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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	authority_n	church_n	reason_n	1,519	5	4.9993	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36261	Two short discourses against the Romanists by Henry Dodwell ...	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1676 (1676)	Wing D1825; ESTC R1351	55,174	261

not excuse the Censured Person for continuing out of her Communion when the Communion may be recovered by any Submission how inconvenient and harsh soever if it be not sinful yet that is the very Case here that we are not only wrongfully Excommunicated but the terms proposed for our restitution to Communion would be directly sinful as has been shewn before Whence it will follow that we are excusable not only in suffering our Selves to be cast out of their Communion but also in continuing out of it But because this is not our whole Case who do not only abstein from their Communion but set up a Communion of our own and maintain an Ecclesiastical Body Politick distinct from theirs our defence herein will depend on the Justice of the Ecclesiastical power of those Persons who govern our Ecclesiastical Assemblies And therefore 2. All our concernment for Antiquity here will be that our Bishops derived their power from such as derived theirs with a power of communicating it in a continual Succession from the Apostles And this we do acknowledge true concerning the Popish Bishops themselves and do derive the validity of our Orders from the Antiquity of theirs without any more prejudice to our Cause than the Primitive Catholicks did suffer by acknowledging the validity of Baptism administred by Hereticks For the Succession of their Pastors is very reconcilable with a supposed Innovation in their Doctrines and certainly themselves cannot deny that it is so whilst they charge the Orientals with Heresie whom yet they cannot deny to have alwaies maintained as uninterrupted a Succession of Bishops as themselves especially considering that the Innovations we charge them with of adding false and new Articles of Faith not of denying the old ones do not in the least interrupt or invalidate their Succession This therefore being supposed that the first Bishops of our English Reformation received their power from such as had derived theirs by an uninterrupted succession from the Apostles it will follow that they were valid Bishops and if so had the power of keeping Church-Assemblies and exercising Jurisdiction in them both for the Government of their present Charges and communicating their power to succeeding Generations For nothing of this is pretended to exceed the power of a valid Bishop The charge of Heresy it self cannot hinder the validity of their Orders either received or communicated though it may indeed in the Judgment of them who believe them so render them obnoxious to Canonical Incapacities of executing them and to Legal Degradations not from the Character but from the actual Jurisdiction properly belonging to their Office But to such Canonical Incapacities and Degradations they will not deny even validly-Ordeined Persons themselves to be obnoxious and therefore cannot make that an Argument against the validity of our Orders And yet when this Charge of Heresy against our Bishops is not here to be Judged by the pretences of our Adversaries but by the merit of the Cause and therefore is not to be taken f●r granted till it be proved That therefore which is indeed new in the Church of England is That though her Positive Doctrines and Orders be Ancient yet the Profession of her Negatives and the open Assertion of her Liberty from the Encroachments of the Roman Court and all her other Practices grounded on these Principles were not avowed by her Ecclesiastical Governors for several Centuries before the Reformation And in Answer hereunto I shall insist on the heads already intimated Therefore 1. There was no reason to expect that her opposition to these Errors should have been Ancienter though we should suppose the Errors themselves to have been so For there was no reason to expect that Errors should have been discovered for some Ages before the Reformation when there was so great a want of that kind of Grammatical and Historical Learning which is only fit to qualifie a Person to Judge of Ecclesiastical Tradition at least they were not likely to have been discovered by such a number as had been requisite to maintain an open opposition And if the Errors had been discovered yet it was not easie to expect success in holding out against the Court of Rome which was then so very powerful and there was no reason to expect such attempts from Prudent Persons where there was no probability of success And there was yet least reason of all to expect this opposition from Bishops then when no Bishops were made without the Popes consent which he was not likely to give to such as were likely to oppose him when after they were made they were obliged to be true to Him by express Oaths as well as by their Interests of peaceable continuance or hopes of future preferment when at least it was impossible to resist their Fellow-Bishops the generality of whom were in all likelyhood swayed by these Prejudices when they had seen mighty Princes themselves worsted in those Contests and the extreme Severity of that Court against Dissenters when lastly differing from the Church of Rome in any thing was counted Heresy and Heresy was prosecuted with the extremest Infamy which must needs weaken the Authority of those Opposers with others as well as other Penalties of the Canon-Law Nor 2. Does the Justice of our Cause require a greater Antiquity for our Negatives For 1. Our Negatives are not pretended to be of perpetual obligation but only for preventing the malignity of the contrary Affirmative Articles to which they are opposed And therefore there is no reason to expect Formal Negatives opposed to Additional Articles from the beginning before the Additional Articles themselves were thought of nor to expect a Reformation of Abuses before there were Abuses to be Reformed seeing that in course of Nature these Negatives presuppose the contrary Affirmatives as a pretence of Reformation must also presuppose Abuses And therefore the pretence of the greater Antiquity of our Adversaries Errors and Abuses is so far from prejudicing the reputation of our Negatives and Reformation as that it is indeed the best Argument of their Justice and Seasonableness For such Negatives as these and such a Reformation must needs have been unwarrantable if there had not been before Errors fit to be denyed and Abuses fit to be reformed Nor 2. Is it any Prejudice to the Justice of our Cause that these Errors were not opposed with formal Negatives as soon as they appeared For such Errors as these were usually first received as the Opinions of private Persons before they were countenanced by Authority and whilst they proceeded no further there was not that mischief in them nor consequently that obligation to oppose them as when at length they came to be so countenanced For the Errors of Private Persons whilst they are no more are not conceived so to oblige us to be of their mind as that our silence should in any Prudence be expounded as an Argument of our consent and consequently cannot be such a provocation to us to oppose them

