Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	bishop_n	pope_n	rome_n	11,296	5	6.9283	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92921	An examination of Dr. Balyes five waies whereby he endeavours to prove the Church of Rome to be the only church of Christ wherein salvation is to be had, and the Church of England to be no true church. By Robert Seppens rector of Hingham in Norfolk.	Seppens, Robert.	1679 (1679)	Wing S2558A; ESTC R229928	13,895	37

in Levit. The present Church of Rome maintains Transubstantiation St. Augustine denies it in his Book against Adimantus he hath these words The Lord doubted not to say this is my Body when he gave a sign of his Body And in a Sermon upon Psalm xcviii he hath these words Non hoc corpus c. You are not about to Eat that Body which you see nor Drink that Bloud which is poured out by my Crucifiers I have commended unto you a Sacrament which being Spiritually understood shall quicken you and although it be necessary to celebrate it visibly yet it ought to be understood invisibly it were an easie matter for a man meanly versed in St. Augustine to instance in many more particulars wherein that Father varies from the judgment of the present Roman Church As concerning the number of the Sacraments the Virgin Maries Immaculate Conception Prayers in an unknown Tongue Purgatory Invocation of Saints c. But I am weary and troublesom and so shall put a Period to this part desiring you now to judg impartially whether we be cast in our cause by St. Augustines Sentence or no. The third way he pretends to end all Controversies is by the known and ever acknowledged Tribunal and Seat of Judgment provided in that behalf and so Protestants are cast in their own Cause again by Judiciary way of proceeding by the highest Judicature in Causes Ecclesiastical the Church of Rome Arguments are not so plentiful with the Doctor as he makes shew of when he is forced to make use of this new Topick viz. to prove the Roman Church to be the whole Catholick Church by the judgment of the Roman Church If I bear witness of my self saith Christ my witness is not true John v. 31. Nemo qui de seipso fert testimonium fide dignus est propter suspicionem de nimio sui ipsius amore Euthym. No body that bears witness of himself is worthy to be believed because every man is suspected to love himself too well And therefore whatsoever others may this Argument is not like to sway much with rational men 't is a poor thing of so great a Clerk who hath so good a Cause as he conceives and all learning of his side to use such pittiful begging of the Question Whether the Church of Rome be the Judg of all Controversies is one thing in question And to Appeal to his Church as Judg before he hath proved her to be so is a piece of Sophistry But this he makes us believe he hath done before in part Cap. 1. and now he will do it more fully by Scriptures Fathers Greek and Latin the practice of all Ages Nations Tongues and People and the confession of her very Adversaries If he can do as much as he promiseth let him be Anathema Maranatha that shall not conform his judgment to the Roman Church but if these be all Ostentations Rhodomontadoes to amaze his Reader and charm his Proselytes into a Circle of ignorance Hath not every wise man cause to suspect that Cause that needs such Arts to underprop it Two things there are I suppose the Doctor is obliged to do to make this undertaking good First to prove that the Roman Church is provided and ordained by God the Judg of all Controversies and so that she is lawfully possest of this Office Secondly That de facto she was ever acknowledged so to be For the first he seems to do it by these Scriptures God erected a standing Judicature for all Controversies among the Jews Deut. xvii 8 9. He foretels that at Christs coming his House should be established on the top of the mountains Isay ii 2. and all Nations should flow unto it Christ commands to hear the Church Matth. xviii and foretels that he will take the Kingdom of God from the Jews and give it to another Nation i. e. the Romans Matth. xxi 43. St. Paul tells us he hath given some Apostles c. Ephes iv 11. But these being all impertinent and miserably wrested I shall not wast time and paper in answering them and truly unless the Doctor had had more pertinent Texts to have proved the Question he should have done well to have waved this kind of proof especially seeing the Church of Rome hath not always claimed by this Title of Divine Right when the contest was betwixt the Romans and Africans about Appeals Zozimus Bonifacius and Celestinus the then Popes of Rome did