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bulwark of the Romish cause, will not follow as a legitimate consequence. Granting, that St. Peter died Bishop of Rome, his successor in that See could not inherit, without a special appointment, a more extended jurisdiction than that which was attached to the Roman Bishoprick. He was the successor of St. Peter, as Bishop of Rome, and not of St. Peter, as Primate of the whole Church, and prince of the College of the Apostles. For it is not pretended, that Peter derived his headship from his supposed Roman Bishoprick; and, therefore, the conclusion is as distant as ever, from the Apostolic Primacy of St. Peter, to the modern supremacy of the Roman Bishop.

The universal jurisdiction of St. Peter as an Apostle, or Primate, and his limited jurisdiction as Bishop of Rome, supposing him to have been such, are quite distinct. That it was the opinion of antiquity, that the Apostolic authority, as far as was necessary for the maintenance of faith and discipline, devolved to the whole body of the pastors, and that each Bishop succeeded to an undivided share of it, has been abundantly proved by Dr. Barrow. It will be hereafter seen, that this was, in particular, the notion of Cyprian. There seems, therefore, to be no middle point between this opinion, and that of the Ultra-Romanists; who, in asserting that the prerogatives of St. Peter descended to his successors in his See, consistently maintain, that the Episcopal, and all ecclesiastical, power is derived solely from the Bishops of Rome. That

this was long the doctrine of the Canonists is admitted by the moderate Romanists themselves, and it behoves them to consider, that in order to preserve consistency, it is incumbent on them to receive the Papal Supremacy, in its worst and most unrestricted form, or to reject it altogether. This was strongly urged in the Council of Trent by Lainez, the Superior of the Jesuits. "There is a manifest contradiction," said he, "in acknowledging the Pope as head of the Church, and his government as monarchical; and in maintaining, that there exists in the Church a power, or jurisdiction, not derived from himself." Hist. of Courayer's Transln. of Counc. of Trent. B. 7. p. 500. 4to.

Those modifications of the Papal power, which render the notion of it tolerable to the moderate Romish party, necessarily suppose, that the absolute sovereignty of the Apostle devolved to the Church; whence it was in part, delegated to the Bishops of Rome; and thus an ecclesiastical, and not a divine, origin is assigned to the Papal power.

But, the Bishops of Rome succeeded in whole, or not at all, to the supposed privileges of the Apostle.-For, it is a mere arbitrary assertion, to allege a divided inheritance of the same primatical power, half to the Church, and half to the successors of St. Peter; and therefore to maintain, that Popes are subject to General Councils, and bound to rule the Church according to Ecclesiastical Canons, is to suppose them to have inherited from St.

Peter a kind of supremacy, very different in nature and extent, from that which St. Peter himself possessed. It is to make St. Peter subject to the Church, and not the Church subject to St. Peter.

But, whether the Popes of Rome be supposed to have divided with the Church, or whether they have succeeded to an unimpaired inheritance ;-where, we ask, is the proof of this transmission of authority? Promises made to St. Peter of ruling and governing the Church, before he became Bishop of Rome, can, by no construction, be made to descend to his successors in that See, who were not named in the grant; unless it had been also provided, that St. Peter might delegate his authority to whom he chose.-And this, strange as it may sound, is the supposition which Bellarmine is forced to adopt. "It is not improbable," says he, "that our Lord gave an express command, that Peter should so fix his See at Rome, that the Bishop of Rome should absolutely succeed him."-Bellarm. lib. ii. 12. ap. Barrow. By this mode of piling one unproved assumption upon another, the Romanists have succeeded in raising an edifice of ecclesiastical power, perfect in its gradations, ingeniouly connected in all its parts, and gorgeously embellished with external splendours; to which nothing more seems wanting to recommend it to the veneration of mankind, than a basis of Scriptural authority and primitive testimony.

But, whatever sanction may be drawn from the words of Scripture for the personal prerogatives of St. Peter, it will not be pretended, that there is any direct Scriptural authority for the inheritance of his successors; and whatever deference may have been expressed by the Fathers to the pre-eminence of the Roman See, after the fall of Jerusalem, and whilst that See preserved its purity of faith and morals, there is no evidence in the first 600 years of their having acknowledged its supreme jurisdiction; or that they would have thought it entitled to the same regard in a corrupted and declining, as in a pure and vigorous state.

The fact of the Roman Bishop's having continually from St. Peter's time enjoyed and exercised the sovereign power, is, therefore, the next supposition, which it is incumbent on the Romanists to make good; and when that is done, which has never yet been done, although often attempted, it will still remain for them to prove, that the Papal Supremacy is indefectible and unalterable; that is, unlike every other power ordained by God, subject to no alterations, nor made dependent for its permanence, on the condition of its continuing to answer the ends, for which it was instituted.

"On the proof of these several propositions," says the accurate Barrow, " depends the truth of the Papal pretensions." With the justness of his argument, my imperfect attempt to abridge and to illustrate it, must by no means

be confounded. His two works, on the Papal Supremacy, and on the Unity of the Church, display an acuteness and a depth of erudition, to which no abridgment can render justice. Whether we regard their merit, as placing the controversy in one luminous point of view, or as supplying arguments for deciding it; they are, perhaps, the most satisfactory and elaborate of the controversial productions of our divines. His statement, I conceive, is open to refutation only by one of these two answers:either that the Supremacy of the Pope does not depend on the proof of those propositions, which he has enounced, or that each and every of these propositions is capable of being maintained. The first of these answers is virtually abandoned by the Romish controversialists, in their attempts to substantiate the second. "But if," says this profound writer;-(and the observation well deserves to be engraven on our memories)" any of those suppositions be dubious, the Romish claim doth totter; if any of them doth prove false, then down it falleth. But that each of them is false"-he conceives, he hath "sufficiently declared"—" that all of them are uncertain, hath at least been made evident."

"On what grounds," says Courayer, in his vindication of Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent, and of his own representation of the ecclesiastical origin of the Papal power;" on what grounds do they pretend to charge me with a new heresy? Their sole

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