ministers infinite scandal to all sober-minded men, and gives the new Arians, in Polonia, and antitrinitarians, great and ridiculous entertainment, exposing that sacred mystery to derision and scandalous contempt; it is also (which at present we have undertaken particularly to remark) against the doctrine and practice of the primitive catholic church.

St. Clemens of Alexandria says, that in the discipline of Moses, God was not to be represented in the shape of a man, or of any other thing:' and that Christians understood themselves to be bound by the same law, we find it expressly taught by Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius", Athanasius, St. Jerome, St. Austins, St. Theodoreth, Damascen1, and the synod of Constantinople, as is reported in the sixth action of the second Nicene council. And certainly, if there were not a strange spirit of contradiction, or superstition, or deflection, from the Christian rule, greatly prevailing in the church of Rome, it were impossible that this practice should be so countenanced by them, and defended so, to no purpose, with so much scandal, and against the natural reason of mankind, and the very law of nature itself: for the heathens were sufficiently, by the light of nature, taught to abominate all pictures or images of God.

Sed nulla effigies, simulacraque nota Deorum
Majestate locum et sacro implevere timore *.

They, in their earliest ages, had " no pictures, no images of their gods: their temples were filled with majesty and a sacred fear." And the reason is given by Macrobius': "Antiquity made no image," viz. of God; "because the supreme God, and the Mind that is born of him," that is, his Son, the eternal Word, " as it is beyond the soul, so it is above nature, and, therefore, it is not lawful, that figments should come thither."

Nicephorus Callistus", relating the heresy of the Armenians and Jacobites, says, they made images of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; " Quod perquàm absurdum est:"

a Stromat. lib. i.

De Corona Militis.

• Orat. contra Gentes.

De Fide et Symbol. c. 7.

De Orthod. Fide, lib. iv. c. 17.

1 In Somn. Scip. lib. i. c. 2.

b Contra Celsum, lib. vii.

d Præp. Evang. lib. i. c. 5.

f In c. 40. Isa.

h In Deut. q. 1.

Sil. Ital. iii. 30. Raperti, v. i. p. 177. m Lib. xviii. c. 53.

"Nothing is more absurd" than to make pictures or images of the persons of the holy and adorable Trinity. And yet they do this in the church of Rome: for in the windows of their churches, even in country villages, where the danger cannot be denied to be great, and the scandal insupportable; nay, in their books of devotion, in their very mass-books and breviaries, in their portuises and manuals, they picture the holy Trinity with three noses, and four eyes, and three faces, in a knot, to the great dishonour of God, and scandal of Christianity itself. We add no more (for the case is too evidently bad), but reprove the error with the words of their own Polydore Virgil: "Since the world began, never was any thing more foolish than to picture God, who is present every where."

SECTION X.

THE last instance of innovations introduced in doctrine and practice by the church of Rome, that we shall represent, is, that of the pope's universal bishoprick; that is, not only that he is bishop of bishops, superior to all and every one; but that his bishoprick is a plenitude of power; and as for other bishops, of his fulness they all receive,' a part of the ministry and solicitude; and not only so, but that he only is a bishop by immediate Divine dispensation, and others receive from him whatsoever they have: for to this height many of them are come at last. Which doctrine, although as it is in sins, where the carnal are most full of reproach, but the spiritual are of greatest malignity; so it happens in this article. For, though it be not so scandalous as their idolatry, so ridiculous as their superstitions, so unreasonable as their doctrine of transubstantiation, so easily reproved as their half-communion, and service in an unknown tongue; yet it is of as dangerous and evil effect, and as false, and as certainly an innovation, as any thing in their whole conjugation of errors.

When Christ founded his church, he left it in the hands of his apostles, without any prerogative given to one, or eminency above the rest, save only of priority and orderly

precedency, which of itself was natural, necessary, and incident. The apostles governed all; their authority was the sanction, and their decrees and writings were the laws of the church. They exercised a common jurisdiction, and divided it according to the needs, and emergencies, and circumstances of the church. In the council of Jerusalem, St. Peter gave not the decisive sentence, but St. James, who was the bishop of that see. Christ sent all his apostles, as his Father sent him; and, therefore, he gave to every one of them the whole power, which he left behind; and to the bishops congregated at Miletum, St. Paul gave them caution to take care of the whole flock of God, and affirms to them all, that the "Holy Ghost had made them bishops :" and in the whole New Testament, there is no act or sign of superiority, or that one apostle exercised power over another; but to them whom Christ sent, he in common intrusted the church of God: according to that excellent saying of St. Cyprian, "The other apostles are the same that St. Peter was, endowed with an equal fellowship of honour and power; and they are all shepherds, and the flock is one ";" and, therefore, it ought to be fed by the apostles with unanimous

consent.

