Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	acknowledge_v	church_n	pope_n	2,303	5	6.3998	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48024	A relation of the death of the primitive persecutors written originally in Latin by L.C.F. Lactantius ; Englished by Gilbert Burnet, D.D., to which he hath made a large preface concerning persecution.; De mortibus persecutorum. English	Lactantius, ca. 240-ca. 320.; Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1687 (1687)	Wing L142; ESTC R234919	60,272	167

of their Pastoral Authority as if that had been given them to Worry their Sheep and not to Feed them objected Articles to their Prisoners upon suspition and required them to purge themselves of them by Oath and because Bishops were not perhaps all so equally Zealous and Cruel some of them being Persons of great Quality so that some remnants of a generous Education and of their lay pity might still hang about them that Bloody Man Dominick took this work to task and his Order has ever since furnished the World with a set of Inquisitors compared to whom all that had ever dealt in Tortures in any former times were but Bunglers So far has this Melancholy Speculation of the Degeneracy of the Church of Rome carried me they at last came to extol a Zeal against Heresie as the highest Act of Piety towards God and since Heresie is reckoned by S. Paul among the Works of the Flesh it seemed as just to punish it in the severest manner as it was to punish any of the other Works of the Flesh and since all Hereticks were looked on as Persons damned all Tenderness towards them and Pity for them was as far exinguished as it was possible For a false Religion will not easily have the better of good Nature so entirely as to root it quite out tho it must be acknowledged that the Roman Religion has done more towards that than any other that has ever yet appeared in the World. All the room that was left for good Nature was the favourable Definition that was given of Heresy by which Obstinacy was made its peculiar Character that distinguished it from Error which lies in a more Innocent Mistake concerning Divine Matters and as many have explain'd this Obstinacy it amounts to a continuing in Errour after one is convinced of it This Notion of Heresy which has been received by many of the greatest Men even in the Church of Rome it self seems to agree well with that of St. Paul's ranking Heresy among the Works of the Flesh for if it is meerly a mistake in the Judgment in which one continues because he cannot overcome his persuasion nor see Reasons that are strong enough to oblige him to change his Mind such an adhering to Error may be called any thing rather than a Work of the Flesh. But if a Man from a Principle of Interest Pride or Discontent either throws himself into ill Opinions or continues in them after his Mind is better enlightned so that he stisles and denies that inward Conviction then the Reason is very plain why such an ill Temper of Mind should be reckoned a Work of the Flesh because it plainly arises out of a depraved Nature I will not here enter into so troublesome an Enquiry as it would be to examine how far an Erroneous Conscience acquits one before God for that must be left to Him who will judge every Man according to his Works and who best knows how far he will accept of a general Repentance of unknown Sins and of a general Act of Faith even of Truths that are yet unknown but as for the Judgments of men certainly when the other parts of ones life make it clear not only to a Judgment of Charity but even to that of Discretion that he is sincere and that he means well it is hard to know when he is Obstinate and when his Errors become Heresies that is to say Works of the Flesh. So far have I been led upon the consideration of the Spirit of Persecution that is not only warranted by Custom and a long continued Practice but is by the Authority not only of Popes but even of General Councils established into a Law on the Church of Rome I am carried next into a Scene of Thoughts that are more particularly suted to the Doctrines of the Reformed Churches and here it must be acknowledged that Persecution is a more justifiable thing according to the Principles of the Church of Rome than it is according to our Tenets for the Church of Rome that pretends to be infallible has a better Right to demand a blind Submission from all its Subjects and to treat those roughly who refuse to grant it than a Church that pretends to nothing but a Power of Order and Government and that confesses she may be mistaken Our being Subject to Error is unreasonably urged when men would carry it so far as to make us doubt of all things yet it ought at least to have this effect on us as to keep us from being too ready to judge hardly of those who are of another mind or to use them roughly for it since it is possible that they may be in the Right and that we may be mistaken at least they may have very probable Reasons for their Opinions which if they do not quite justify their Mistakes yet do very much excuse and lessen them It is likewise visible that all severe Proceedings upon the diversity of Opinions how effectual soever they may be on base-minded men who will alwayes make Shipwrack of a good Conscience when it comes in competition with the Love of this present World yet work quite contrary wise on men of awakned Understandings and generous Souls instead of gaining on such Persons these Inspire them with horror at a sort of men who go about to ruin companies of people that never did them hurt It is from this that those Violent Hatreds arise among men of different Persuasions Every man is not capable to understand an Argument or to be much disturbed at it and tho Divines that carry their Speculations further into the Consequences of Opinions whether Real or Imaginary grow hot and angry at one another upon those Heads yet the people understand them little and feel them less but every man feels an Injury and Nature makes her Inferences very quick upon it and concludes that those who use us ill hate us and there must be a great degree of Regeneration to keep men from hating those that hate them upon this arises all the Animosity that is among the several Parties for every one reckoning himself a Member of that Body to which he associates himself thinks that he is obliged to resent all the Injuries that are done to his Fellow-members as much as if they were done to himself in particular and by the same natural Logick he casts the Guilt of the Wrongs done his own Party not only on those Individuals of the other Party from whom they did more Immediately arise but upon the whole Body of them and so here a War is kindled in mens Breasts and when that is once formed within it will find some unhappy occasion or other to give it self a vent Those who are ill used are in a State like that of a Mass of humours in the Body which roul about less perceived till some unlucky Accident has weakned any part of it and then they will all discharge themselves on the part that suffers Men that are

