Secondly, He doth usurp the thing implied by the titles — the autho- rity over the church, which is only due to God incarnate. Supreme authority may be considered, either as to the claim, right, property, and pre-eminence which belong to it, or to the exercise.
1. The claim and right pretended. He sitteth as God in the temple of God ; that is, by virtue of his office there, claimeth the same power that Christ had, which is fourfold : —
(1.) An unlimited power overall things both in heaven and earth. This was given to Christ, Mat, xxviii. 18, and the Pope, as his vicar, challengeth it. But where is the plea and ground of the claim ? For one to set up himself as a vice-god without warrant, is ebellion against Christ. To set himself in his throne without his leave, surely none is fit to have this authority that hath not his power to back and to administer and govern all things for the church's good, which power God would trust in the hands of no creature.
(2.) A universal headship and supremacy over all the churches of Christ. Now, this supreme power over all Christians is the right of God incarnate, and whosoever challengeth it sits as God in the temple of God ; and it is very derogatory to the comfort of the faithful that they should in all things depend upon one man as their supreme pastor, or else be excluded from the hope of salvation. Certainly this power, as to matter of fact, is impossible to be managed by any man, considering the vast extent of the world, and the variety of govern- ments and different interests under which the people of God find shelter and protection, and the multitude and diversity of those things which are comprised in such a government ; and, as to matter of right, it is sacrilegious, for Christ never instituted any such universal vicar and bishop. It is a dignity too high for any creature : none is fit to be universal head of the church but one that is God as well as man.
(3.) Absolute authority, so as to be above control. AVhen a mortal man should pretend to be so absolute as to give no account of his actions, that it shall not be lawful to be said to him, What doest thou ? and all his decrees must be received without examination or com- plaint, this is such a sovereignty as belongs to none but God : Job ix. 12, ' Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him ? who will say unto him, What doest thou ? ' Now, this is in their canon law, that the Pope is to be judged by no man ; that though he should lead millions of souls into hell, none can say Domine, cui- itafacis?
(4.) Infallibility and freedom from error, which is the property of God : he neither is deceived nor can deceive. ' Let God be true, and every man a liar.' Now, that corrupt and fallible man should arro- gate this to himself, such an unerring in judgment, is to usurp divine honour in matter of right and in matter of fact. For the Pope to arrogate this is as great a contradiction to all sense and reason as if a man sick of the plague, or any other mortal disease, should say that he was immortal, and in that part wherein the disease was seated.
2. As to the exercise, there are two acts of supreme authority : — (1.) Legislation.
(2.) Judgment.
42 THE FOURTH SERMON. [2 ThES. II. 4.
(1.) Legislation : It is the peculiar and incommunicable property of Christ to be Lord and lawgiver to the church ; Isa. xxxiii. 22, * The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the I^ord is our king ; he will save us.' God alone hath such interest in his people as to prescribe supreme or universal laws to them, and we are his subjects : James iv. 12, ' There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.' Now, whosoever will make laws that shall immediately bind the conscience, they invade Christ's sovereignty. This is spiritual tyranny, and the worst sort of tyranny, to arrogate a power over the subjects of Christ and their consciences as lord of their faith. He that taketh upon him to rescind and make void his institutions and ordinances, and set his own in their place, and give that reverence and honour to them wdiich only belongeth to the ordinances of Christ, he is Antichrist, whatever he be.
('!.) As to judgment : It is an exercising an authority no less than divine, so to take upon him to absolve man from his duty to God, or the penalty which sin hath made his due. The one is done by dispensa- tions, the other by indulgences : and therefore whoever by dispensa- tions antiquates and dispenses with the laws of God himself is thus guilty ; as dispensing with marrying the brother's wife. Nay, one of the Popes dispensed with one that took his own sister to wife. I do not allege this so much for the particular facts, but to show the power which they challenged to be inherent in themselves. Bellarmine saith, Christ hath given Peter and his successors a liower faciendi peccatum non peccatum — to make a sin to be no sin ; and again, ' If the Pope, should err in forbidding virtues and commanding vices, the church were bound to believe vices to be good and virtues to be evil,' which certainly is to set man in the place of God. As to indulgences : as to pretend to give pardons for sin for so many years, a thing that God himself never did ; to pardon the sin before it was committed, that is, to give a license to sin : so for the liighest crimes to absolve men, upon a little attrition or trouble about the sin, — to do all this and more than this as of right, is to sit in the church of God as God.'