Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	authority_n	pope_n	prince_n	1,488	5	5.9235	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27045	The successive visibility of the church of which the Protestants are the soundest members I. defended against the opposition of Mr. William Johnson, II. proved by many arguments / by Richard Baxter ; whereunto is added 1. an account of my judgement to Mr. J. how far hereticks are or are not in the church, 2. Mr. Js. explication of the most used terms, with my queries thereupon, and his answer and my reply, 3. an appendix about successive ordination, 4. letters between me and T.S., a papist, with a narrative of the success.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Johnson, William, 1583-1663.	1660 (1660)	Wing B1418; ESTC R17445	166,900	438

transcribe if I thought that you could not as well read Print as M. S. of higher expressions then Caput and fundamentum given to Andrew by Isychius and equal expressions to others as well as Rome and Peter And who is ignorant that knowe●h any thing of Church-history that others were called successours of Peter as well as the Bishop of Rome And that the Claves regni were given to him is no proof that they were not given also to all the rest of the Apostles And where you say Arcadius condemneth Nestorius for contemning the command of the Apostolick Sea You tell me not where to find it I answer you still that its long since your Sea begun to swell and rage but if you must have us grant you all these consequences Celestine commanded therefore he justly commanded therefore another might not as well have commanded him as one Pastor may do another though equall in the name of Christ and therefore he had power to command without the Empire even over all the Catholick Church and therefore the Council was of this mind yea therefore the universal Church was of this mind that the Pope was its universal head You still are guilty of sporting about serious things and moving pity instead of offering the least proof Yet fear you not to say that in the time of the holy Oecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon the universal consent of the whole Catholick Church was for you in this point The Lord keep our consciences from being the servants of our opinions or interests 1. Was the Popes Legate the whole Catholick Church 2. Was there one man at either of these Councils but within the Empire yea a piece of the Empire So that they were but such as we now call National Councils that is consisting only of the subjects of one Republick 3. Did the Council speak a word for your power without the Empire 4. Do they not determine it so expresly to be of humane right that Bellarmine hath nothing regardable to say against it Can. 28. Conc. Chalced. but that they spoke falsly And yet your opinion or interest hath tempted you to appeal viz. to the Sun that there is no such thing as light 21. After the conclusion you have a supernumerary in your Margin from Greg. lib. 10. Epist. 30. But there is no such word in that Epistle nor is it of any such subject But is the 31. Epistle its like that your leader meant And there 's no more but that a Bishop not named person or place having fallen into Schism voluntarily swore never more to depart from the Unity of the Catholick Church or the sea of Rome But 1. So may a Bishop of the Roman Province do or Patriarchate without believing Rome to be the Universal Head So might one in any other Province have done And yet it follows not that he ought to do so because he did so You see now what all your proofs are come to and how shamefully naked you have left your cause In summ of all the testimonies produced 1. You have not named one man that was a Papist Pope Leo was the nearest of any man nor one testimony that ever a Pope of Rome had the Government of all the Church without the verge of the Roman Empire but only that he was to the Roman Church as the Archbishop of Canterbury to the English Church And as between Canterbury and York so between Rome and Constantinople there have been contentions for preheminency But if I can prove Canterbury to be before York or Rome before Constantinople that will prove neither of them to be Ruler at the Antipodes or of all the Christian world 2. Much less have you proved that ever any Church was of this opinion that the Pope was by Divine Right the Governour of all the world when you cannot prove one man of that opinion 3. Much less have you proved a succession of such a Church from the Apostles having said as much as nothing concerning the first 300 years 4. And yet much less have you proved that the whole Catholick Church was of this opinion 5. And least of all have you proved that the whole Church took this Primacy of Rome to be of necessity to the very Being of the Church and to our salvation and not only ad melius esse as a point of Order So that you have left your Cause in shameful nakedness as if you had confessed that you can prove nothing In the end you return to terms To what you say about the word Christians I only say that it s but equivocally applied to any that profess not all the Essentialls of Christianity of which Popery is none any more then Pride is About the word Monarch in good sadness do you deny the Pope to be an imperious sole Commander Which of these is it that you deny not that he is a Commander not that he is imperious not that he is sole in his Soveraignty I would either you or we knew what you hold or deny But perhaps the next words shew the difference as Temporal Kings But this saith not a word wherein they differ from Temporal Kings sure your following words shew not the difference 1. Kings may receive power from Christ. 