christians of the confidence with which such promises ought to animate them? Here I do not deny that the whole society of believers, being adorned with a manifold variety of gifts, possesses a more ample and precious treasure of heavenly wisdom, than each particular individual; nor do I intend that these things are spoken of believers in common, as if they were all equally endued with the spirit of understanding and doctrine; but we must not allow the adversaries of Christ, in defence of a bad cause, to wrest the Scripture to a sense which it was not intended to convey. Leaving this remark, I freely acknowledge that the Lord is continually present with his servants, and that he guides them by his Spirit; that this is not a spirit of error, ignorance, falsehood, or darkness, but “the spirit of wisdom, and revelation, and truth,” from whom they may certainly learn “the things that are given to” them “of God,” or, in other words, “may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.”[935] But as it is nothing more than the first fruits, a kind of foretaste of that Spirit that is enjoyed by believers in the present state, even by those of them who are favoured with more excellent graces than others, there remains nothing for them, but that, conscious of their imbecility, they solicitously confine themselves within the limits of the word of God; lest, if they proceed far by their own sense, they should wander from the right way, in consequence of being not yet fully enlightened by that Spirit, by whose teaching alone truth is distinguished from falsehood. For all confess with Paul, that they have not yet attained the mark; therefore they rather press on towards daily improvement, than boast of perfection.[936]

XII. But they will object, that whatever is partially attributed to every one of the saints, completely and perfectly belongs to the whole Church. Notwithstanding the plausibility of this position, yet I deny it to be true. I admit that God distributes the gifts of his Spirit by measure to every member of his Church, in such a manner that nothing necessary is wanting to the whole body, when those gifts are bestowed in common. But the riches of the Church are always such as to be very far from that consummate perfection boasted by our adversaries. Yet the Church is not left destitute in any respect, but that it always has what is sufficient; for the Lord knows what its necessity requires. But to restrain it within the bounds of humility and pious modesty, he bestows no more than he sees to be expedient. Here, I know, they are accustomed to object, that the Church has been “cleansed by the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish;”[937] and that for this reason it is called “the pillar and ground of the truth.”[938] But the former of these passages rather indicates what Christ is daily performing in his Church, than any thing that he has already accomplished. For if he is daily sanctifying, purifying, polishing, and cleansing his people, it must be evident that they still have some spots and wrinkles, and that something is still wanting to their sanctification. How vain and visionary is it to imagine the Church already perfectly holy and immaculate, while all its members are the subjects of corruption and impurity! It is true that the Church is sanctified by Christ, but it is only the commencement of their sanctification that is seen in the present state; the end and perfect completion of it will be when Christ, the Holy of Holies, shall fill it truly and entirely with his holiness. It is likewise true that its spots and wrinkles are effaced, but in such a manner that they are in a daily course of obliteration, till Christ at his coming shall entirely efface all that remains. For, unless we admit this, we must of necessity assert, with the Pelagians, that the righteousness of believers is perfect in the present life, and with the Cathari and Donatists, must allow no infirmity in the Church. The other passage, as we have already seen, has a meaning totally different from what they pretend. For after Paul had instructed Timothy in the true nature of the office of a bishop, he says, “These things I write unto thee, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God;” and to enforce his conscientious attention to this object, he adds, that the Church itself is “the pillar and ground of the truth.”[939] Now, what is the meaning of this expression, but that the truth of God is preserved in the Church, and that by the ministry of preaching? As in another place he states, that Christ “gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, that we be no more carried about with every wind of doctrine,” or deluded by men, but that, being enlightened with the true knowledge of the Son of God, we may “all come into the unity of the faith.”[940] The preservation of the truth, therefore, from being extinguished in the world, is in consequence of the Church being its faithful guardian, by whose efforts and ministry it is maintained. But if this guardianship consists in the ministry of the prophets and apostles, it follows that it wholly depends on the faithful preservation of the purity of the word of God.

