The second reply of Thomas CartwrightThe second replie of Thomas Cartwright

but also for that they had felowlike authority / in the deciding off controversies which rose in their several churches / according unto the laws.

but also for that they had felowlike autoritie / in the deciding off controuersies which rose in their seuerall churches / accordinge vnto the lawes.

After / where I quoted certain places out off the decrees / and other Canons / to prove the contention for thes offices: the Ans. acknowledgeth nothing there / that carieth any sound that ways. Albeit the sound was clear enough / if he had not been deaf of that ear. For to what end both in the Nicene Council (where the Metropolitans are first hard of / and when they were yet in the cradle) and in many other holden more then 200. years after / are there found so many canons / for the acknowledging off the authority off one Metropolitan in every Province? For the honour which he should have / the name he should be called by / for the place where they should sit at their meetings / for the bounds of their circuit? do not all thes declare / that there were which were enemies to that authority: and that those which were lifted up into it / had continual war one with an other / who should be the first / who the greatest / who of largest spread? ⟨p. DLXXXI⟩What meaneth it also that they changed the seats so often? so that the second / or third at one Council / was fourth at an other / and none at the third: and contrariwise he that was none before / was chief afterward? What also that the territories appointed by one Council / were abridged by an other / enlarged again by a third? Is there any man of so small conceit / which doth not hereby understand / that this lifting up of one above the rest / was a bone caste of the devil to cause the ministers fall out one with an other: whereby place was made to heresies of all sorts / to the utter undoing of the church / and quenching off the gospel? And if the D. had been off so narrow understanding / that upon so often / and so divers decrees in this behalf / he could not conceive the contentions / which this did breed: yet express words off histories / which testify generally of the contentions for those preeminences /