Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

SCRIPTURE AND THE FATHERS. 69
shop of Corduba, says in express terms,
" came to Rome of their own accord *."
The R.'s next proof is
" They
from the works ascribed
to Athanasius ;
" Athanasius," says he,
*'
in his letter to Pope FeUx, says : for this that
" Jesus Christ placed you and your predecessors
*'
in the fortress of the summit, and ordered you
" to take care of all Churches, that you might as-
" sist us f."
There are some points of doctrine taught by
the Fathers, about which the R., notwithstanding
his pretensions to an extensive
with these writers,
acquaintance
w'ould require a Uttle farther
information. Their words must not always be
taken in their literal acceptation ;
particularly,
when they speak of the merit and influence of
metropolitan bishops. Of this I will produce
some examples, which cannot fail to receive his
cordial approbation. Gregory Nazianzen, in
his Panegyric upon Athanasius, ascribes to him
that supremacy for which the R. contends.
"•
He had," says he, ^' the government of that
" people committed to him, which is as much
" as to say, of the whole world." St. Basil
also^ in writing to Athanasius respecting the
establishment of Meletius, as patriarch of Antioch,
says, " That so he might govern, as it
'•
were, the whole body of the Church ];." But
Thcodoret overlooks both these, and bestows
C 5
the
* Apud Ath. ad S.^lltar.
f
P. 107. i Ep, 50.