Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	ancient_a	church_n	council_n	2,300	5	6.8190	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B09275	Decrees of our Holy Father, Pope Innocent XI containing the suppression of an office of the Immaculate Conception of the most Holy Virgin and of a multitude of indulgences : according to the copies at Rome, from the printing-press of the Most Reverend Apostolick Chamber / translated into English out of the French copy, to which the Latine was adjoyn'd, as also here it is, by the direction of an eminent person of honour.	Catholic Church. Pope (1676-1689 : Innocent XI); Innocent XI, Pope, 1611-1689.; Inchofer, Melchior, 1585?-1648. Epistolae B. Virginis Mariae ad Messanenses veritas vindicata. English & Latin.	1678 (1678)	Wing I200A; ESTC R188290	21,891	70

'T is God alone is able to do this ..... There are in man a thousand windings a thousand artifices to deceive a thousand tricks for mischief In his heart is one thing in his mouth the quite contrary 'T is but few that are truly good and vorthy the love of God not carried on with varice But the greatest part of men by much are hypocrites and counterfeits more are desirous to seem good than to be so Wolves in Sheeps clothing It is not therefore to be wondred at if the Popes prudence be sometimes imposed upon and favours obtained for money Aeneas Silvius Cardinal of Sene afterwards Pope by the name of Pius II. in an Epistle to Martin Meyer Chancellar to the Archbishop of Mayence Care is to be had also that by pretence of false Miracles we may as well say False Indulgences we do not injury to those that are true The Faculty of Divinity at Paris in answer to a consultation concerning the souls of persons deceased appearing after they be dead January 22 1534. The holy Synod of Trent doth declare and ordain that the use of Indulgences being very wholsome for Christian people and approved by authority of Sacred Councils is to be retained in the Church And doth Anathematize those who who say they are useless and deny that there is in the Church a power to grant them But desireth nevertheless that according to the ancient and approved custome in the Church a moderation be used in the granting of them least by too great a facility therein the discipline of the of the Church be infeebled But being desirous that the abuses which herein have crept in and have been an occasion that the favourable name of Indulgences hath been reproached by Hereticks be reformed and corrected doth by this present Decree Ordain in the general that all wicked waies of making gain for the obtaining of them be wholy abolished as from whence hath issued the cause of manyfold abuses amongst Christian people And as for other abuses proceeding from superstition ignorance irreverence or from any other cause or in what manner soever forasmuch as they cannot easily be all prohibited in particular by reason of the manifold corruptions of the different places and provinces wherein these abuses are committed Doth strictly charge all Bishops that every one as to his own Church do make a diligent collection of such kind of abuses and make report of them in the first Provincial Synod to the end that they may be censured by the suffrages of the other Bishops also and thence transmitted forthwith to the Soveraign Roman Pontif and by his authority and prudence it be so ordained as may be most expedient for the universal Church so that by this meanes the Treasure of the holy Indulgences be distributed to all Christian people in a pious and holy manner and without corruption Council of Trent Sess 25. in the Decree touching Indulgences I say it more out of sorrow than by way of reproach that the Lives of the Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius are written with more seriousness than the Lives of the Saints by Christians And that Suetonius hath with much more integrity and less corruption related the affairs of the Caesars than Catholicks have done I say not those of their Emperors but of their Martyrs Virgins and Confessors ⸫⸪ I forbear to name persons But certain it is that those who thus mingle the Ecclesiastick History with fictions and falshood cannot be good men or persons of honesty and that the whole of their Narrations is purposely designed either in order to Lucre or in order to Errour the one whereof is base and sordid the other mischievous pernicious ˙ ˙ So that those who have gone about by fictions and false stories to stir up in mens minds a devotion for the Saints have but as I may judge by these false stories impaired the credit of those which are true and what has been most accurately delivered by the most serious Authors is by this means become questionable ˙ ˙ As though these holy men of God who had in truth done and suffered so much for Christ did stand in need of our Lies Admitting then that these fictions how fals soever might with so much wit and artifice be composed as not to do hurt they are at best but useless and of no real service and like lasy Soldiers the burden of them is more than the advantage they hinder more than they help ˙ ˙ They do therefore a great deal of mischief to Christs Church who think they can never write a good history of the worthy deeds of Saints unless embellished with forged Revelations and false Miracles Melchior Canus who was one of the Divines in the Council of Trent lib. 11. de locis ch 4. Making his visite in those parts de Liano he understood that near the church of that place there was a Coffin of Stone with some bones in it which were had in great veneration as true reliques of Saints There being a common report that the night before the Feast of S. Peter in vinculis or Lamm●s day there did in miraculous manner come forth of those bones so great a quantity of water that it filled the whole Coffin and though those of the neighbourhood came in great numbers that day to take of that water which they held to be a thing miraculous holy yet was the water not at all diminished but the Coffin still continued full ˙ ˙ The Cardinal S. Charles Borromeus who held the reliques of Saints in great Veneration where ever he met with them would needs come see these and examine them that thereupon he might particularly recommend them to the people for their greater veneration Whence came the Proverb That Cardinal Borromeo would neither let the living nor the dead be at rest Resolving then to visite these bones and inquiring diligently how they came there he could find nothing of certainty He thereupon began to suspect it was some devilish cheat And to evidence the truth he caused the Coffin and the bones to be well dryed and then committed the custody thereof to three Priests whom he could trust that same night on which the water used to come forth And then there appearing no sign of water at all it was thereby discovered to be a meer artifice and cheat And to make provision against so great an abuse he caused both the Coffin and reliques to be buried under ground that the people might not any more be cheated to that false worship Which thing was received by the people of those parts with great admiration extolling the Cardinal as a holy man and having the spirit of God with him Johannes Petrus Issuanus a Priest of Milan in the Life of S. Charles lib. 6. chap. 7. The thing was done in the year 1580. We Ordain that the Bishops be careful to have the Breviaries within their Diocess to be well accurately corrected and that things therein appointed to be read