Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	divine_a	faith_n	infallible_a	4,131	5	9.8328	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29530	An answer to a book, entituled, Reason and authority, or, The motives of a late Protestant's reconciliation to the Catholick Church together with a brief account of Augustine the monk, and conversion of the English : in a letter to a friend.	Bainbrigg, Thomas, 1636-1703.	1687 (1687)	Wing B473; ESTC R12971	67,547	99

and will give full satisfaction in that Point if he were but capable of receiving it And I presume I have given him more than he can answer in the Reflexions upon the Lateran Council I. The Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church P. 21. This he undertakes to consider how far it may bear and appear reasonable to an impartial Reader These words are not worth the notice but that they tempt out a little suspicion that they are here set for a reserve in case of opposition for if it be said as most truly it may that there is not one plain proof either of the supreme Authority or Infallibility of the Roman Church in all this Discourse Our Authour may reply that he never undertook to give it All that he engaged for was appearances P. 23. and that he has performed by using the words oft tumbling and tossing them as Hay-makers do their mown Grass one while Authority is uppermost and soon after Infallibility Authority must lead in Infallibility and Infallibility must vindicate Authority but where either of these is to be found the Man neither proves nor knows and plainly says that he is not concerned whether there be any such thing as Infallibility or no p. 24. he says Were there no Infallibility as I believe there is I would still submit my Reason and regulate my Conscience P. 24. according to the Decrees of the supreme lawfull Ecclesiastical Authority This is my belief pray blame me not All this is nothing else but appearances for neither is the Church of England nor the Church of Rome concerned in his belief or his fancy or his opinion for these may be wise or may be foolish may be well or may be ill grounded But yet it is admirable to see what great command he has over his Reason and his Conscience that he can make them turn which way he pleases and if he does but suppose a Supreme lawfull Authority to be in Ebion or Cerinthus Nailor or Muggleton or the Church of Rome He can be a Convert to any of them to day to this and to morrow to the quite contrary and that with as much reason and as good conscience to the one as to the other For which way soever he turns he may still say this is my belief pray blame me not His last Conversion was to the Church of Rome and he intimates that he changed upon this belief that there was a Supreme lawfull Ecclesiastical Authority to be found there but he has not the least reason to prove it though it must be confest that he has some appearances which I will impartially consider in their order 1. He gives us some Citations from Protestants Pag. 22 23. from Luther one and from Melancthon another whom he calls the Phoenix of Learning a fine word I wonder from whence he borrowed it another from Somaisius or Salmasius Another he would give from Grotius but what it is he has forgot he thinks it is somewhere in his Annotations upon the New Testament And then to make weight he throws in the Names of Jacob Cartwright Huss and Beza P. 23. And from hence he argues in these words These eminent Protestants were men of great learning and they had searcht and understood Scripture and History and if my judgment concurs with theirs in this point as I profess it doth then have I found that lawfull Supreme Authority Now these are dangerous words from the mouth of a new Convert it is well for him that he is not now in Spain for if he should make such a declaration there That his judgment concurs with the judgment of Luther Melancthon Huss and Beza in the Point of the Pope's Supremacy or the Supremacy of the Church of Rome he might perhaps be in danger of the Inquisition All the World knows the judgment of those men in this point and if he were before the Fathers of the Inquisition they would not be put off with a small Citation found they know not where and perhaps inserted by they know not whom He had done much better to have mistrusted his Copy than to depend upon such an Allegation Sure I am that if he made any use of those mens judgments or laid any great stress upon the words which he cites under their Names in his search or presumed discovery of a Supreme Authority of the Church of Rome he used both his Reason and his Conscience very hardly It is certain that Luther did speak variously of the Pope's Power sometimes higher and sometimes lower as appears to any one that reads either his Works or Cassander's Citations from him And as to Melancthon the Phoenix of Learning I am not concerned to search what he wrote to the Cardinal Belay And it may be I am civil in doing it He was a Wit that once charged it as an incivility upon his Acquaintance that he should take so much pains to prove him a Lyar. It is certain that Melancthon in his Loci Communes where he treats professedly upon this Subject declares fully and roundly against all this that is cited from him And therefore I presume that his judgment does not concur with Melancthon's for if it does he is no new Convert for he has found nothing that can call for a submission of Reason and Conscience nothing like to that Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church which a new Convert is bound to defend But because our Authour in desence of the Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Church has given such Citations from Protestants I 'll indeavour to requite him by one from a very good Roman Catholick and that is Cassander He in his Book de Officio pii hominis speaks to this purpose That there are some who because they see yet remaining amongst them not a few things that have descended down from Antiquity or the first Christians will keep up the present state of the Church just as it is though it be corrupt and foully stained by abuses that have crept in by little and little Nor will they suffer any thing to be alter'd though it may be done agreeable enough to the Decrees or Canons of the Ancients Pontificem verò Romanum quem Papam dicimus tant um non Deum faciunt ejusque Autoritatem non modò supra totam Ecclesiam sed supra ipsam Scripturam Divinam efferunt sententiam ejus Divinis Oraculis parem imo infallibilem fidei regulam constituunt hos non video cur minus Pseudocatholicos Papistas appellare possis The Roman Bishop whom we call Pope they make little less than God They set up his Authority not onely over the whole Church but over the holy Scripture it self and make his determination equal to the Divine Oracles and no less than an infallible rule of faith I see no cause but that you may give to these the name of false Catholicks and Papists Thus said that good man concerning the