2. Kings must rule in meekness charity and humility But I think the meekness charity and humility of Popes hath been far below even wicked Kings if cruel murdering Christians for Religion and setting the world on fire may be witness as your own Histories assure us 3. The Government of Kings also is for mens eternal good however Papists would make them but their executioners in such things 4. Brethren as such are no subjects and therefore if the Pope Rule men but as Brethren he rules them not by Governing authority at all 5. Children to him we are not You must mean it but Metaphorically And what mean you then Is it that he must do it in Love for their good So also must Kings So that you have yet exprest no difference at all But our Question is not new nor in unusuall terms What Soveraignty you claim you know or should know Are you ignorant that Bellarmine Boverius and ordinarily your Writers labour to prove that the Government of the Church is Monarchicall and that the Pope is the Monarch the supream Head and Ruler which in English is the Soveraign Are you ashamed of the very Cause or Title of it which you will have necessary to our salvation Next you say that you very much dislike the Title of Vice-Christ as proud and insolent and utterly disclaim from it neither was it ever given by any sufficient authority to your Popes or did they ever accept of it Reply Now blessed be God that makes sin a shame to it self that the Patrons of it dare scarce own it without some paint or vizard 1. Is not the very life of the Cause between you and us whether the Pope be the Universal Head of the Church vice Christi

so many years as that at Trent did are then become an Ordinary Government 4. What is given to the Church Representative is by many of you given to the Church reall or essentiall as you call it which is ordinarily existent only not capable of exerting the power it hath The singulis major at universis minor is no rare doctrine with you 5. But let it be as extraordinary as you please if while these Councils sit the Pope lose his Headship your Church is then two Churches specifically distinct and the form of it changeth when a Council sitteth which is a two-headed mutable Church not like the Spouse of Jesus Christ. 6. As your Popes are said to live in their constitutions and Laws when the person dyeth and your Church is not thought by you to die with them so why may not Councils do The Laws of Councils live when they sit not and the French think that these Laws are above the Pope though I shewed you even now that Iulius 2. in Conc. Later concluded otherwise of Decrees and the Council of the Popes power 7. If a Nation be Governed by Trienniall and so Decenniall Parliaments as the highest power and Councils of State in the intervalls who shall be accountable to Parliaments will you say that these Parliaments are extraordinary and not the ordinary Soveraign No doubt they are And the Council of State is not the Soveraign but the chief Officer or Magistrate for execution in the intervals Having begun this Reply May 2. I was again taken off it about May 5. or 6. And about May 11. I received a Letter from you wherein you tell me of a quarter of a years expectation Be patient good Sir These matters concern Eternity Believe it I have somewhat else to do of greater hast and moment Even some of your own friends find me more work What if ten of you write to me at once is it fair for each one of you to call for an answer as hastily as if I had but one in hand This is not my case but it is more then thus Fear not lest I give you over till you first prove the deserter and turn your back if God enable me Only I must tell you that I take it for a flight already and a forsaking of your Cause that you turn to these rambling impertinent citations and discourses in stead of a Syllogisticall arguing the case and that when you had spoken so much for it I have here that you may have no cause of exception nor pretence of cause in this Paper replyed to your last and in another proved the Visibility of our Church syllogistically and as overplus also disproved yours and proved it to be an upstart the sprout of Pride upon occasion of the greatness of the City of Rome and of the forming the Church to the Civil State in that one Empire If now you will deny to do the like I shall conclude you fly and forsake your Cause Besides your Rejoinder to this Reply I principally expect that you syllogistically in close and faithfull Arguing do prove to us the Affirmative of these Questions following Qu. Whether the Church of which the subjects of the Pope are Members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth In which these three Questions are involved which you have to prove 1. Whether the Papacy that is the Vniversal Monarchy or Soveraign Government or Vice-Christship of the Pope take which term you like hath continued from Christs dayes till now 2 Whether all the Catholick Church did still submit to it and were subjects of the Pope 3. Whether those that did submit to it did take it to be necessary to the Being of the