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
A42231	Hugo Grotius, Of the government and rites of the ancient church, conciliation of grace and free will, certainty and assurance of salvation, government of the highest powers in church affairs in a letter to the states embassador.	Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645.; Barksdale, Clement, 1609-1687.	1675 (1675)	Wing G2118; ESTC R34449	21,440	54

is due neither to King nor Council For neither may a Council be believ'd for it self but for the testimony of Scripture on which it relies because true Faith of things Divine cannot be had but by Divine authority This sense of the King the King himself shall I say or Molinaeus best of all explains in his book against Cardinal Perron saying The Emperors never ascribed to themselves absolute judgment and infallible concerning Doctrin but that they took knowledge of the Decisions of Councils and not of Discipline alone he there both confesses and proves adding that the Emperors examin'd whether nothing was decreed in the Assembly of Bishops repugnant to former Councils and that unless this be lawful for a King the King will be nothing else but Lictor Ecclesiasticorum Hence it appears sufficiently that the Kings judgment is bound to the word of God but may be instructed and led by the Bishops yet not so but that he ought to make use of his own judgment And reason exacts as much For no action is good but which proceeds from the judgment of the doer and the King as King his office is to cherish true Doctrine by his laws and to suppress the contrary He ought therefore to have judgment also of the Doctrine Nor is here any more attributed to a King than to a private man For private men for themselves by the Word of God judge of Articles of Faith but the effects differ in as much as a King can do more than a private person as also the judgment of a Father of a family who is chief in a great house is more largly extended than his who is the poor inhabitant of a Cottage To that censure where they are called flatterers who moved this question in Holland 't were easy to return one as sharp that they are justly suspected of affecting a new papacy who so much decline the judgment of the Magistrate What follows that it might more easily be suffered that the Magistrates should judge of controversies in Religion if our Country were sure to have such Magistrates as it hath now I cannot fully approve knowing Theses ought not to be changed as the Times change nor is any thing because expedient the more or less true Herein also he is mistaken when he opposeth a few Magistrates to a great assembly of Pastors For with us the Government is not in the hand of fewer persons then they who are wont to meet in Synods who if they be not as skilful in Theological points as the Pastors are though he that thinks so knows not what many of our Pastors be but grant this Surely they are for the keeping of peace and tranquillity much better affected than they that are the Preachers of peace For so much as skill conduceth unto judgment no less doth study of parties hinder it We do not speak this that Judgments of Synods should be omitted No verily for they are of very great use But for a King to be so tyed up with them that against his own conscience he ought to follow the Synodical decrees I cannot consent to this And these matters are under dispute among us but in Germany and other places the Princes do openly exercise this Right not one of the Pastors contradicting I must now make an end for if I would cast into paper whatsoever comes into my mind about this Argument I should be not sparing of my own time and prodigal of yours This only I protest to you in conclusion that concerning predestination of Grace Free will and other questions of this kind I had rather hear the Judgments of other men than declare my own but of Magistrates I have here said nothing whereof I am not very certain 1515. The decease of Grotius Doctor Quistorpius in his letter dated at Rostoch Anno 1645. The next day after his entrance into this City Aug. 18. He sent for me about nine at night I came and found him drawing nigh to death I saluted him and said Oh that I had been so happy as to have conferred with you safely arrived Thus it hath pleased God said he I exhort him to prepare himself for a blessed departure to confess himself a sinner to be sorry for his sins and with the Publican beg for mercy I saith he am that Publican Then proceeding I refer him to Christ without whom is no salvation He adds In Christ alone is all my hope reposed I rehearsed aloud the usual Form of Prayer Heer Jesu c. He with closed hands and an humble voice said after me At the end I asked whether he understood me He replied I understand you well I go on minding him of such Scriptures as are wont to be suggested at the hour of death and ask if he understands me He answers I hear your voice but hardly understand what you say Having said this he was silent and a little after expried at the point of twelve Let him rest in peace The End Ad Bonis I. 1. Epist 46 de gra and lib. arbis c. 2. De fide ad Pet. Ad obj Vinc. resp 12. Ad Oan Gal. 7. I. Sent. sup cit c. 7. De fide 5.3