ought never to be cut off and they carry'd this so far as to pretend that a difference in Religion tends more to the Honour of God than a Uniformity in it could do and so they fancied that a variety in it was acceptable to God. The first severity that Christians practised upon one another was the banishing of Arius and a few of his Followers it must be acknowledged that this seems to be the utmost extent of Civil Authority in those matters for certainly a Government may put such persons out of its protection that are Enemies to its Peace and so banish them upon great occasions giving them leave to sell their Estates and to carry away with them all that belongs to them yet this being all that any Humane Government can claim it ought not to be applied too easily nor rashly till it is visible that all other Remedies are ineffectual and that the publick Safety can be no other way secured but tho this severity against Arius had no great effects yet the Arians had no sooner the Power in their hands than they put in practtice first all the Contrivances of Craft and Fraud together with many less crying Violences under Constance and they carried this afterwards to a more open Persecution under Valens and after that both in Spain and Africk it appeared that a cruel Spirit was so inherent in that party that it shewed it self as oft as ever they had it in their Power but while Valens persecuted in his Division of the Empire it is observed that Valentinian his Brother thought it was enough to support the Orthodox without persecuting the other Gratian carried the matter further and tolerated both almost equally And in the happy turn under Theodosius at what pains was S. Gregory Nazianzene to restrain the Orthodox from retaliating upon the Arians the ill treatment that they had suffered from them and not only the Novatians but even the Arians continued to have their Churches in the Imperial Cities The first Instance of the Imploying the Secular Arm against Hereticks that was set on by any of the Orthodox was under the Reign of that bloody Tyrant Maximus and it was managed by two such scandalous Bishops that their ill Lives is no small Prejudice against every thing that was carried on by such Instruments This was condemned by the best Bishops of that Age and the ill Effects of that Severity are very copiously marked by the Historian One is unwilling for the sake of those Ages to reflect on the Rigour that appears in some Laws that are in the Code yet the mild behaviour of Atticus Proclus and some other Bishops is marked with the praises that were due to it and it is probable that those Laws were rather made to terrify than that they should be executed The Donatists after a Contest of above 120 years continuance that was managed at first more gently grew at last so fierce and intolerable that not being contented with their own Churches they broke in upon the Churches of those of the Unity and committed many Outrages on the Persons of some of the Bishops putting out the Eyes of some and leaving others for Dead the Bishops upon that consulted whether they ought to demand not only the Emperour's Protection but the Application of the Laws made against Hereticks to the Donatists S. Austin and some Bishops opposed this for some time but they yielded at last and these Laws were so severely executed that not only the Donatists themselves complained heavily of them but S. Austin in several Letters that he writ to the Magistrates upon this occasion made the same complaints he interceded very earnestly for the Donatists and said that it detracted much from the Glory of the Church that had received so much Honour from the sufferings of the Martyrs to see others suffer upon the account of the Church and he told them plainly that if they did not proceed more moderately the Bishops would suffer all that could come upon them from the Rage of the Donatists rather than Complain any more to those who acted so rigorously Yet tho S. Austin condemn'd the Excesses of the Civil Magistrates in some particulars he set himself to justify Severity in General when it was imployed upon the account of Religion and all the moderate Pleadings for Liberty that are to be found either in Tertullian Cyprian and more copiously in our Author Lactantius with relation to Heathens and the like Reasonings that are to be found in Athanasius Hilary and Lucifer with Relation to the Persecutions of the Arians were in a great measure forgot Saint Austin had a heat of Imagination that was very copious which way soever he turned it and this was imployed chiefly in allegorising Scripture so as to bring together a vast number of proofs for every cause that he undertook without troubling himself to examine critically what the true meaning of those Passages might be and he is so apt to run out in all his Reasonings into excessive Amplifications and into all the Figures of copious and uncorrect Eloquence that it is no wonder to find that passage of our Saviour in the Parable compel them to enter in with some other places misapplyed on this occasion With that Father the Learning of the Western Church fell very low so that his Works came to be more read in the succeeding Ages than the Writings of all the other Fathers and in this as in other things men that knew not how to reason themselves contented themselves with that lasie and cheap way of copying from him and of depending on his Authority The Incursion of the Northern Nations that overthrew the Roman Empire and those Polishings of Learning and Civility that fell with it brought on a Night of Ignorance that can scarce be apprehended by those who have not read the Writings of the following Ages Superstition grew upon the ruins of Learning and eat up all The fierce Tempers of the Northern People being mufled up in Ignorance and wrought on by Superstition were easily leavened with Cruelty perhaps the Holy Wars and what they observed in the Rage as well as in the Successes of the Saracens heightned this further at last Heresy came to be reckoned the greatest of all Crimes and as it condemned men to everlasting Burning so it was thought that those might be well anticipated by temporary ones of the Inquisitors Kindling It is true the Church pretended that she would shed no Blood but all this was insufferable jugling for the Churchmen declared who were obstinate or relapsed Hereticks and the Secular Arm was required to be ever in readiness to execute their Sentence This was not only claimed by the Bishops but it was made a part of their Oath at their Consecration that they should Oppose and Persecute Hereticks to the utmost of their power Nor were they contented to proceed by the common Rules of Justice upon Accusations and Witnesses but all Forms were superceded and they by vertue