SCRIPTURAL EQUALITY OF BISHOPS. 165 gospel unto you than that whichwe have preached unto you, let him be accursed: If any man," &c., GaL i. 8; which precept, with many others of the like purport (enjoining us to examine the truth, to ad- here unto the received doctrine, to decline heterodoxies and novel- ties), signifies nothing, if every Christian has not allowed to him a judgment of discretion, but is tied blindly to follow the dictates of another. St Augustine, I am sure, thought this liberty such, that, without betraying it, no man could be obliged to believe any thing not grounded upon canonical authority; for to a Donatist, his adversary, citing the authority of St Cyprian against him, he thus replies: " But now, seeing what you quote is not canonical, I must say, with that liberty to which the Lord has called us, of that man, whose praise I cannot reach, to whose great learning I do not compare my writings, whose genius I love, in whose language I delight, whose charity I admire, whose martyrdom I reverence, that I cannot agree with his opinion."1 This liberty not only the ancients, but even divers popes, have acknowledged to belong to every Christian; as we shall hereafter show, when we shall prove that we may lawfully reject the pope, as a patron of error and iniquity. 6. It particularly thwarts Scripture, by wronging princes, in ex- empting a numerous sort of people from subjection to their laws and judicature, whereas, by God's ordination and express command, " every soul is subject" to them (Rom. xiii. 1), not excepting the popes themselves,except, in the opinion of St Chrysostom, they be greater than any apostle; by pretending to govern the subjects of princes without their leave, to make laws without their permission or confirmátion, to cite their subjects out of their territories, &c.: which are encroachments upon the rights of God's unquestionable ministers. III. Farther; because our adversaries little regard any allegation of Scripture against them,pretending themselves to be the only masters of its sense, or of common sense, judges and interpreters of it, we allege against them that this pretencealso crosses tradition and the common doctrine of the fathers; for, - 1. Common usage andpractice is a good interpreter of right; and these show that no such right was known in the primitive church. 2. Indeed the state of the primitive church did not admit it. 3. The fathers supposed no order in the church, by original right or divine institution, superior to that of a bishop; whence they corn- I Nunc vero quoniam canonicum non est quod recitas, ea libertate ad guani 7108 vocavit Dominus, ejus viri, cujus laudem consequi non valeo, cujus multis literis scriptamea non comparo, cujus ingenium diligo, cujus ore delector, cujus charitatem miror, cujus martyrium veneror, hoc quod aliter sapuit non accipio.Aug. contr. Cress. ii. d2.
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