§. 11. The Catholic Church never did or will agree what humane power it is to whom this work belongeth: whether it be a Pope or Council, or some universal Monarch, or a Council of Princes by agreement; Never such a thing was, or will be. Popes and Councils were but in one Empire, the chief Ecclesiastical Governors under the Emperors Civil Government; and not over the world; nor was there ever such a thing as a General Council of all the Christian world, but only General as to one Empire: Nor did any of these Councils take on them to make Constitutive terms of the Universal Church or its Union; but only to preserve, declare and expound them, and to make subordinate governing Canons. And if they had undertaken more, no wise man can imagine that all Christians will therefore confess the right of such a claim, and so submit to it. The proof of their authority will be so obscure, that as such as I cannot see it, so there will be so many no wiser than I am, as that the exclusion of all Christians that are but of our size will never stand with Catholic Unity. And if it were possible to satisfy all the present age, 1. that some have such authority from God, 2. and who they are, 3. and how far it extendeth, yet still such will succeed them in whom the uncertainty and dissent will be revived. What needeth ⟨p. 142⟩there more proof than mans incapacity and the experience of so many Generations? All Christians agree in Christianity: All Christians never agreed on any human• terms of Unity; Pope, Council, or Monarch. One Empire hath pretended to agree in Councils, but have been so far from it, as that they have been the occasion of their greatest disagreements; witness even the Great ones, Const. 1. Ephes. 1. & 2. Calcedon, which some blessed and some cursed for many generations after; and that at Constantinople that made the decree de tribus capitulis divided even the Roman Church so far as that for one hundred years a great part of it renounced the Roman Bishop, and set up another Patriarch against him. And Abyssinia and other extra-imperial Churches were never under the Roman or Imperial Government.
§. 11. The Catholick Church never did or will agree what humane power it is to whom this work belongeth: whether it be a Pope or Council, or some universal Monarch, or a Council of Princes by agreement; Never such a thing was, or will be. Popes and Councils were but in one Empire, the chief Ecclesiastical Governours under the Emperours Civil Government; and not over the world; nor was there ever such a thing as a General Council of all the Christian world, but only General as to one Empire: Nor did any of these Councils take on them to make Constitutive terms of the Universal Church or its Union; but only to preserve, declare and expound them, and to make subordinate governing Canons. And if they had undertaken more, no wise man can imagine that all Christians will therefore confess the right of such a claim, and so submit to it. The proof of their authority will be so obscure, that as such as I cannot see it, so there will be so many no wiser than I am, as that the exclusion of all Christians that are but of our size will never stand with Catholick Unity. And if it were possible to satisfie all the present age, 1. that some have such authority from God, 2. and who they are, 3. and how far it extendeth, yet still such will succeed them in whom the uncertainty and dissent will be revived. What needeth ⟨p. 142⟩there more proof than mans incapacity and the experience of so many Generations? All Christians agree in Christianity: All Christians never agreed on any human• terms of Unity; Pope, Council, or Monarch. One Empire hath pretended to agree in Councils, but have been so far from it, as that they have been the occasion of their greatest disagreements; witness even the Great ones, Const. 1. Ephes. 1. & 2. Calcedon, which some blessed and some cursed for many generations after; and that at Constantinople that made the decree de tribus capitulis divided even the Roman Church so far as that for one hundred years a great part of it renounced the Roman Bishop, and set up another Patriarch against him. And Abassia and other extra-imperial Churches were never under the Roman or Imperial Government.
