Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	catholic_n	church_n	communion_n	3,075	5	9.3276	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56393	Reasons for abrogating the test imposed upon all members of Parliament, anno 1678, Octob. 30 in these words, I A.B. do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous : first written for the author's own satisfaction, and now published for the benefit of all others whom it may concern.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1688 (1688)	Wing P467; ESTC R5001	62,716	138

principal Authors may be seen in the late Bishop of Durham's Historia Transubstantiationis Iohn Poinet Bishop of Winchester who wrote a very learned Book upon the Argument entituled Diallacticon to explain the Sence of the Church of England about it Iohn Iewel Bishop of Salisbury the learned Bishops Andrews and Bilson Isaac Casaubon in the Name and by the Command of King Iames the First in his Answer to Cardinal Perron Mr. Hooker Iohn Bishop of Rochester Montague Bishop of Norwich Iames Primate of Armagh Francis Bishop of Ely Archbishop Laud Bishop Overal and the Archbishop of Spalato To this Catalogue variety of other Writers might be added but either here are Witnesses enough or there never can be Neither need I produce their Testimonies when they are so vugarly known and have been so frequently recited I shall content my self with the Two principal the most learned and reverend Prelates Poinet and Andrews The First wrote his Diallacticon concerning the Truth Nature and Substance of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist A Book much approved and often commended by Grotius tho he knew not the Author as the best Discourse upon the Argument and the most proper Method to restore the Peace of the Christian Church in that Point which he further says was for that purpose translated into French by a reformed Divine by the Advice of his Brethren I have not the Book by me but the Design and fundamental Assertion is to prove as Dr. Cosins recites it that the Eucharist is not only a Figure of the Body of our Lord but contains in it the Verity Nature and Substance and therefore that these Terms ought not to be exploded because the Ancients generally used them in their Discourses upon this Argument But Bishop Andrews his Passage though grown Vulgar and Thread-bare by being so continually quoted best deserves our Observation because by that means it is made not only a Declaration of his own Sence but of all that followed him in it and that is of almost all the learned Men of the Church of England that have succeeded from that time The Passage is in his Answer to Bellarmine in these Words The Cardinal is not ignorant except wilfully that Christ hath said This is my Body Now about the Object we are both agreed all the Controversy is about the Modus We firmly believe that it is the Body of Christ but after what manner it is made to be so there is not a Word extant in the Gospel and therefore we reject it from being a Matter of Faith. We will if you please place it among the Decrees of the Schools but by no means among the Articles of Religion What Durandus said of old we approve of We hear the Word feel the Effect know not the Manner believe the Presence And so we believe the Presence too and that real no less than your selves Only we define nothing rashly of its Modus neither do we curiously inquire into it no more than how the Blood of Christ cleanseth us in our Baptism no more than how in the Incarnation of Christ the Humane Nature is united to the Divine We rank it in the Order of Mysteries and indeed the whole Eucharist it self is nothing but Mystery what remains beside ought to be consumed by Fire that is as the Fathers elegantly express it to be ador'd by Faith not examined by Reason This was his State of the Controversie that was then perus'd and approv'd of by King Iames and ever after retained by the Divines of the Church of England down to the Rebellion and Subversion of Church and State and then it was carried into Banishment with its Confessors For whilst his late Majesty resided at Cologn it was there commonly objected in his own Presence by the Roman Divines against the Church of England That all its Members were meer Zuinglians and Sacramentarians that believed only an imaginary Presence Upon this Dr. Cosins who was then Dean of the Chapel Royal by his Majesties Command writes a Discourse to vindicate the Church of England from that Calumny and to give an Account of its Sence concerning the true and real Presence in which he declares himself to the same purpose with all the forementioned Authors all along vehemently asserting the true reality of the Presence and still declaring the Modus to be ineffable unsearchable above our Senses and above our Reason So that still all Parties are agreed in the thing it self were it not for that one mistaken Supposition That the Church of Rome hath not only defin'd the Matter but the Manner which she is so far from pretending to attempt that before she proceeded to decree any thing about it she declar'd that it was so incomprehensible that it was not capable of being defin'd as we see all Christendom hath done beside Now after all this I leave it to the common Sence and Ingenuity of Mankind whether any thing can be more barbarous and profane than to make the renouncing of a Mystery so unanimously receiv'd a State TEST And that is my present Concernment about it not as a Point of Divinity but as turned into a Point of State. Thus far proceeded the Old Church of England which as it was banished so it was restored with the Crown But by reason of the long Interval of Twenty Years between the Rebellion and Restitution there arose a new Generation of Divines that knew not Joseph These Men underhand deserted and undermined the Old Church as it stood upon Divine Right and Catholick Principles and instead of it crected a New Church of their own Contrivance consisting partly of Independency partly of Erastianism with the Independent leaving no standing Authority in the Christian Church over private Christians but leaving every Man to the arbitrary Choice of his own Communion with Erastus allowing no Jurisdiction to the Christian Church but what is derived from the Civil Magistrate These Principles being Pleasing to the Wantonness of the People these Men soon grew popular and soon had the Confidence to call themselves the Church of England But the principal Object of their Zeal was the Destruction of Popery and the only Measure of Truth with them was Opposition to the Church of Rome And therefore they assum'd to themselves the Management of that great and glorious War. And as they managed it upon new Principles or indeed none at all never writing for our Church but only against that Church so they advanced new Arguments to represent the Church of Rome as Odious as possible to the People Among these the Two most frightful Topicks were Transubstantiation and Idolatry One was a very hard Word and the other a very ugly one These Two Words they made the Two great Kettle-drums to the Protestant Guards They were continually beating upon them with all their Force and whenever they found themselves at any Disadvantage with an Enemy as they often were by pressing too far for they never thought they did