it were impartially Enquired into there would not be greater and better attested Miracles for Invocation of Saints among the Romanists than for the Invocation of Daemons among the Pagans 4. That the same Arguments used by the Scriptures and Primitive Christians against the Heathen Idolatries are applyed by the Protestants to the Image-worship among the Papists now and the same Answers given by the Papists now were then also insisted on by the Pagans 5. That as these are very shrew'd Suspicions of the dangerousness of this Worship so this danger is ventured on without the least necessity there being undeniable Security from the Primitive Records and Revelations of Christianity that God is pleased to accept such Prayers as are addressed to him through the Intercession of Christ alone so that there can be no necessity of having also recourse unto the Saints 6. That Image-worship is not countenanced by as much as any Venerable Authority of truly Primitive Christianity and that the Second Nicaene Council that introduced it was put to very disingenuous Shifts of counterfeit Authorities for it 7. That whatever may be thought of the Worship designed by the Roman Church yet even Mr. Thorndike himself with whose Authority our Adversaries principally urge us in this Dispute does not deny that Idolatry is practiced by the Ignoranter Persons of that Communion which the Gentlewoman may justly fear lest it should prove her own Case 8. That the Roman Church her self cannot be altogether excused from the Idolatry of her Ignorant Communicants seeing she puts unnecessary Scandals in Ignorant Persons way and is guilty of encouraging their Ignorance and Carelessness of Judging in matters of Religion 9. That the Practice of that Communion is genera●ly worse and grosser than their Principles as the Gentlewoman may inform her self of in that impartial account which is given of them by Sir Edwyn Sandys in his Speculum Europae which yet is observed and countenanced by their most Eminent Guides so that such as She cannot secure themselves from the danger of it 10. That the Romish Church is by so much the more culpable in this Particular because She has not been content only to countenance and encourage a Practice in so great danger of proving Idolatrous so needless in it self so destitute of all Authority either of Scripture or the Primitive Catholick Church which yet does so extremely stand in need of Authority but She has also imposed it as a Condition of her own Communion which She calls Catholick so that they who are willing to Believe and Practice all that was Believed and Practised in the Primitive Church must now be Anathematized and condemned for Hereticks for refusing to Believe or Practice any more or to condemn those as Hereticks who do refuse it Q. 3. Where was the Church of England before Luthers time THE design of asking this Question is certainly to make our Confession of Novelty in such Cases wherein our Adversaries presume our Novelty so notorious as that we our Selves cannot deny it an Argument against Us yet they themselves are concerned in some Cases to deny its cogency For even they cannot deny that the deprivation of the Laity of the use of the Cup for Example has been lately introduced into their Church by a publick Law If therefore it may appear that our Church is Antient as to all intents and purposes wherein Antiquity may be available but that the Church of Rome is not so and that in the sense wherein the Church of England has begun since Luther there is no reason to expect that She should have been Antienter and that the Justice of her Cause does not require it and that the Antiquity upon these Suppositions confessedly allowed to the Church of Rome is no Argument for the Justice of her Cause these things I think will contain a fully satisfactory Answer to the Gentlewomans Question I shall not at present engage on an accurate Discussion of these Heads but shall only suggest such short Observations as may let her see how unreasonable our Adversaries confidence is in this Argument wherein they do so usually triumph Therefore 1. Antiquity is indeed necessary to be pleaded for Doctrines such especially as are pretended to belong to the Catholick Faith and which are urged as Conditions of Communion This is the Case wherein it is urged by Tertullian and Vincentius Lirinensis in their very rational Discourses on this Argument And for this I think we may challenge the Church of Rome her self to instance in one positive Doctrine imposed by us which She her self thinks not Ancient I am sure the Controversie is so stated commonly that we are blamed not for Believing any thing antient or necessary which is not but for not believing some things which She believes to be so And if She her self believe all our Positives and withal believes that nothing is so to be believed but what is Antient it will clearly follow that She cannot in consistency with her own interests deny the Antiquity of our Positive Doctrines But for the other Doctrines superadded by them and denied by us which are indeed the true occasion of the present Divisions of Communion we charge them with Innovation and are very confident that they will never be able to prove them to the satisfaction of any Impartial Person either from clear Scripture or from genuine Antiquity of the first and purest Ages which are the way wherein we are willing to undertake the proof of our positive Doctrines Nay their greatest Champions decline the tryal and complain of the defectiveness and obscurity of the Primitive Christian Writers which they would not have reason to do if they thought them clear on their side These things therefore being thus supposed That no Doctrines ought to be imposed but what are Ancient That ours are so by our Adversaries own Confession and that our Adversaries Doctrines are not so and that in Judging this the private Judgments of particular Persons are to be trusted as the measures of their own private Practice as it is plain that those Discourses of Tertullian and Vincentius Lirinensis are principally designed for the satisfaction of particular Persons which had been impertinent if the Churches Judgment had been thought Credible in her own Case as a Judge of Controversies besides that even now this Argument from Antiquity is made use of for convincing such as are supposed unsatisfied with her Authority and therefore to whom that Authority can be no Argument which Liberty of private Judgment is then especially most fit to be indulged when the distance is so remote as it is now when no Church has now those Advantages for conveying down Apostolical Tradition in a Historical way as She had then These things I say being thus supposed it will follow that we are wrongfully Excommunicated and therefore that we have no reason to fear that their Censures should be confirmed by God And though I confess every Error in the Cause of the Churches Censures will