7. The copiousness of Mr. Husenbeth will afford us also yet a seventh specimen.
With every semblance of even scrupulous fidelity, giving distinct references to his authorities, this theologian, in a small Work written for circulation among the unlearned, declares; that Papias, Ignatius, Irenèus, Dionysius of Corinth, Caius of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian, all with one voice explicitly assert St. Peter to have been the first diocesan Bishop of Rome: and he adds, still for the information of the unlearned; that Mr. White, who had unceremoniously pronounced St. Peter’s Roman Episcopate to be an idle and ungrounded report, did but attempt to impose upon such humble readers as have no means of examining history, by such worn out fallacies and vile fabrications. [68b]
Yet I have myself examined all Mr. Husenbeth’s references to his above alleged witnesses from the three first centuries: and I can positively state, from the testimony of my own eye-sight, that NOT ONE of those witnesses says a single syllable, as to St. Peter having been the first diocesan Bishop of Rome, or indeed as to his EVER having been Bishop of that See.
8. Our eighth specimen is furnished by the joint industry and rival intrepidity of Bp. Trevern and Mr. Husenbeth.
For the purpose of persuading the unwary, that the highest divine adoration of the consecrated bread and wine had been the practice of the Church from the earliest ages, Bp. Trevern adduces a direction or rubric from the ancient Clementine Liturgy: and, after him, Mr. Husenbeth eagerly catches up, for the same purpose, the same ancient rubric or direction. [69a]
Meanwhile the direction itself, in its genuine state says not a syllable respecting any adoration of the consecrated bread and wine. Bp. Trevern first interpolates it, to make it serve his purpose: and then Mr. Husenbeth brings forward, as evidence, the precise words of the gallican prelates interpolation wedged into an utterly false construction of the original passage. [69b]
9. Our ninth and last specimen is of a somewhat wholesale nature: whence it will the more completely exemplify the PRINCIPLE, laid down, for the better furtherance of truth, by the painful Professors of Douay.
The King of Spain (I avail myself of the diligent researches of our own excellent Bishop Jeremy Taylor) gave a commission to the Inquisitors, to purge all catholic authors: but with this special clause; that they should keep private among themselves the expurgatory index, neither communicating it to others, nor giving a copy of it to any one.
It happened, however, by the Divine Providence so ordering it, that, about thirteen years after, a copy of it was procured and published by Johannes Pappus and Franciscus Junius. This circumstance compelled the Inquisitors to acknowledge their expurgatory index: and they have since printed it themselves.
(1.) Let us now observe some few of the exploits of emendation, achieved by these honest and laborious correctors of erring Antiquity.