not If forbidden by Divine law as I conceive it is if the King be supposed not yet repenting the King will not be subject to the Ecclesiastick laws which Molinaeus saith but to the Divine which none denies The like is in a judge of petty causes commanded by the King to give sentence against equity This Judge will not do so if he be wife Is the King therefore subject to the Judge No verily but the Judge is so subject to the King that he must acknowledge above the earthly King the Empire of his heavenly King who forbiddeth injury to be done to any But if you suppose here some law not Divine but positive proceeding from humane will to this law whosoever shall affirm a King to be subject so as to be unable in any case to relax the legal bond he denies him to be a King The Canons of many Synods forbid Episcopal seats to be erected into Metropolitan they forbid new Bishops or Metropolitans to be constituted or a Bishop to do sacred offices in another Diocese they forbid Bishops to undertake civil imployments Nevertheless by command of the Emperors all this was done very often The Greek Interpreters give the reason because the Emperor is not subject neither to the Laws nor Canons Next Molinaeus enquires whether the Kings Counsellors must be Doctors of Divinity or it be also necessary for the King to be a learned Divine Verily my opinion is that the knowledge of things Divine is requisit in a King and in his chief Counsellors not that he may be a King They Counsellors but to the end they may rightly perform the work of their places But I say nor such knowledge as to distinguish every truth from falshood for the greatest Professor of Theology cannot promise himself this but to put a difference between things necessary to be believed or done and things not necessary between Heretical and not Heretical And in the same manner I conceive both the knowledge of the laws and the art of Governing are desired in a King But saith Molinaeus 't is fit the less learned be taught by the more learned This argument if it prove the less learned must submit to the judgment of the more learned then in Synods also the Pastors ought to yield to the Doctors for Molinaeus names them as men of the greatest learning And yet 't is certain that Pastors have not less if not more right than Doctors Our men are wont to use the testimony of Panormitan that a private person's Judgment confirmed with better autority of Scripture is to be prefer'd before the judgment of a Patriarch To come to the matter It is indeed the part of the more learned to teach the less learned but not to have command over them Therefore a Country Judge as the laws tell us is not obliged by the Response of Lawyers nor is a sick man bound to the prescript of his Physitian but so far as no reason of his own strongly perswades him to the contrary Another question follows whether a Magistrate may adjoyn himself to the lesser number of Pastors Strange that this should be asked by a Pastor reformed seeing all Magistrates who have in our age reform'd the Church rightly believ'd the lesser number of Pastors against the greater But in the Nicene Synod Constantine yielded to the more and did not addict himself to the fewer Yea he yielded to the plain and manifest truth which the greater number at that time by Gods blessing followed This doth not always happen for the greater part oft overcomes the better But if sentences are to be numbred not weighed the Arimin Council of cccc Bishops will be of more value than the Nicene of cxviii And what should the Emperor have done when as Jerom testifies the whole World groaned and wonderd it was turned Arian was paucity then to be despised multitude to be followed No man in his right mind will say so The two Kings are blamed for not believing one Michaia rather than four hundred false Prophets Well then the different parties are to be heard but the Prince ought to lend his autority to that cause not which hath most suffrages but whose equity the vigor of truth well try'd hath commended to him That Rule Every man must be believ'd in his own Art hath some probability but not perpetual certainty And there is a difference of Arts-men that often times it is expedient to trust a few rather than many So true is the common saying The worst are most Theology indeed is not the proper Art of a King but the Art most convenient for him is that which learned Writers call regal leading architechtonical whereof the most noble part is that which I have named the knowledge of things Divine not descending to all subtilties of the School nor yet staying within the mean endowments of a private man but comprehending all the chiefest points and of such a measure that if any thing be wanting it may be supplied by the Ministery of others And I have said before the like measure of other Arts is desir'd in a King though I doubt not if there be any science to which a King should addict his peculiar study it is Theology They greatly erre who do either represent or make it so obscure and difficult as to deter Princes from that study which the Divine law so much commends unto them But if in that respect the highest power in causes Ecclesiatical is to be denied the King neither will the right of making laws many being better Lawyers belong unto him I fear also that the same reason will exclude many Pastors from all right of suffrage I do not well understand what Molinaeus saith of the King of England For he affirmeth him to be the supreme Judge in all Causes as well Ecclesiastick as civil yet not to be the judge of controversies nor to own that Title How Controversies can be exempt from the universal appellation of Causes I see not when Judgment is not usually given but of things controverted But he seemeth to distinguish between matters of Faith and other Church-affairs But to judge what is an Idol what is Idolatry does it not pertain to Faith Queen Elizabeth and her brother King Edward preferred the Reformation above Papism not by an ignorant zeal I suppose but with good judgment Now the contention between the Papists and the Reformed is concerning Articles of Faith The King whose words are alledged as removing from himself the judgment about Articles of Faith did he not hear at Hampton Court the Bishops on the one side the Puritans on the other as Arbiter as Judge When the Conference was not only of Church Government but of predestination and assurance of salvation Did he not pronounce what seemed to him right What is it then that he putteth from himself That authority which the Pope claimeth who makes himself a Judge infallible to be believ'd on his own word without the Scriptures This Right certainly