¹ Chair of Moses. God preserveth the truth of the Christian religion in the Apostolic See of Rome, which is in the new law answera¬ble to the Chair of Moses, notwithstanding the Bishops of the same were never so wicked of life: yea, though some traitor as ill as Judas were bishop thereof, it should not be prejudi¬cial to the Church and innocent Christians, for whom our Lord providing, said, Do that which they say, but do not as they do. Aug. Epi. 165.
² Whatsoever they shall say. Why, saith Augustine, dost thou call the Apostolic Chair the chair of pestilence? If for the men, why? Did our Lord Jesus Christ, for the Pharisees, any wrong to the Chair wherein they sat? Did he not commend that chair of Moses, and pre¬serving the honour of the Chair reprove them? For he saith: They sit upon the Chair of Moses, that which they say, do ye. These things, if you did well consider, you would not for the men whom you defame, blaspheme the See Apostolic, wherewith you do not com¬municate. And again he saith: Neither for the Pharisees, to whom you compare us, not of wisdom but of malice, did our Lord command the Chair of Moses to be forsaken, in which Chair verily he figured his own, for he wameth the people to do that which they say, and not to do that which they do; and that the holi¬ness of the Chair be in no case forsaken, nor the unity of the flock divided, for the naughty Pastors.
³ Phylacteries: that is, parchments, on which they wrote the ten commandments, and carried them on their foreheads before their eyes: which the Pharisees affected to wear broader than other men; so to seem more zealous for the law.
⁴ Love the first places. He condemneth not due place of Superiority given or taken of men according to their degrees, but ambitious seek¬ing for the same, and their proud heart and wicked intention, which he saw within them, and therefore might boldly reprehend them.
⁵ One is your master. In the Catholic Church there is one Master, Christ our Lord, and under him one Vicar, with whom all Ca¬tholic Doctors and teachers are one, because they teach all one thing. But in Arch-heretics it is not so, where every one of them is a diverse master, and teacheth contrary to the other, and will be called Rabbi and Master, every one of their own Disciples: Arms a Rabbi among the Arians, Luther among the Lutherans, and among the Calvinists, Calvin.
⁶ Call none your father upon earth: Neither be ye called masters. The meaning is that our Father in heaven is incomparably more to be regarded, than any father upon earth: and no master to be followed, who would lead us away from Christ. But this does not hinder but that we are by the law of God to have a due respect both for our parents and spiritual fathers, (1 Cor. 4. 15) and for our masters and teachers.
⁷ Masters. Wickliffe and the like he¬retics, do hereupon condemn de¬grees of School and titles of Doctors and Mas¬ters: where they might as well reprove Paul for calling himself Doctor and Master of the Gentiles: and for saying that there should be always Doctors in the Church; and whereas they bring the other words following, against religious men who are called fathers; as well might they by this place take away the name of carnal fathers, and blame Paul for calling himself the only spiritual father of the Corin¬thians. But in deed nothing is here forbidden but the contentious division and partiality of such as make themselves Ringleaders of Schisms and Sects, as Donatus, Arms, Luther Calvin.
Douay-Rheims 1834 and 1899
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