Church and the salvation of all believers or only to the more peaceable and better being If you call for Catalogues or proof of Visible succession and pretend so high to it your selves and yet will give us none when we importune you to it you tell us that you seek not to reveal the truth and Church but to hide them I urge you the harder though it may seem immodest because as the Cause doth lie upon your proof here so I know you cannot do it Pardon my confidence I know you can do no more then Baronius Bellarmine Bullinger c. set together have done and therefore I say I know you cannot do it I know your Vice-Christ I doubt the Antichrist is of humane introduction springing out of a Nationall I mean Imperiall Primacy which also was of humane invention It was but one Civil Government or Commonwealth in which your Bishop had his Primacy and that long without a Governing power And this National Primacy because of the greatness of the Empire was at last called Universal And even this was long after the dayes of Christ some hundreds of years a stranger in the Church unless as the Greatness of the Church of Rome and advantages of the place did give that Church such authority as ariseth from magnitude splendour honour and accidental advantages from the populousness wealth and glory of the City of Rome The carnall Church is led by the Vice-Christ the earthly Prince of Pride contending in the world for command and superiority and prosecuting his Cause with Strappados fire sword and gunpowder when Christ gave no Pastor a Coercive power to touch mens bodies or estates The true spirituall Church is Headed and commanded by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace and knoweth no other Universal Head because no other hath either Capacity or Authority It obeyeth his Laws and learneth of him to be charitable patient meek and lowly and wonders not at errours and divisions on earth nor therefore accuseth the providence of God but knoweth by faith that the Universal Judge of Controversies is at the door and that it is but a very little while and we shall see that the Church had an Universal Head that was alone sufficient for his work for he that cometh will come and will not tarry Amen Even so come Lord Jesus Sir I desire you presently to send me word whether you will by close Syllogisticall arguing prove the successive visibility of your Church as Papal or not that I may know what to expect And once more I pray you take the help of the ablest of your party both that I may not be so troubled with wrong or impertinent allegations and that I may be sure that your insufficient arguings are not from any imperfection of the person but of the Cause If you meet in these Papers with any passages which you think too confident and earnest I beseech you charge them not with uncharitableness or passion for I hope it proceeded not from either but I confess I am inclined to speak confidently where I am certain and to speak seriously about the things of God which are of everlasting consequence May 18. 1659. For Mr. William Iohnson THE SECOND PART Wherein the successive Visibility of the Church of which the

guideth or inspireth him This is at once to believe a Humane and Divine Veracity If any of this be your meaning the last questions remain still to be resolved by you A man may believe that God is true and that his Prophets or inspired messengers are true and yet not understand a word of the message so that still if this will serve a man may be of your Church that knoweth not that ever there was such a person as Jesus Christ or that ever he died for our sins or rose again or that we shall rise And are Infidels of your Church while you are arguing us out But if there be some truths besides the Veracity of God and his Messengers that must be believed you must shew what it is or your Church-members cannot be known Tell me therefore without tergiversation what are the revealed truths that must actually be believed or what is the faith materially in unity whereof all members of the Catholike Church do live I pray fly not but plainly tell me And if again you fly to uncertain points because of the diversity of means of information and say It must be so much to every man as he had means to know I again answer you 1. If a man had no means to know that there is a Christ it seems then he is one of your Church 2. You still damn all your own there being not a man that knoweth all that he had means to know because all have culpably neglected means And so you have no Church 3. Still you make your Church invisible if you had any For no man can tell as I said who knoweth in full proportion to his helps and means Do you not see now whither your Implicite faith hath brought you R. B. Qu. 3. Is it any lawful Pastors or All that must necessarily be depended on by every member and who are these Pastors Mr. J. Answ. Of all respectively to each subject that is that the authority of none of them mediate or immediate be rejected or contemned by him that is a true member of the Church R. B. Reply Ad Qu. 3. R. Reply 1. Here still you tell me that your descriptions signified nothing You told me that the members must live in dependance on their lawful Pastors And now you tell me that their authority must not be rejected or contemned And indeed is dependance and non-rejection all one The millions of heathens that never heard of the Pope or