XIII. And that the readers may better understand upon what point this question principally turns, I will briefly state what our adversaries require, and wherein we oppose them. When they assert that the Church cannot err, their meaning is, as they themselves explain it, that as it is governed by the Spirit of God, it may safely proceed without the word; that whithersoever it goes, it can neither think nor speak any thing that is not true; and, therefore, that if it determine any thing beyond or beside the Divine word, the same is to be considered in no other light than as a certain oracle of God. If we grant the first point, that the Church cannot err in things essential to salvation, our meaning is, that its security from error is owing to its renouncing all its own wisdom, and submitting itself to the Holy Spirit, to be taught by means of the word of God. This, then, is the difference between us. They ascribe to the Church an authority independent of the word; we maintain it to be annexed to the word, and inseparable from it. And what is there surprising that the spouse and disciple of Christ is subject to her Lord and Master, so as to be assiduously and sedulously awaiting his commands and instructions? For it is the order of a well regulated family, for the wife to obey the command of the husband; it is the order of a well disciplined school, that nothing be heard there but the instructions of the master. Wherefore let not the Church be wise of itself, nor think any thing of itself, but let it fix the boundary of its wisdom where Christ has made an end of speaking. In this manner it will distrust all the inventions of its own reason; but in those things in which it is supported by the word of God, it will not waver with any distrust or hesitation, but will rest upon it with strong certainty and unshaken constancy. Thus confiding in the amplitude of the promises it has received, it will have an excellent support for its faith, so that it cannot doubt that the Holy Spirit, the best guide in the right way, is always present with it; but, at the same time, it will remember what advantage the Lord intends should be received from his Spirit. “The Spirit,” says he, “whom I will send from the Father, will guide you into all truth.” But how will this be done? Christ says, “He shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”[941] He announces, therefore, that nothing more is to be expected from his Spirit, than that he will enlighten our minds to discover the truth of his doctrine. Wherefore it is very judiciously observed by Chrysostom, that “many boast of the Holy Spirit; but in those who speak from themselves this is a false pretence. As Christ testified that he spake not of himself, because he spake from the law and the prophets, so, if, under the name of the Spirit, any thing be obtruded that is not contained in the gospel, let us not believe it. For as Christ is the accomplishment of the law and the prophets, so is the Spirit, of the gospel.” These are the words of Chrysostom. Now, it is easy to infer how great is the error of our adversaries, who boast of the Holy Spirit for no other purpose than to recommend, under his name, doctrines strange and inconsistent with the word of God, whereas it is his determination to be connected with the word by an indissoluble bond; and this was declared by Christ when he promised him to his Church. And so he is, in point of fact. The sobriety which the Lord has once prescribed to his Church, he will have to be perpetually observed; and he has forbidden the Church to add any thing to his word, or to diminish any thing from it. This is the inviolable decree of God and of the Holy Spirit, which our adversaries endeavour to abrogate, when they pretend that the Church is governed by the Spirit without the word.

XIV. Here, again, they cavil, that it was necessary for the Church to add some things to the writings of the apostles, or at least for the apostles themselves afterwards to supply in their discourses what they had not so explicitly delivered in their writings, because Christ declared to them, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now;”[942] and that these are the ordinances which have been received by usage and custom without the Scripture. But what effrontery is here betrayed! I confess that the disciples were ignorant, and not very docile, when the Lord made this declaration to them; but they were not so stupid, when they committed their doctrine to writing, as to render it necessary for them afterwards to supply in their discourses what they had from ignorance omitted in their writings. But if, when they published their writings, they had already been led by the Spirit into all truth, what hindered them from comprising and leaving on record in those writings a perfect system of evangelical doctrine? Let us grant our opponents, however, what they ask: only let them enumerate those things which required to be revealed, and are not contained in the apostolical writings. If they dare to attempt this, I will reply in the words of Augustine, “Where the Lord has been silent, which of us can say, These things or those are intended; and if he dare to say so, how will he prove it?” But why do I contend a point that is unnecessary? For even children know that the apostolic writings, which these men represent as incomplete and essentially deficient, contain the fruit of that revelation which the Lord then promised them.

XV. What, say they, did not Christ place the doctrines and decrees of the Church beyond all controversy, when he commanded him who should dare to contradict it, to be regarded “as a heathen man and a publican?”[943] In the first place, Christ in that text makes no mention of doctrine, but only asserts the authority of the Church in pronouncing censures for the correction of vices, in order that its judgment may not be opposed by any who are admonished or reproved. But leaving this remark, it is astonishing, that they have no more modesty than to presume to boast of that passage. For what will they extort from it, but that it is unlawful to despise the consent of the Church, which never consents to any thing except the truth of the word of God? The Church is to be heard, they say. Who denies it? For it pronounces nothing but from the word of the Lord. If they require any thing further, let them know that these words of Christ afford them no support. Nor ought it to be esteemed too contentious in me to insist so strenuously on this point—That it is not lawful for the Church to invent any new doctrine, or to teach and deliver, as of Divine authority, any thing more than the Lord has revealed in his word. All persons of sound judgment perceive how exceedingly dangerous it would be if so much power were once granted to any man. For they see how wide a door is opened to the scoffs and cavils of the impious, if we assert that the decisions of men are to be received by Christians as articles of faith. It is also to be remarked, that Christ spoke according to the established order of his own time, and gave this name to the Sanhedrim, that his disciples might learn afterwards to reverence the solemn assemblies of the Church. And thus, on the principle of our adversaries, every city and village would have an equal liberty to frame new articles of faith.