not urge Divine Law for their claim of receiving Appeals out of Africa but the Decrees of the Nicene Council whereby it appears that then they thought not that this Jurisdiction belonged to them by Divine Right Yet this failing if he can prove the matter of Fact it will be somthing this is the Strength and Bulwark of the Cause and this he seems to manage with more dexterity for very numerous he is in Quotation of Fathers and very Rhetorical in persuading but his Authorities if you observe them are most of them impertinent he produceth the testimonies of the Fathers in great numbers to prove that the Pope of Rome was St. Peters Successor had magnificent Titles given him was call'd a Catholick Bishop and Bishop of the Catholick Church That the Roman Church was in Ancient times very highly accounted of that the Roman Faith was called the Catholick Faith Only in the fixth Division Pag. 234. He seems to come home to the Question for there he gives us a just Catalogue of oppressed Bishops that made complaints to the Pope of Rome and of some Holy Fathers that made their addresses to him upon some other occasions which seem to argue that he was then acknowledged the Judg of all Controversies This at first makes a great noise like the ratling of Hail upon a House top but soon falls to the Ground The Pope of Rome may be considered in a threefold capacity First of a Bishop over a particular Diocess and so there belonged to him as to other Bishops a Judgment of Jurisdiction over his own Clergy Secondly of a Patriarch in which respect there belong'd to him Authority to hear complaints of Bishops against their Metropolitans and determine all differences amongst Metropolitans under his Patriarchate Thirdly of the Prime Patriarch of the Catholick Church without whose concurrence the meaner Patriarchs could do nothing in the weighty and important affairs of the Church to whom the Cognizance of some things belonged above other Patriarchs by the Canons of the Council of Sardis and to whom singular honour was done and some extraordinary Priviledges granted as Bishop of the Imperial City as the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon said in all which respects Complaints and Appeals might be made to the Pope of Rome and yet it does not follow that he was ever acknowledg'd the Judg of all Controversies For 't is evident notwithstanding all the Priviledges of the Pope of Rome that yet there was reserved to every Bishop the Judgment of all differences amongst

Presbyters in his own Diocess To Metropolitans the Judgment of differences amongst Bishops To Patriarchs the Judgment of Metropolitans And to General Councils the Judgment of Patriarchs And therefore for all this great flourish made by this Doctor in numbring so many Appellants and Complainants to the Pope I believe I am able to demonstrate out of the Records of Antiquity that the Pope of Rome was not ever acknowledged the Judg of all Controversies Polycarpus was a blessed Martyr and a Disciple of St. John the Evangelist and he did not acknowledg the Pope nor the Roman Church to be the Judg of all Controversies for be refused to conform to the Judgment of the Roman Church in the observation of Easter Polycrates assembled with the Asian Bishops in a Synod did not acknowledg the Roman Church to be Judg of all Controversies For they stood in defiance with Pope Victor and his Excommunication about that Observation Eusab lib. 5. cap. 23.24 St. Cyprian was a Holy Martyr and stand Canonized for a Saint in the Roman Church and he did not acknowledg the Roman Church to be Judg of all Controversies For he did abrogate Appeals to Rome in the Cause of Fortunatus and Faelicissimus and with a Council of Eighty Bishops concluded contrary to the Roman Church in the business of Rebaptization Epist 55. Ad Cornel. as Bellarmine himself acknowledgeth lib. 4. de Rom. Pont. St. Augustine was the Monarch of the Fathers and so illustrious for Learning and Piety that he is chosen by the Doctor to be Umpire in the difference yet he did not acknowledg the Roman Church to be Judg of all Controversies For he in two Councils with the African Bishops viz. The _____ and the first Council of Carthage denyed Appeals to Rome in some cases It is true indeed St. Augustine in his 162. Epistle does give us an account of the Judgment given by Melchiades Bishop of Rome in the Controversie betwixt Donatus and Caecilianus and does very highly extol and magnifie the Sentence of Melchiades as indeed it deserved to be But withal he tells us that Melchiades did not assume to himself alone Authority of Judging in that Case but had many