any of your Pastors reject them not nor contemn them Are they therefore fit matter for your Church 2. If you say that you mean it of such only as have a sufficient Revelation of the Authority of these Pastors I further reply 1. It seems then it is not only the Pope but every Priest respectively that is an essential member of your Church or to whom each member must be subject necessarily ad esse If so then every man that by falling out or prejudice doth culpably reject the authority of any one Pastor or Priest among a swarm is damned or none of the Church though he believe in the Pope and in twenty thousand Priests besides 2. And then have we not cause to pray God to bless us from the company of your Priests or at least that we may not have too many when among a multitude we may be in danger of rejecting some one and then we are cast out of the Church What if a Gentleman should find some such as Watson or Montaltus describe in bed with his wife or a Prince find a Garnet a Campion or a Parsons in a Treason and by such a temptation should be so weak as to contemn or reject the authority of that single Priest while he honoureth all the rest Is it certain that such a man is none of the Catholike Church for that How hard is it in France and Italy then to be a Catholike where Priests are so numerous that its ten to one but among the crowd the authority of some one may be rejected 3. But is it all the Priests that we never knew or knew not to be Priests that we must depend on or is it only those whose authority is manifested to us by sufficient evidence Doubtless you will confine our dependance to these only or else no man could be a Christian And if so you know we are never the nearer a resolution for your answer till you yet tell us how we must know our Pastors to have authority indeed What if they shew me the Bishops orders and I know that many have had forged Orders am I bound to believe in his authority what if I be utterly ignorant whether he that ordained him were himself ordained or had intentionem ordinandi how shall I then be sure of his authority that is ordained And how can the people be acquainted with the passages in Election and Ordination that are necessary to the knowledge of their authority especially of the Popes and prelates And what if you tell me your own opinion of the sufficient means by which I must be convinced of the Popes and Priests authority how shall I know that you are not deceived and that these are the sufficient means indeed unless a General Council have defined them to be sufficient And if they have if it were not as an Article of faith you 'l say I am not bound of necessity to believe their definition And what if I have sufficient means to know the authority of a thousand Priests but am culpably ignorant of it in some few through my neglect Doth it follow that therefore I am out of the Church Is my obedience to each Priest as necessary as my belief of every Article of my faith If so I know not whether your multiplying Articles or multiplying Priests doth fill hell faster if men must be judged by your laws But it is our Allegiance to our Soveraign that is the character of a Subject in the Common-wealth and not our Allegiance or duty to every inferiour Magistrate the rejection of one of them may stand with subjection though not with innocency It is not treason to reject a Constable why then should more be necessary to our Church-membership and salvation But still you make your Church invisible For as no man can know that liveth in the remote parts of the world whether your Popes themselves are truly Popes as being duly qualified and elected nor which is the true Pope when you have oft had more then one at once so you can never know concerning your members whether their dependance on their Pastors be extensively proportionate to the means that discovered their authority and whether their disobedience unchurch them or no I earnestly crave your answer to the thirty uncertainties which I have mentioned in my Safe Religion p. 93 to 104. And tell us how all our Pastours may be known And whether every particular sin unchurch men and if not why the contempt or rejection of a drunken Priest doth it while

cannot force our own understandings to believe all such things that you believe and meerly because the Pope commands it and when we cannot thus force our own understandings must we be burned or else called Separatists would you have the Communion of our Ashes or else say We forsake your Communion In your Churches we cannot have leave to come without lying against God and our consciences and saying We believe what our senses contradict and without committing that which our consciences tell us are most heynous sins We solemnly protest that we would do as you do and say as you say were it not for the love of truth and holiness and for fear of the wrath of God and the flames of hell but we cannot we dare not rush upon these errours and sell our souls to please the Pope And must we then either be murdered or taken for uncha●●●●ble will you say to so many poor souls that are ready to enter into another world Either sin against your consciences and so damn your souls or else let us burn and murder you or else you do not love us you are uncharitable if you deny us leave to kill you and you separate from the Communion of the Church We appeal from the Pope and all unreasonable men