This unity and identity of power, without question and interruption, did continue and descend to bishops in the primitive church, in which it was a known doctrine, that the bishops were successors to the apostles: and what was not in the beginning, could not be in the descent, unless it were innovated and introduced by a new authority. Christ gave ordinary power to none but the apostles; and the power being to continue for ever in the church, it was to be succeeded to; and by the same authority, even of Christ, it descended to them who were their successors, that is, to the bishops, as all antiquity does consent and teach: not St.

a Acts, xx. 28,

Epist. de Unit. Ecclesiæ ad Novatian. et habetur caus. 24. qu. 1.

< Irenæ. lib. 4. c. 43, 44. S. Cyprian. lib. i. ep. 6. et lib. ii. ep. 10. et lib. iv. ep. 9. S. Ambros. de Dignit. Sacerd. c. 1. S. Aug. de Baptism. contra Donat. lib. vii. c. 45. et ibid. Clarus a Muscula. Idem de verb. Dom. Ser. 24. Con. Rom. sub Sylvest. Const. Apost. lib. vii. c. ult. Annael. P. ep. 2. Clemens P. ep. lib. S. Hieron. ep. 13. et ep. 54. Euthym. in Psalm. xliv. S. Gregor. in Evang. Hom. 26. ad Heliodor. ep. 1. S. Chrysost. ser. Damascen. de Imaginibus: Orat. 9. S. Greg. Naz. Orat. 21. de Laud. Basilii.

Peter alone, but every apostle, and, therefore, every one who succeeds them in their ordinary power, may and must remember the words of St. Paul; "We are ambassadors or legates for Christ:" Christ's vicars,' not the pope's delegates:' and so all the apostles are called in the preface of the mass; "Quos operis tui vicarios eidem contulisti præesse pastores;" they are pastors' of the flock and vicars' of Christ; and so also they are, in express terms, called by St. Ambrose; and, therefore, it is a strange usurpation, that the pope arrogates that to himself by impropriation, which is common to him with all the bishops of Christendom.

The consequent of this is, that by the law of Christ, one bishop is not superior to another: Christ gave the power to all alike; he made no head of the bishops; he gave to none a supremacy of power, or universality of jurisdiction. But this the pope hath long challenged, and to bring his purposes to pass, hath, for these six hundred years by-gone, invaded the rights of bishops, and delegated matters of order and jurisdiction to monks and friars; insomuch that the power of bishops was greatly diminished at the erecting of the Cluniack and Cistercian monks about the year ML: but about the year MCC, it was almost swallowed up by privileges granted to the Begging Friars, and there kept by the power of the pope: which power got one great step more above the bishops, when they got it declared, that the pope is above a council of bishops: and at last it was turned into a new doctrine by Cajetan (who for his prosperous invention was made a cardinal), that all the whole apostolic or episcopal power, is radical and inherent in the pope, in whom is the fulness of the ecclesiastical authority; and that bishops received their portion of it from him: and this was first boldly maintained in the council of Trent by the Jesuits; and it is now the opinion of their order; but it is also that which the pope challenges in practice, when he pretends to a power over all bishops, and that this power is derived to him from Christ; when he calls himself the universal bishop, and the vicarial head of the church, the church's monarch, he from whom all ecclesiastical authority is derived, to whose

In epist. 1. ad Corin. cap. 3. et in epist. ad Roman. c. 1.

sentence in things Divine, every Christian, under pain of damnation, is bound to be subject".

Now, this is it, which, as it is productive of infinite mischiefs, so it is an innovation, and an absolute deflection from the primitive catholic doctrine, and yet is the great groundwork and foundation of their church. This we shall represent in these following testimonies. Pope Eleutherius, in an epistle to the bishops of France, says, That Christ committed the universal church to the bishops;' and St. Ambrose says, 'That the bishop holdeth the place of Christ, and is his substitute.' But, famous are the words of St. Cyprian; "The church of Christ is one through the whole world, divided by him into many members, and the bishoprick is but one, diffused in the agreeing plurality of many bishops.” —And again; “To every pastor a portion of the flock is given, which let every one of them rule and govern." By which words it is evident, that the primitive church understood no prelation of one, and subordination of another, commanded by Christ, or by virtue of their ordination; but only what was for order's sake introduced by princes, and consent of prelates; and it was to this purpose very full which was said by pope Symmachus: "As it is in the holy Trinity, whose power is one and undivided (or, to use the expression in the Athanasian Creed, none is before or after other, none is greater or less than another);' so there is one bishoprick amongst divers bishops; and, therefore, why should the canons of the ancient bishops be violated by their successors? Now these words being spoken against the invasion of the rights of the Church of Arles, by Anastasius, and the question being in the exercise of jurisdiction, and about the institution of bishops, does fully declare that the bishops of Rome had no superiority by the laws of Christ, over any bishop in the catholic church, and that his bishoprick gave no more power to him, than Christ gave to the bishop of the smallest diocese.

And, therefore, all the church of God, whenever they reckoned the several orders and degrees of ministry in the

• Extrav. Com. lib. i. tit. 9. de Major. et Obed. cap. Unam Sanctam. Referente Archiepisc. Granatensi in Concil. Trid. Ubi supra. Apud Baro. tom. 6. A. D. 499. n. 36.