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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

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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
Pope's Supremacy In charity I was bound to pity him and tell him something which he did not know and thereby if possible to move him to take more care if ever he writes again I pitied the World too to see it in danger to be abused by such impertinencies at this time of day Onely allow me the favour to acquaint you that Petrus de Marca speaking of those Sardican Canons lib. 7. Petrus de Marca de concord Imper. Sacerdot cap. 15. par 4 5. expresly asserts that they were unknown in Africa and other Provinces till Zosimus his days and withall he shews how the Africans at last came to submit to them and that was upon many and those not commendable reasons the first of which is this Cessere tandem ob pertinaciam sedis Apostolicae Pontificum qui nihil remittere voluerunt ex jure sibi legitimè quaesito in Concilio Generali Occidentis Sardicensi nimirum praesertim cùm possessioni eorum consensissent Africani Episcopi qui ad certum tempus morem gesserant defideriis Summorum Pontificum And the last is from the difficulties which the incursions of the Vandals brought upon them who being Arians made it necessary for the Churches of Africa at any rate to purchase the savour and assistence of the Romans incursio Vandalorum Ariani erant in Africa dominabantur Africanos necessitate adigebat ad arctissimam unionem cum Ecclesia Romanâ It seems then that the Popes after long contests prevailed not by the merits of their Cause but by their stiffness or pertinacious insisting upon demands right or wrong And by making advantages of the necessities of others when Vandals and those too Arian Hereticks had master'd them and lay hard upon them for then those Orthodox Christians were forced to yield up their rights to the Popes before they could obtain necessary reliefs from them Thus said that wise and learned Roman Catholick And he himself in the writing of this gives us cause to believe the truth of this remark for he then found in his own experience the same stiffness and pertinacity and therefore puts in words to please them quite contrary to the design of his Discourse For he shews plainly that they had no right and yet was forced to say they had ex jure legitimè quaesito He shews that the Sardican Fathers who made this Canon after the secessionof the others could not make up any shew of a general Council yet says that right was obtained in Concilio generali Sardicensi nimirum Now Sir if you can think that the Roman Bishops have proceeded in these methods I hope you will hereafter less puzzle your self and your Friends with your Queries concerning the prodigious Power of the Papacy how it could get up at first by such slender pretences and how it could hand with such weak props how men could be so bold as to challenge in behalf of the Roman Bishops so illustrious a Supremacy so unlimited Authority so glorious a Vicegerency as the Vicariatship of Christ himself must speak All these will be much easier to you when you have considered these two things first the mighty effects of a pertinacious stiffness in demands right or wrong and secondly what it is to take all advantages upon the necessities of others especially at such a time when those barbarous People Goths and Vandals and Huns and Saxons had overrun so many parts of the World 2. A second point of Controversie between the Church of Rome and the Church of England which according to our Authour was determined by ancient Councils is that about the Apocryphal Books P. 20. which he says were taken into the Canon of the Old Testament in the Third Council of Carthage signed by St. Augustine Baruch onely not named Canon 47. Now to this it is sufficient to say that the Subject is exhausted and there is nothing left for another Writer to add to it The Learned Dr. Cosens in his Discourse of the Canon of the Scripture parag 82. has said more than enough for the satisfaction of any learned Roman Catholick as well as Protestant and if our Authour would presume to reply it will cost him more pains than the writing of a dozen such Books as these But some small return may be expected He shall therefore have this That the Canon he quotes out of the Council of Carthage Canon 47. apud Binnum Canon 27. in Synodico Bevereg does not provide for the taking of Books into the Canon of Scripture but for throwing of Books out of the Church It says at first that no Books should be read in Churches but these and then it says in the close that they had received from the Fathers that these were there to be read Now our Authour knows that though we call these Books Apocryphal yet we reade them in our Churches and that as much and more than they do in the Church of Rome and that all of them except the two Books of the Maccabees Now as to these Dr. Cosin 's Scholast Hist p. 112 113. they are nt mentioned in any of the Greek Copies of this Canon nor yet in Cresconius his Collection of the African Canons and how they came to be inserted we must remit him to Dionysius Exiguus for his satisfaction But if our Authour had any material doubt concerning the Church of England's Doctrine about Canonical and Apocryphal Books he would have done well to have considered the sentiments of the Doctours of the Roman Church before he had concluded against us Now I believe that Cardinal Cajetan where he endeavours to reconcile the Council of Carthage with Saint Augustine would have given him reason enough never to have used this objection against the Church of England He says indeed against Protestants but not those of the English Communion in fine Commentariorum ad Hist V. N. T. Ne turberis Novitie si alicubi reperias libros istos inter Canonicos supputatos vel in sacris Conciliis vel in sacris Doctoribus libri isti non sunt Canonici ad confirmanda ea quae sunt fidei possunt tamen dici Canonici ad aedificationem fidelium ut pote in Canone Biblii ad hoc recepti autorati Cum hâc distinctione discernere poteris scripta Augustini scripta in provinciali Synodo Carthaginensi Now this agrees well enough with the Doctrine in the Articles and practice prescribed in the Rubrick of the Church of England And besides Can. Apostol 85. this distinction has its foundation in a very venerable Authority for the Apostolick Canons make a great deal of difference and that upon the same ground between some and other Books calling some of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 venerable and holy but then of the Book called the Wisedom of Solomon or the Son of Sirach and that most certainly is the best of the Apocrypha say it is to be learnt by the Young Men or the Catechumens for