Bishops of Italy and France joyned with him Insomuch when Donatus refusing to stand to the Judgment of Melchiades and his Collegue Bishops endeavoured to asperse and defame Melchiades St. Augustine excuseth him from all Arrogance and Usurpation three ways First by declaring that they made him a Judg of that Controversie who Appealed unto him and by their Prayers Sollicited him to give Sentence in it Judicem illi eum fecerunt c. they made him a Judg. Secondly That the Emperour Constantine referred it to him who being petitioned sent other Bishops as Judges to sit with him and to determine what they found just in the matter Thirdly They knew they might have Appealed to a General Council where if these Judges had been convinced to have Judged amiss their Sentence might have been reversed and the Judges themselves Judged again This Testimony is full enough to evince that neither St. Augustine nor the Age wherein he lived acknowledged the Roman Church the Judg of all Controversies St. Jerom was a Mirror of Learning and as is pretended a great assertor of the Popes Supremacy yet he did not acknowledg the Church off Rome to be Judg of all Controversies For in a great difference betwixt the Oriental Churches and the Roman Church in Point Doctrinal he cast off the Judgment of the Roman Church and followed the Oriental In St. Jeroms time the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews was not received into the Canon of the Scripture by the Roman Church but by the Eastern Churches it was Now if the Roman Church had been acknowledged by him the Judg of all Controversies he would not he durst not have varied from her But he saith expresly Quod si Latina Consuetudo c. Although the Latin Church doth not admit of the Epistle as Canonical we notwithstanding saith he do receive it What need I add any more If the Fathers acknowledged the Roman Church the Judg of all Controversies why did they take so much pains in confuting Heresies by Scripture by Tradition when they might have ended all by Appealing all to the Judgment of the Roman Church In vain are so many means used for the compassing of that which might be done by fewer And does not this Doctor himself tell us in Cap. 8. at the very beginning of many Heresies the Fathers suppressed by Tradition alone without the interposition of the Judgment of the Roman Church By this saith he Eusebius acknowledgeth Tertullian to have repressed the Marcionites Irenaeus the Valentinians St. Cyprian the Novatians Epiphanius the Apostolicks St. Jerom the Helvidians St. Augustine the Donatists Athanasius the Arrians How then in the mean time was the Roman Church the Judg of all Controversies and why may not Heresies still be suppressed that way Now for the General Council which this Author names too as favourers of this Jurisdiction in the Roman Chruch 'T is a very fond thing for any man to imagine that they should contribute any thing to this assertion when by so doing they had nulled their own Authority and Power It is well known that General Councils were the highest Tribunals in the Church that they gave Sentence in the weightiest Controversies that they suppressed Heresies deposed Bishops Patriarchs yea even Popes of Rome and that the Popes of Rome themselves for many years at their Inauguration swore to observe the Canons of the General Councils Now thus I argue if the Judgment of many Differences and Controversies did in a peculiar manner belong to General Councils how is the Roman Church Judg of all Controversies If there did not why were they assembled and by what Authority did they these things before specified The fourth way of ending all Controversies is by both Parties agreeing upon the same mark whereby the thing in Contestation may be found out And so saith he Cap. 28. the Church of Rome is proved to be a true Church by the very same mark which both Catholick and Protestants agree upon to be the mark of Christs Church And if this be all the Doctor would have who denies it But I pray if that mark agreed upon on both sides be of force to prove the Church of Rome to be a true Church Is it of none to prove the Church of England to be so too if found there How comes this common mark to signifie so fully when applyed to Roman Church and to be as a Mute and non-significant when applyed to the Church of England 'T is strange to see how in this Chapter he shuffles plays fast and loose now gives now takes away again He begins with a designation of that mark of the Church which he saith all agree upon And that is Holiness which he takes in a new Notion for a Faithful Preaching of the Word and Administration of