to the great God of heaven and earth to judge righteously between you and us concerning this dealing As for possessing our selves of your Bishopricks and Cures if any particular person had personal injury in the change being cast out without cause they must answer for it that did it and not I though I never heard any thing to make me believe it But must the Prince and people let alone delinquent Pastors for fear of being blamed for taking their Bishopricks Ministers of the same Religion with us may be cast out for their crimes Princes have power over Pastors as well as David Solomon and other Kings of Israel had Guil. Barklay and some few of your own knew this The Popes treasonable exemption of the Clergy from their Soveraigns judgement will not warrant those Princes before God that neglect to punish offe●●ing Pastors And I beseech you tell us ●hen our consciences after the use of all means that we can use to be informed cannot renounce all our sences nor our reason nor the judgement of the most of the Church or of antiquity or the Word of God and yet we must do so or be no members of your Church what wrong is it to you if we choose us Pastors of our own in the order that God hath appointed Had not the people in all former ages the choice of their Pastors we and our late forefathers here were never under your oversight but we know not why we may not now choose our Pastors as well as formerly We do it not by tumults we kill not men and tread not in their blood while we choose our Pastors as Pope Damasus was chosen The tythes and other temporal maintenance we take from none but the Magistrate disposeth of it as he seeth meet for the Churches good And the maintenance is for the cure or work and therefore they that are justly cast out of the cure are justly deprived of the maintenance And surely when they are dead none of you can with any shew of reason stand up and say These Bishopricks are yours or these Parsonages your●● It is the Incumbent personally that only ●an claim title saving the supereminent title of Christ to whom they are devoted But the successive Popes cannot have title to all the tithes and Temples in the world nor any of his Clergy that never were called to the charges If this be disunion it is you that are the Separatists and cause of all If you will needs tell all the Christian world that except they will be ruled by the Pope of Rome and be burned if they believe not as he bids them in despight of all their senses he will call them Separatists Schismaticks and say they disunite and are uncharitable again we appeal to God and all wise men that are impartial whether it be he or we that is the divider You ask me Is not charity subordination and obedience to the same state and Government required as well to make one Congregation of Christians as it is required to make a Congregation of Commonwealths men Answ. Yes it is But as all the world is one Kingdom under God the universal King but yet hath no universal Vice-King but every Commonwealth only hath its own Soveraign even so all the Christian world is one Church under Christ the universal King of the Church but ha●● not one Vice-Christ but every Church hath its own Pastors as every School hath its own Schoolmaster But all the anger is because we are loth to be ruled by a cruel usurper therefore we are uncharitable Your next reason against me is because They cannot be parts of the Catholike Church unless Arrians and Pelagians and Donatists be parts and so Hereticks and Schismaticks be parts Reply 1. You know sure that your own Divines are not agreed whether Hereticks and Schismaticks are parts of the Church And if they were yet it is not de fide with you as not determined by the Pope If it be then all yours are Hereticks that are for the affirmative Bellarmine nameth you some of them If it be not then how can you be sure its true and so impose it on me that they are no parts 2. Arrians are no Christians as denying that which is essential to Christ and so to Christianity Pelagianism is a thing that you are not agreed among your selves of the true nature of Many of the Dominicans and Jansenists think the Jesuits Pelagianize or Semipelagianize at least I hope you will not shut them out Donatists were ●chismaticks because they divided in the Catholike Church and not absolutely from it and because they divided from the particular Churches about them that held the most universal external Communion I think they were still members of the universal Church but I 'le not contend with any that will plead for his uncharitable denyal It s nothing to our case That the Aethiopians are Eutychian Hereticks I will see better proved before I will believe it Rosses words I so little regard that I will not so much as open his book to see whether he say so or not I know that Heresie is a personal crime and cannot be charged on Nations unless you have evidence that the Nations consent to it which here you have none Some are called Hereticks for denying points essential to Christianity these are no Christians and so not in the Church but many also are called Hereticks by you and by the Fathers for lesser errors consistent with Christianity and these may be in the Church The Abassines and all the rest have not been yet tryed and convicted before any competent Judge and slanderers we regard not 2. Many of your own writers acquit them of Heresie and say the