that Fundamentall Article, alluding
to his name, said (as if it were in English) thus, Thou art "Stone," and
upon this Stone I will build my Church: which is as much as to say, this
Article, that "I am the Christ," is the Foundation of all the Faith I
require in those that are to bee members of my Church: Neither is this
allusion to a name, an unusuall thing in common speech: But it had been
a strange, and obscure speech, if our Saviour intending to build his
Church on the Person of St. Peter, had said, "thou art a Stone, and
upon this Stone I will build my Church," when it was so obvious without
ambiguity to have said, "I will build my Church on thee; and yet there
had been still the same allusion to his name.
And for the following words, "I will give thee the Keyes of Heaven, &c."
it is no more than what our Saviour gave also to all the rest of his
Disciples (Matth. 18.18.) "Whatsoever yee shall bind on Earth, shall be
bound in Heaven. And whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth, shall be loosed
in Heaven." But howsoever this be interpreted, there is no doubt but
the Power here granted belongs to all Supreme Pastors; such as are all
Christian Civill Soveraignes in their own Dominions. In so much, as if
St. Peter, or our Saviour himself had converted any of them to beleeve
him, and to acknowledge his Kingdome; yet because his Kingdome is not of
this world, he had left the supreme care of converting his subjects to
none but him; or else hee must have deprived him of the Soveraignty,
to which the Right of Teaching is inseparably annexed. And thus much in
refutation of his first Book, wherein hee would prove St. Peter to have
been the Monarch Universall of the Church, that is to say, of all the
Christians in the world.
The Second Book
The second Book hath two Conclusions: One, that S. Peter was Bishop
of Rome, and there dyed: The other, that the Popes of Rome are his
Successors. Both which have been disputed by others. But supposing them
to be true; yet if by Bishop of Rome bee understood either the
Monarch of the Church, or the Supreme Pastor of it; not Silvester, but
Constantine (who was the first Christian Emperour) was that Bishop; and
as Constantine, so all other Christian Emperors were of Right supreme
Bishops of the Roman Empire; I say of the Roman Empire, not of all
Christendome: For other Christian Soveraigns had the same Right in their
severall Territories, as to an Office essentially adhaerent to their
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