For Note *, p. 14.
It was probably Stephen, the 22d Bishop of Rome, raised to that See on the Martyrdom of Lucius, in 253, who was intended ; and to whom, as well as to Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, in consequence of Marcion, Bishop of Arles, having embraced the Novatian heresy, the rest of the Gallican Bishops wrote, for their mutual advice on the subject. Stephen was, on this occasion, backward to interfere ; but afterwards, in a similar case of Basilides, interposed with such arrogance, as would have involved the churches in Spain in endless calamities, had not Cyprian and the other Bishops of Africa zealously interposed also to counteract his assumption. Cyprian, perceiving his disposition to usurp undue authority, advanced the following five arguments against appeals to the See of Rome :—
First, Such appeal was contrary to an Ecclesiastical Canon.
Second, Unjust ; because it prejudiced the rights of particular Bishops.
Third, Because the Clergy and people should not be compelled to leave their own homes and go beyond sea.
Fourth, Causes could be better decided on the spot, when the proper witnesses were at hand, and could be easily produced.
Fifth, Because there is a competent authority every where in the Church.
Vide Craig’s Refutation of Popery, Vol. ii. Dissert. v. p. 18.
The insolence, ambition, and arrogance now beginning to work in the See of Rome, led to the decisions subsequently adopted at the Council of Nice, as adverted to in the Sixth Canon of that Council, given below on the same page to which this refers. In what light Cyprian, and his Bishopric, ought to be regarded in contradistinction to the church of Rome, let the enquiring Reader examine and judge from Bower’s History of the Popes, vol. i. under Stephen.”
Note to close of Section at top of page 16.
This (the voluntary concession of other churches) took place in the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, and the decree which embodied it was signed by 630 Fathers; and, as hath been well observed by Craig, the arguments used by this great Council, demonstrate, as plainly and clearly as such a proposition admits of demonstration, that neither Constantinople, or Rome, nor any other See, had, or ought to have, any superior authority whatever by Divine right, but merely from Ecclesiastical Constitution, founded on political reasons of State, according to the relative dignity of the Sees in the Empire.
The words used by the Fathers are these following :
“ Whereas the See of old Rome had been, not undeservedly, distinguished by the Fathers with certain privileges, because that city was the seat of the Empire—the Fathers of Constantinople were induced, by the same reason, to distinguish the most holy See of new Rome with equal privileges, thinking it FIT that the City which they saw honoured with the Emperor and Senate, and equalled in every civil privilege with old Rome, should likewise be equalled to her in Ecclesiastical matters.”
If there were no other document but this to confute the pretended supremacy of the See of Rome, by Divine right, surely this Canon of so great a Council as 630 Fathers composed, held not till the middle of the fifth century, with the reasons alleged for its enactment, ought, of itself, to be sufficient. In this there is no mention made of, nor any reference to St. Peter ;—no allusion to any supposed dignity derivable from him ;— every thing connected with rank, or pre-eminence, depends on civil or political considerations, because (as the Fathers allege) the two imperial cities enjoyed equal civil rights, they should enjoy equal Ecclesiastical privileges. Hence it incontrovertibly follows, that in the Church of Christ, as every thing originally was equality, whatever pre-eminence subsequently was possessed by any particular church, or see, it was derived from a civil source ; i. e. from human institution ; for, according to the ordinance of the Messiah, all his Apostles were equal; none, according to Him, was to be Master. —Vide Craig’s Refutation,
For Note p. 26.
Cyprian’s works, edited by Bishops Fell and Pearson, are among the prohibited books in Pope Benedict’s Index Expurgatorium. The reason is obvious; those Editions contained passages which the papal Inquisitors had blotted out, or omitted, in former editions, as standing in honest array against the prerogatives and usurpations of Rome, and excluded such as they had obtruded into the Text to maintain her assumed supremacy. Those Editions were printed, in fact, from genuine copies of Cyprian’s works; but the diffusion of them would not suffice for that Church which had the power of accomplishing its ends by other means.
For Note p. 53.
Since the Note in this page went through the press, the writer has observed the work there referred to, among the prohibited books in the Index of Benedict XIV. dated 1708, under the Latin title.—The Divines of Cologne were esteemed by ours, in the seventeenth century, to have been most clear on the doctrine of Justification and the imputation of Christ’s Righteousness.— Vide “ Morning Exercises” at Southwark, edited by Vincent, in 1675.
For Note p. 93.
The persecution there alluded to arose from the great aversion of the Britons, the Scots, and the Picts to the Anti-christian rites which Austin wished to introduce among them. They were so shocked at the many Pagan superstitions and ceremonies introduced by him into the Saxon worship, that they looked upon it as no better than Paganism, and avoided the communion of those who came from Rome to establish it, as they avoided the Pagans; nay, so great was the aversion, which the Scots in particular bore to all the Roman Missionaries, that Dagamus, a Bishop of that nation, not only declined sitting with them at the same table, but would not even lodge with them under the same roof. Popery soon resented this in its well known manner.—Bede, Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 4.
