and were to be assailed with mightier engines by tyrants, heretics, and other impious men. As, therefore, Peter when converted, confirmed the Apostles his brethren, the Pontiffs also must confirm their brethren the rest of the Bishops.' Afterwards, he says, 'Under his guidance they cannot err from the right path of the faith.'[1]
These evidences are more than enough to show what was the faith of the Church in England in the sixteenth century, that is, in the controversies of the Reformation. They show what was the faith, for which the Catholics of England at that day stood, and suffered.
In the seventeenth century, we may take Nicholas Sanders as our first witness. He writes in his work 'De Clavi David': 'But we freely declare, and what in words we declare we prove by fact, that the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, in expounding to the Bishops the faith of Christ, has never erred, nor has ever either been the author of any heresy, or has lent his authority to any heretic for the promulgation of heresy.'[2]
Kellison, President of the College at Douai in 1605, writes as follows: 'For in two senses Peter may be sayd to be the rocke of the Church: first, as he is a particular man, and so if the Church had been
- ↑ Confutatio Responsionis G. Whitakeri, p. 44. Parisus 1582.
- ↑ 'At vero nos libere dicimus, et quod verbo dicimus re ipsa comprobamus, Petri successorem Episcopum Romanum in exponenda Episcopis fide Christi nunquam errasse, nunquam aut ullius hæresis auctorem fuisse, aut alii hæretico ad promulgandum hæresim suam præbuisse auctoritatem.'—Nicolas Sanderus, de Clavi David, lib. v. cap. iv.
L
