Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bishop_n	church_n	word_n	1,785	5	4.1063	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65264	A fuller answer to Elimas the sorcerer or to the most material part (of a feign'd memoriall) toward the discovery of the Popish Plot, with modest reflections upon a pretended declaration (of the late Dutchess) for charging her religion : prelates ... in a letter addressed to Mr. Thomas Jones by Richard Watson ... / published by Monsieur Maimburg ...	Watson, Richard, 1612-1685.	1683 (1683)	Wing W1090; ESTC R34094	54,514	31

Pen and Fancy will be such as to eat or penetrate into every cleft of it and not onely break it into shivers but multiply them into heapes of Sand which being washed away by the Spring-tyde of his ingenious approaches and irresistible force of his argumentative assaults their building must needs fall and be carryed into an Abyss or Ocean which they can never fathome or sound the depth of Archbishop Cranmer in his Answer to Smith's Preface speakes not home enough to their purpose where he sayth Truth it is indeed that the Church doth never wholly erre for ever in most darkness God shineth unto his elect and in the midst of all iniquity he governeth them so with his holy word and spirit that the gates of Hell prevaile not against them This Church is the piller of truth because it resteth upon God's word which is the true and sure foundation and will not suffer it to erre and fall Pag. 405. 406. It is the invisible Church his Grace meanes for of the outward and visible he absolutely denies it and this proves I confess rather the perpetuity then infallibility of the Church Bishop Field recollects several acceptions of the Church Book 4. Ch. 2. First as it comprehendeth the whole number of believers that are and have been since Christ appeared in the flesh which Church he sayes is absolutely free from all errour and ignorance of Divine things that are to be known by revelation The second acception is as it comprehendeth only all those believers that are and have been since the Apostles time which in things that are of necessity to be expresly known by all that will be saved that it should erre is impossible And further thinkes it as impossible that any errour whatsoever should be found in all the Pastours and Guides of the Church thus generally taken Touching the Church as it comprehendeth onely the believers that now are in the world he sayes In things necessary to be known and believed expresly and distinctly it never is ignorant much less doth it erre yea in things that are not absolutely necessary to be known and believed expresly and distinctly it never is ignorant much less doth it erre yea in things that are not absolutely necessary to be so known and believed we constantly believe that this Church can never erre nor doubt pertinaciously c. But because I doubt whether our Princess made reflexion upon the Church in such a diffusive sense and supposing that she wanted such an Oracle of Infallibility as to which there could be access for imediate resolve of scruples and doubts upon all occasions which I fear had her H. lived longer to make triall would have been as much missing in the Roman Church as in ours I must lay aside many other excellent Writers upon this point I have before me or at hand and take up one so learned and Orthodox as the best and him the rather because he useth not to be so nice in uttering his mind freely and learnedly and yet making it consistent with the Article of our Church though in appearance point blanck contradictory to what he resolutely concludes it is Bishop Mountagu I mean who in his Appeal where he justifies what he had said in his answer to the Gagger his Position is this The Church Representative true and lawfull never yet erred in Fundamentals and therefore I see no cause but to vouch The Church Representative can not erre The Church Representative is a Generall Councel not titularly so as the Conventicle of Trent but plenarily true generall and lawfull Points Fundamentall be such as are immediate unto faith Let any man living shew me sayes he any historicall mistakings misreportings where when in what any Generall Councell according to true acception or Church Representative hath so erred in the resolution and decission of that Councell for in the debating of doubts questions propositions the case is otherwise and not the same I conceive and acknowledge but four Councells of this kind that of Nice of Constantinople of Ephesus of Chalcedon The Church of England may seem to have been of a contrary mind in her determinations For Artic. 21. we read thus Generall Councels when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the spirit and word of God they may erre and sometime have erred even in things pertaining unto God Which decision of the Article is not home to this purpose as he particularly proves and hath the approbation of the Reverend Dr. Francis White afterward Bishop of Ely that he found nothing therein in that and his whole Book but what is agreeable to the Publick Faith Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England of whose Doctrine the said 21 Article is a noted part But because the Bishop leaves this Infallibility at above a thousand yeares distance viz the last Generall Councel of Chalcedon attributing no such thing to any the pretended Generall Councels since it is necessary I go seek a supplement somewhere else for the guidance of doubting persons who may be at loss what to think the state of the Church hath been in so long an intervall and if they take Posterity into their care what it may be in a much longer yet to come before such another Generall Councel meet now the Latine Church seemes to be finally settled upon the Lees of the Decisions in the Councel of Trent Among those many I have turned over I find not where to furnish my self better then from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that most glorious Martyr now a resplendent starr of magnitude among the Saints above in his famed Book commended by that Royall Martyr not long before he drank of the same Cup that bloudy Brook in the way to his celestiall Crown Archbishop Laud's Conference with Mr. Fisher the Iesuite where his Grace sayes Whether a Generall Councel may erre or not is a Question of great consequence in the Church of Christ To say It can not erre leaves the Church not onely without remedy against an errour once determined but also without sense that it may need a remedy and so without care to seek it To say It can erre seemes to expose the members of the Church to an uncertainty and wavering in the Faith to make unquiet spirits not onely to disrespect former Councels of the Church but also to slight and contemn whatsoever it may now determine I said the Determination of a Generall Councel erring was to stand in force and to have External Obedience at least yielded to it till Evidence of Scripture or a Demonstration to the Contrary made the Errour appear and until thereupon another Councel of equal Authority did reverse it Pag. 146. 147. In the following Considerations is added with submission to our Mother the Church of England and to the Mother of us all the Universall Catholick Church of Christ That the Assistance of the H. Ghost is

