Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A68474
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Appello Cæsarem A iust appeale from two vniust informers· / By Richard Mountagu.
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Montagu, Richard, 1577-1641.
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1625
(1625)
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STC 18031; ESTC S112844
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144,688
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352
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it were true which is most false wherewith I am charged by these honest men yet I might answer and what if I doe Who bound the Church of England or Me a Priest and a Member of the Church of England unto defence of all the Decrees or Determinations of that Synod Hath Prince or Parliament or Convocation Edict Statute or Canon I knowe none I have heard of none nor ever shall I hope And till I heare of such quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I answer Let them that are interessed plead for themselves For my part I nor have nor ever will subscribe that Synode absolutely and in all points for in some it condemneth upon the Bye even the discipline of the Church of England but so farre forth onely as their Determinations shall bee found and made conformable unto the doctrine of OUR Church nor I think will the Ferventest amongst you subscribe it in every point For sure I am YOUR Divines as you call them have disavowed sometimes some things resolved of in that Synod as for instance Cooperation of Free-will and Grace Reprobation negative rather than positive But as I said the Synod of Dort is not MY Rule and your Magisteriall Conclusions are NO Rule I hope all not violently precise will say Ampliandum upon your bare imputations who bring nothing to prove me an ARMINIAN but your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hee saith thus and thus and we say this is ARMINIANISME Absque hoc And thus much for Arminianisme THE SECOND PART TOUCHING POINTS OF POPERY IN GENERALL CHAP. I. The Author uncharitably traduced His profession for the doctrine and discipline received and commanded in the Church of England Conformable Puritans Furious zeale The Church of Rome not a sound yet a true Church Private opinions disclaimed The Church of England asserted to her owne publick and proper Tenents The cause of all these Imputations NOw come they to POPERY in a larger extent A strange imputation in my opinion considering the subject upon which they work which may argue in them with any indifferent Reader an uncharitable unchristian fiery Puritanicall zeale malice and indiscretion too For did I prevaricate was it a compact between Me and the Papists to collude If I favoured them would I so have handled them as few have beside me in so exasperating a stile Sure A Kingdome I know divided cannot stand But the truth is As with the IESUITE he is an Heretick that is not furioso more a Roman Catholick so with the PURITAN he is a Papist that will not run a-madding with them It is not the first time for this very cause I have been talked of esteemed of traduced as a Papist which I can the better brooke because they have meted this measure to the Church of England it self as sympathizing with Papists in her Liturgy Discipline and Doctrine too It were to be wished that such transported spirits were taught to be more submisse and sparing in their talk I call GOD and all his holy Angels to witnesse I nor am nor have beene nor intend to be heerafter eyther Papist or ROMISH Catholick a Papist of State or of Religion but a Priest a member a follower of the Church and Doctrine of the Church of ENGLAND The Originall grounds of Popery are to my understanding against Reason have not their warrant from revealed Truth stand not with the purer practice of prime Antiquity I have been born and bred and brought up in the Confession of the Church of England I have learned loved admired and proposed unto my selfe to follow indeclinably not onely the Discipline of the Church of England whereunto the Puritans and Schismaticks themselves at least the wiser and subtiller sort of them come off roundly now for ends best known amongst themselves remaining quod erant quoad doctrinam tantum non in EPISCOPATU Puritani but the whole and entire Doctrine of that Church proposed in Synods confirmed by Law commanded and established by Act of PARLIAMENT This totall both Doctrine and Discipline I willingly and thoroughly embrace In profession thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have lived and will die and will maintaine it by GOD'S grace to bee Antient Catholick Orthodox and Apostolicall I say it againe a never was or will be a Papist no not in heart though many be arrant Puritans in heart that onely for preferment do conforme hold with the Hare and runne with the Hound who so they might vivere and valere would as willingly have up the Presbyterian Anarchie as would THO. CARTWRIGHT were he living though many once Puritans turne often Papists And no marvell for fleeting is commonly from one extreme unto another Men of moving violent Quick-silver Gun-powder spirits can never rely upon middling courses but dum furor in cursu est runne on headlong into extremes And so I may avow I will not bee a Papist in haste because I never was a Puritan in earnest or in jest having found it true in my small observation that our Revolters unto Popery were Puritans avowed or addicted first And yet it must bee granted All powder doth not take fire alike nor are all Puritan Spirits of one disposition With some of them more braine-sick than the rest all my Booke against the Gagger is quickly branded with Popery or scurrility With others more discreet I doe but walk upon the brinks of Popery wherein is some allaying of that former fervency for upon their better advice I am but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the next dore unto it What they thinke or speake I cannot hinder nor doe I greatly care I professe my selfe none of those furious ones in point of difference now-a-dayes whose profession and resolution is That the farther in any thing from communion with the Church of Rome the neerer unto GOD and Truth that we ought to have no commerce society or accordance with Papists in things divine nor almost humane upon pain of eternall damnation but must bid defiance irreconcileable unto them for ever I am absolutely perswaded and shall bee till I see cause to the contrary that the Church of Rome is a true though not a sound Church of CHRIST as well since as before the Councell of Trent a part of the Catholick though not the Catholick Church which wee doe professe to beleeve in our Creed a Church in which among many tares there remaineth some wheat In Essentials and Fundamentals they agree holding one Faith in one Lord into whom they are inserted through one Baptisme Ecclesia Papalis saith FRANCISCUS IUNIUS neither Papist nor Arminian quâ id habet in se quod ad definitionem Ecclesiae pertinet est Ecclesia And I verily am perswaded that I ought not to goe farther from the Church of Rome in these her worst daies than she hath gone away from her selfe in her best dayes I hold it to bee furious zeale without discretion issuing out of ignorance or malice or both in them who proceed so farre in their extravagant