Sticklers for Roman Authority and Infallibility and that in a time when he contended most earnestly to bring in peace and good temper amongst Christians and had endeavoured passionately to persuade men to lay aside ill Language and odious Names such as one Party threw at another all which he says were cast up out of Hell such as these Papists Antichristians Ministers of Satan and on the other side Hereticks Schismaticks Apostates Though he heartily wish'd these Names out of the World yet he could be content that two or three of them were always ready to be thrown in the teeth of such Persons as our Authour would seem to be This remark I give to shew our Authour that I do not set down the Sayings and Opinions of others without considering first what weight and stress is to be laid upon them For I must consess that it is to me a scandal and matter of offence to find this Set of Authorities which our Authour uses in the same order and in the same words in another late Book intitled Pax vobis this seems to speak that the Authours of both these transcribed and never considered what force was in their Citations Is this fair dealing with a Man 's own Conscience or with his Readers when he is weighing of Religions and offering motives of Reconciliation either to himself or to others to act thus supinely This is worse than to take a journey to Edinburgh upon the next Hackney and never consider whether he be a Jade or no. A journey to Heaven is long to be sure of greatest importance He that takes up a new Religion to carry him thither had need use eyes and ears and heart and head too St. Paul had reason when he advised us to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling but all men will not doe this they are in too much haste They that take satisfaction without reason and in spite of reason change their Religion cannot act with that caution which the great Apostle requires If I am not much out in my guess which I must leave to the Reader 's judgment when he has compared this Set of Citations with those in Pax vobis Pag. 70 71. we have here one of the most wretched Pleas that ever was used by a Writer It is not more than this I have met with some sayings of Men whom I care not for when or where or to what end they were spoken I never considered nor yet whether upon second thoughts they did not retract them my judgment concurs with them therefore I have found that lawfull Supreme Authority I searched for and where this Authority is there is Infallibility That is the first Motive to persuade that the Roman Catholick Church has Supreme Authority over all and Infallibility in the exercise of it He should now proceed to a second But instead of that we have Pag. 24 25 26 27. a discourse upon a new Subject so far is our Authour from making these Doctrines to appear reasonable that for so long together he 'll e'en let them shift for themselves his present business is to talk and talk he will of Separation or how the Church of Rome can be said to have separated either from her self or from the Catholick Church either whole or part and where that whole or part remained from whence the Church of Rome separated and then again where she remained and where she may be found and here he is urgent and importunate and will have an answer and that from the Bishops themselves for he comes up closely to the beards of them and tells them In good faith Fathers my Salvation is highly concern'd in this question and I must be satisfied He prevents them from giving such and such answers and swaggers it bravely out in these words I 'll sooner suffer my self to be knockt down with a true Protestant Flayl than with such a Protestant Answer and at last he adds from this reasonable and important request you shall never beat me whilst I live The Man grows warm and it is well for some that they are out of his way who knows what he may doe The occasion of all this noise and clamour he gives us in the 24th Page in these words You had often told me that She the Church of Rome had fallen from her primitive purity and separated her self from the one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Answer to Protestant Queries p. 10. declared also to be Antichristian and the true Church latent and invisible by that famous Napper to King James Brocard Fulk Sebast Francus Hospinian and many others Now what is all this to the Bishops of the Church of England must they answer for every thing that has been said by Fulk and Brocard and Napper or as you call him that famous Napper I pray how famous is he has any of the Bishops of England cited him these forty years does any of this Church reade him or depend upon him if your studies have been upon such Authours the Church of Rome have no great prize of you and these Motives as bad as they are were good enough to make you a Convert But yet there remains one Expression cited out of a little Book which it may be few of the Bishops of England ever saw but yet they must give an accompt of it and all the consequences he can gather from it for he says p. 26. his Salvation is highly concerned in it And it is a reasonable and important request And must the Bishops of England be accomptable for every little writing which they know nothing of would the Bishops of Rome think it fair that all the impertinences of our Authour should be charged upon them certainly no. But he argues that if the Church of Rome was once a pure and uncorrupted Church she remains so still for she can neither separate from her self nor from the Catholick Church Now if this Argument be good he himself is bound to answer for all the consequences that can come from a presumed separation either from it self or from the Catholick Church for we have oft proved and are always ready to prove that the Church of Rome is not the same as to purity and incorruption which it was It is changed it is altered multitudes of Innovations have overspread it and great numbers of Errours by little and little as Cassander says have crept in and prevailed over it But yet for all that we own and assert that there is a Church of Rome as well as a Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch and that though this as well as they have erred not onely in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith So speaks the Church of England in her 19th Article And if she be a Church she must be a Member of the Catholick Church for every part must be contained in the whole None of us doubt but that the Church of Rome receives all the Canonical Scriptures that we