Animadversions on a treatise entitled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…Animadversions on a treatise intituled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…

All the glory and renown of the old ancient Councils, all their labours for the extirpation of heresies, and errors, and the success that their honest endeavours were blessed withal, with the seasoning ⟨p. 429⟩of one little word, [his] are turned over to the Pope. They were his Councils; a thing they never once dreamed of; nor any mortal man in the days wherein they were celebrated. Convened they were in the Name, and upon the Institution of Christ, and so were [H•s] Councils; were called together, as to their solemn external Convention, by the Emperors of those days, and so were, not their Councils, but Councils held by their Authority, as to all the external concernments of them. This the Councils themselves did acknowledge; and so did the Bishops of Rome in those days, when they joined their Petitions with others unto the Emperors, for the convening of them; and seldom it was, that they could obtain their meetings in any place they desired; though they were many of them wise at an after game, and turned their remoteness from them into their advantage. As they were called by the Emperors, so they were composed of Bishops, and others, with equal suffrages. How they come to be the Pope's Councils, he himself only knows, and those to whom he is pleased to impart ⟨p. 430⟩this secret, of other men not one. Indeed some of them may be called his Councils, if every thing is his, wherein he is any way concerned; such was the first Council of Nice, as to his pretended Jurisdiction; such that of Chalcedon, as to his Primacy; such were sundry famous Conventions in Asrick, wherein his pretensions unto Authority, were excluded, and his unseemly frauds discovered. Nay, there is not any thing upon the Roll of Antiquity of greater and more prodigious scandal, then the contests of Popes in some African Councils, for Authority and Jurisdiction. Their claim was such, as that the Good Fathers assembled wrote unto them, that they would not introduce secular pride and ambition into the Church of Christ; and the manner of managing their pretensions, was no other but down-right forgery, and that of no less then Canons of the first memorable Council of Nic• ; which to discover, the honest African Bishops were forced to send to Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, for Authentic Copies of those Canons;