The second part of The nonconformists plea for peace being an account of their…

VIII. We reject their doctrine who subject Christian Princes and States to the Power of foreigners under the name of General Councils: As if Christ had given a power of Universal Legislation and Judgement, though not to a Personal yet to a Collective body; whose Laws all the Christian world is bound to obey: when indeed there never was, will be, or can be any true General Council of all the Churches in the world, nor did ever Christ institute such a thing. The first controversy between us and the Papists is not, Who it is that is the Universal Governor of the Christian world (or Church) under Christ, ¹whether Pope or Council: But whether there be any such Universal Governor at all? which we utterly deny; were there any at all, we would sooner yield that it is the Pope (who is in being) than that it is a true General Council which never was in being: And if any called Protestants would betray King and Kingdom into Subjection to a foreign Power under the false name of a General Council, we wash our hands from such disloyalty; as knowing well by the Map of the Roman Empire, and the Notitiae Episcopatuum, and by the names of the subscribing Bishops, and by the power of the Emperors that called them, and other notices of history, that even the four first great approved Councils were but some part of the Bishops of the Empire, (unless some borderer accidentally stepped in) and not at all of the rest of the Christian world: And if England were sometime subject to that Empire, yet is it not so now. The Clergy of one Prince have no power of Government over all other Princes and their Clergy.

VIII. We reject their doctrine who subject Christian Princes and States to the Power of foreigners under the name of General Councils: As if Christ had given a power of Universal Legislation and Judgement, though not to a Personal yet to a Collective body; whose Laws all the Christian world is bound to obey: when indeed there never was, will be, or can be any true General Council of all the Churches in the world, nor did ever Christ institute such a thing. The first controversie between us and the Papists is not, Who it is that is the Universal Governour of the Christian world (or Church) under Christ, ¹whether Pope or Council: But whether there be any such Universal Governour at all? which we utterly deny; were there any at all, we would sooner yield that it is the Pope (who is in being) than that it is a true General Council which never was in being: And if any called Protestants would betray King and Kingdom into Subjection to a foreign Power under the false name of a General Council, we wash our hands from such disloyalty; as knowing well by the Map of the Roman Empire, and the Notitiae Episcopatuum, and by the names of the subscribing Bishops, and by the power of the Emperours that called them, and other notices of history, that even the four first great approved Councils were but some part of the Bishops of the Empire, (unless some borderer accidentally stept in) and not at all of the rest of the Christian world: And if England were sometime subject to that Empire, yet is it not so now. The Clergy of one Prince have no power of Government over all other Princes and their Clergy.