XVI. The examples which they allege are nothing to the purpose. They say that the baptism of infants arose, not so much from any express command of Scripture, as from the decree of the Church. It would be a most miserable asylum, if, in defence of infant baptism, we were compelled to have recourse to the mere authority of the Church; but it will be shown in another place, that the fact is very different. So when they object, that the Scriptures nowhere affirm what was pronounced in the Council of Nice, that the Son is of the same substance with the Father, they do great injury to the fathers of that council, as if they had presumptuously condemned Arius for having refused to subscribe to their language, while he professed all the doctrine which is contained in the writings of the prophets and apostles. The word consubstantial, (ὁμοουσιος,) I confess, is not to be found in the Scripture; but while, on the one hand, it is so often affirmed that there is but one God, and, on the other, Christ is so frequently called the true and eternal God, one with the Father, what have the Nicene fathers done, but simply expressed the natural sense of the Scripture, in declaring the Father and the Son to be of one and the same substance? And Theodoret the historian states, that Constantine the emperor opened that council with the following preliminary address: “In disputes on Divine subjects, we are to adhere to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit; the books of the evangelists and apostles, with the oracles of the prophets, fully reveal to us the will of God. Wherefore, laying aside all discord, let us take the decision of all questions in debate from the words of the Spirit.” There was no one at that time who opposed these holy admonitions. No one objected, that the Church might add something of its own, that the Spirit had not revealed every thing to the apostles, or, at least, that they had not transmitted the whole to posterity in writing, or any thing of the like nature. If what our adversaries contend for be true, in the first place, Constantine acted unjustly in depriving the Church of its power; and in the next place, when none of the bishops rose to vindicate that power, their silence was not to be excused from treachery, for on that occasion they must have betrayed the rights of the Church. But from the statement of Theodoret, that they readily received what was said by the emperor, it is evident that this novel dogma of our adversaries was at that time altogether unknown.

Footnote 899:

2 Cor. x. 8; xiii. 10.

Footnote 900:

Phil. i. 1.

Footnote 901:

2 Cor. iv. 5.

Footnote 902:

Matt. xxiii. 8.

Footnote 903:

Matt. xvii. 5.

Footnote 904:

Exod. xiv. 31.

Footnote 905:

Deut. xvii. 8-12.

Footnote 906:

Mal. ii. 4-7.

Footnote 907:

Deut. xvii. 11.

Footnote 908:

Ezek. iii. 17.

Footnote 909:

Jer. xxiii. 28.

Footnote 910:

Isaiah vi. 5.

Footnote 911:

Jer. i. 6.

Footnote 912:

Jer. i. 9, 10.

Footnote 913:

Matt. v. 13, 14.

Footnote 914:

Luke x. 16.

Footnote 915:

Matt. xviii. 18.

Footnote 916:

Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.

Footnote 917:

John vii. 16.

Footnote 918:

Matt. xi. 27.

Footnote 919:

Mal. iv. 4.

Footnote 920:

Heb. i. 1, 2.

Footnote 921:

Matt. xvii. 5.

Footnote 922:

Col. i. 19; ii. 3.

Footnote 923:

John iv. 25.

Footnote 924:

Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.

Footnote 925:

Matt. xxiii. 8, 10.

Footnote 926:

John xiv. 26; xvi. 13.

Footnote 927:

1 Peter iv. 11.

Footnote 928:

2 Cor. x. 4, 5.

Footnote 929:

2 Cor. i. 24.

Footnote 930:

1 Cor. xiv. 29, 30.

Footnote 931:

Rom. x. 17.

Footnote 932:

John xvi. 13.

Footnote 933:

Matt. xxviii. 20.

Footnote 934:

John xiv. 16, 17.

Footnote 935:

Ephes. i. 17, 18. John xiv. 17. 1 Cor. ii. 12.

Footnote 936:

Phil. iii. 12-14.

Footnote 937:

Ephes. v. 26, 27.

Footnote 938:

1 Tim. iii. 15.

Footnote 939:

1 Tim. iii. 14, 15.

Footnote 940:

Ephes. iv. 11, 13, 14.

Footnote 941:

John xiv. 26; xv. 26; xvi. 13.

Footnote 942:

John xvi. 12.

Footnote 943:

Matt. xviii. 17.