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	father_n	3,954	5	5.0522	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30399	The Protestant's companion, or, An impartial survey and comparison of the Protestant religion as by law established, with the main doctrines of popery wherein is shewn that popery is contrary to scripture, primitive fathers and councils ... / by a true son of the Protestant Church of England as established by law.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1685 (1685)	Wing B5845; ESTC R29606	32,970	68

to be try'd by them when Coster and others make such a fine flourish in their pretensions to Antiquity No the Fathers shall not be Iudges of the Papists the Romanists will not be controlled by the Fathers For Cardinal Baronius saith The Catholick Church and this they would have you to believe is their own Church but against all Reason and Sense doth not in all things follow the interpretation of the Fathers This is a fair but modest Confession But Cardinal Bellarmin goes further The Writings of the Fathers saith he are not rules to us nor have the Authority to bind us This is an home thrust and yet Salmeron is more incivil with those Ancient Doctors when he saith That the latter Doctors are sharper-sighted than they and therefore pronounces of many of them at once That we must not follow a multitude to deviate from the Truth I am afraid he gave his own Church a rude blow there for we may turn that Argument of his against the Church of Rome which ever and anon is pleading her great number of Professors To which let us add what another Romanist saith in this point And he tells you That he believes the Pope in matters of Faith before a thousand Augustines Jeroms or Gregories This indeed is plain dealing and no mincing of the matter But then again it is wholly opposite to their vain Pleas for Antiquity and wholly different from the modest procedure of S. Jerome who thinks it great rashness and irreverence presently to charge the Antients with heresie for a few obnoxious terms since when they erred they erred perhaps with a simple and honest mind or wrote things in another sense than they were afterwards taken But if this be all the esteem the Papists have for the Ancient Doctors then adieu to the Authority of the Fathers in the Church of Rome Moreover even the Councils fare no better in the Papists hands For it is usual in their Editions of the Councils to have some printed with this Title Reprobatum or disallowed others Ex parte Approbatum accordingly as they agree or disagree with their Opinions and Interest at Rome Which verifies that smart censure of Ludovicus Vives That those are accounted Decrees and Councils which make for their purpose and all others are no more valued by them than the meetings of some tatling Women in a Weaving Shop or at the Baths But although they reject both Fathers and Councils when they are pressed by the Protestants with their Authorities yet to take away all testimonies of the Fathers from us the politick Council of Trent set up their Indices Expurgatorii which they referred to Pope Pius IV. whose Bull for that end bore date March 24. 1564. And in these Tables they set down what Books were by them forbidden and in which to be purged and what places ought to be left out Thus design'd they that both Fathers and Councils should lisp their Language But though it be contrary to that Rule by which Christ himself was willing to be tried If I bear witness of my self my witnes is not true and contrary to all equity and the old Laws viz. That they which are brought out of our own House ought not to be witnesses for us yet since they have disowned when pressed with strength of Reason and oppressed with Truth the Scriptures the Fathers and Councils We will pursue them to their last fort to wit to the Decrees of their Popes which they so much adore If they gain-say these then Conclamatum est their Case is desperate Well then it must be so for they have rejected the Traditions of old Popes for those of new ones One would have thought that old Friends and old Divines had been the surest and soundest but it is not so at Rome For they have slighted and contradicted that Decree of Anacletus That all who are present at Mass shall communicate That of Pope Gelasius of not taking the Bread alone which honest-man he called Sacrilege and That of Alexander 11. of celebrating but one Mass in one day Which abominable practice of the Roman Church make good that saying of their own Pope Gelasius Quaero ab his judicium quod praetendunt ubinam possint agitari an apud ipsos ut iidem sint inimici testes Judices Which signifies in short that they would be both Enemies Witnesses and Iudges in their own Cause as being Conscious to themselves of such Errors as will not bear the test nor can be defended without such foul play Who then can safely trust the conduct of his Salvation to that Church of Rome which refuseth to be tried by the Word of God by the Ancient Fathers by General Councils and even by the Decrees of her pretended Spiritual Heads But because in the following Book I have produced the Testimonies of the Fathers voting against Popish Doctrines it will not I judge be unnecessary to subjoyn That although we highly esteem and respect the Fathers and especially those of the first Three hundred years after Christ and make use of their Writings as explaining the sense of the Scriptures and handing to us the Opinions of the Ages they liv'd in yet we never receive any of them with the same respect and esteem that we do the Word of God And that with good reason For though they were learned and pious men yet they were but men and consequently were lyable to error as well as other men And herein the Advite of S. Austin is to be followed to wit to follow him and such as himself no further than they follow Truth and Holy Scripture which ought still to be preferred before them And yet S. Augustin was neither the worst nor the meanest of those Christian Hero's Thus do we reverence but do not idolize them and only prefer the Scriptures before them whereas the Papists value their late Papal Decrees before the Primitive Doctors These things being premised I shall renew that five-fold Challenge about the Popes Supremacy formerly propounded by a Reverend and Learned Bishop of our Church which the Papists ought first to answer before they can justly obtain what they in vain pretend to as Consequences of that Supremacy For they failing to prove this which I think they will never be able to do their Attempts in the points depending thereon must needs be fruitless and ineffectual The Challenge is this 1. Whether our Saviour before his Ascension did constitute S. Peter his Vicar and gave him a monarchical Supremacy over the Apostles and the whole Church 2. Whether the Papists can prove that S. Peter while he lived exercised such Power and Supreme Iurisdiction even over the Apostles In such Cases as these Idem est non esse non apparere 3. Whether if S. Peter exercised any such Authority it was not temporary and ceased with his Person as the Apostleship did 4. Whether if all these