over-scrupulous persons so well in smaller as greater matters in whose behalf for living Oracles or other certainty of infallible resolution I am yet to seek I confess And therefore setting aside all nice disputes about indefectibility of their Church and generality of Truth preserved by her I must and may I hope freely demand of Mounsieur Maimburg's Proxy if he have any in England Whether the Controversies or doubts raised in our Princess's breast were not emergent whereof since her R. H. could not be resolved with us I may modestly ask whither they sent her for satisfaction or rather what infallible Judge it was whom they brought to her bedside in that infirm condition I would use no railery in these solemn discourses but their matter of stating the case in quaestion does as it were obliege me to do somewhat like it after which short apologie I hope I may be allowed to proceed The Pope in person it could not be who is resident at Rome and has enough to do with the Controversies and emergences that from all parts of Christendome are carryed to him The Catholique Church it could be less in what notion soever taken whether as Collective Diffusive Representative c. No Councel sitting the dispersed Members of any impossibility not consulted and from the Conclave I hope came not the infallible spirit I say not in a Carriers budget as my Lord of Derry hath been pleased in a little ironie to word it with reference to that at Trent In fine this infallible Judge might be Monsieur Maimburg himself or some other Ghostly Father nearer hand alwayes readily prepared In nomine Domini sanctaeque Matris Ecclesiae to decide all Controversies and clear all scruples in an instant that could be suggested to him If so then I come about again to my learned Controvertist Mr. Chillingworth and borrow two or three questions from him which I leave to be applyed to the present Case as thought fit 1. Whether an ignorant man I insert or a knowing but doubting Lady be bound to believe any point to be decreed by the Church when his Priest or Ghostly Father assures him it is so 2. Whether his ghostly Father may not err in telling him so and whether any man can be obliged under pain of damnation to believe an errour 3. Whether he be bound to believe such a thing defined when a number of Priests perhaps ten or twenty tell him it is so And what assurance he can have that they neither err nor deceive him in this matter 4. I add another upon my own account though others may have done it before me whether it be not the same Church which now averrs her self to be infallible that made the first decision of it and if so how she can be sure she erred not in making the said decision which may carry on the question in infinitum where I leave it concluding with my Lord Bishop of Derry's question in the case What availeth it to say they have the Church for an infallible Iudge whilst they are not certain or do not know what the Church is or who this infallible Iudge is Sch. Gard. Pag. 406. Or what satisfaction had her R. H. in deserting our Church because she found no infallibility pretended by it and going over to the Church of Rome which though it pretends all that may be to it yet in reality can have as little as appears by what is said above CONFESSION The next point wherein her R. H. declares she was convinced is that of Confession The use whereof our Church neither denies nor discourageth in any case as I know but in some adviseth and in other wisheth it might be reduced into practice no exception being by her made against any frequency whereunto poor penitents may be inclined for quiet of Conscience and internal acquiessence The necessity of it she rejects yet layes no censure on them that hold it so they keep their opinion within their breasts and neither impose it on any dissenting brethren nor publish it to the disturbance of her members who may be well enough satisfied if when they see cause they can open their grief and by the ministery of God's holy Word receive the benefit and comfort of absolution That I may not be thought herein to go beyond my line or the rule by which I am to draw it Mr. Iones I will consult two or three of our very Orthodox Fathers whom I am sure you and your party are not able to confute Let the Learned Bishop Mountague be the first in his books afore cited who sayes in brief so much as needs in the case against his Informers who alledged for the opinion of our Church this That we must not confess our sins but only unto God 1. Shew me any such inhibition 2. The most that hath been said is That private Confession is free not tyed and therefore Juris positivi not divini 3. Therefore happily of conveniency not of absolute necessity 4. That in a private Confession unto a Priest a peculiar enumeration of all sinns both commission and omission with all circumstances and accidents is never necessary necessarily most an end not expedient nor yet all things considered required 5. It is confessed that private Confession unto a Priest is of very ancient practise in the Church of excellent use and practice being discreetly handled 6. We refuse it to none if men require it if need be to have it We urge it and perswade it in extremis We require it in case of perplexity for the quieting of men disturbed and their consciences 7. It hath been so acknowledged by those of the Church of Rome in the Visitation of the sick Before the receiving of the Lord's Supper According to which doctrine and injunction our Bishops do and should enquire in their Visitations touching the use and neglect of this so good an order as did that pious learned and reverend Bishop of Norwich Dr. Overal in the 21 Article enquired of in his Visitation 1619. concerning Ministers And as perhaps would do as who of our worthy Prelacy would not do his learned Successor in that See at Presentments were it not for the trouble of vindicating himself from Popery in the point against such as you and your party Mr. Jones which I the rather presume without his Lordships leave because of the excellent Sermon on this subject many years since Printed which I heard Preached by him at St. Mary's in Cambridge and although question'd by the Puritanical pragmatick party yet cleared by all other the more sound Doctors in that Consistory and applauded by all intelligent and right-principled Members in that our famous and flourishing University The more modern and most excellent Bishop Ier. Taylor although very censorious and invective in some circumstances enjoyn'd and practis'd in the Church of Rome is near so indulgent as his Predecessors in what hath been alledged as allowed by our Church for in Part 2. Sect. 11. of Disuas