think and speake and write otherwise or you eyther yet both of us may bee deceived But somewhat there was which these men intended and would have said if so bee they could have hit upon it It is a Conclusion of the Romane Schooles The Church cannot Erre which Proposition I may both affirme and deny as it is proposed The Church CANNOT Erre The Church CAN Erre For first it i◠ambiguous subiectivè What the Church is which cannot Erre The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and must be distinguished And secondly we may consider it obiectivè In what things the Church cannot Erre and Quousque that Not erring doth reach forth Extensivè To this purpose I differenced Churches two wayes into Topicall or Particular Churches into Catholick or Vniversall I divided also the objects of erring or not erring two wayes into Fundamentalls or superstructives For Particular locall Churches such as Corinth Ephesus Smyrna Thyatyra Laodicea c. it is in Confesso on both sides that They may Erre for it is evident that they have Erred both in inferiour and in higher points of Faith And so have Erred oftentimes that through their Erring in Fundamentalls in that sort they have ceased to be Churches any more The Catholick or universall Church I considered two wayes conceiving it to be Diffusive or Representative and that diffusion to runne out two wayes into Vniversality of ALL both Time and Place or into Vniversality of Time alone The first is so ample that it fetcheth in the APOSTLES and all and so includeth within the Verge that part of the Catholick Church which is now regnant in heaven and free from all Error as partaking of that blisse which leadeth infallibly holdeth inseparably in all Truth In this sense and acceptation the proposition is not quarrelled The Church so hath not cannot Erre The second divided part stinted from so large an extent is yet enlarged respectively to all members to every member in particular of the Catholick Church living any where at any one time so that the whole aggregation of all Christian professors make and compose this Church And as yet I thinke the Informers doe not quarrell us for Popery Their whole stitch is against the Church Representative in a Generall Councell In which though I should resolve simply and punctually thus A Generall Councell cannot Erre yet could I not be counted a Papist For the Tenent of the Papists if you my Informers know it not in their Schooles is this A Generall Councell can no way Erre in the Decisions finall thereof which is allowed by the POPE By which they necessarily inferre as also they stick not to expresse that unlesse the POPE give ratification any Generall Councell whatsoever may erre in any point of Faith of what nature soever And therefore such is their Doctrine since the IESUITES have domineered in their Schooles all the validity and assurance of not Erring which a Generall Councell hath or can have either in fide or moribus is onely from that impossibility of Erring which the POPE hath as Haeres ex asse unto S. PETER to whom our SAVIOUR behighted that impossiblity alone So that pretend the IESUITES as long as they will that fair and specious shew and title of the CHURCH never so much have they nothing in their mouthes but The CHURCH the CHURCH the POPE is that Church and their conclusion heer is not for the Church but for HIM Now doth Mr. MOUNTAGU come up unto nay looketh he toward this Catholick Roman fancy and infallible madnes Nothing lesse Hee directly pitcheth upon the Church Representative in a generall Councell WITHOUT the Pope I meane without the Pope as Head or exceeding the bounds and limits of a Patriarchicall Bishop I go not unto all things discussed or determinable in a Councell but rest upon that which is Fundamentall Nor doe I resolve it as certum de fide or tender it unto others to be beleeved I say no more but I see no cause why I may not so resolve and that also but upon suppositions if the Councell be truely GENERALL indeed and of SUCH none yet ever erred that ever I yet read or observed in Points Fundamentall And therefore I saw and see no cause but a man may say Such a Councell shall never erre in Fundamentals But concerning Fundamentals if your stitch bee against them I answer with B. MORTON in his Appeale THE beleefe of some Articles is so absolutely necessary for the constitution of a true Church as a reasonable soule is for the essentiall being of a man In such as these are shew me an error Dr. REYNOLDS himself though maintaining the contrary was not able in his VI. Conclusions out of all his reading and yet therein was his excellency to afford us so much as a peece of an example in Antiquity for a Generall Councell erring in FUNDAMENTALS and I am perswaded no man living can instance it Of such onely doe I speak and in such onely do I conceive infallibility and so as I conceive it the promise of OUR SAVIOUR may and doth hold HEE shall leade you into ALL TRUTH as also that other to the same purpose Where two or three are gathered together in my Name I AM THERE in the MIDDEST of them The Church of England may seem to have been of a contrary minde in her determinations and to have taught and prescribed to be so taught that such Generall Councels true and lawfull not onely may erre for possibilitie but also have erred in reality For Artic. XXI we reade thus GENERALL Councels may not be gathered together without the commandement and will of Princes And when they be gathered together for as much as they bee an Assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of GOD they MAYERRE and sometime HAVE ERRED even in things appertaining unto GOD. Which decision of the Article is not home to this purpose First the Article avoucheth that GENERALL Councels have erred which cannot be understood of my limitation Fundamentals because there is no such Extat of any Generall Councell true and lawfull Secondly things appertaining unto GOD are not all Fundamentals but points of Piety GOD'S Service and Religion which admit a very large interpretation For many things appertaine unto GOD that are not of necessity unto salvation both in practice and speculation In these haply Generall Councels have erred in those other none can erre The Councell of Nice determined the controversie of Easter it was not Fundamentall I put the case that in it they erred It was a thing appertaining unto GOD in his service this may come under the sense and censure of the Article but this toucheth not my opinion concerning only Fundamentals Thirdly the Article speaketh at large concerning Generall Councels both for debating and deciding I onely spake of the determination wherein it may be possible they nor can nor shall erre that may and have erred in the discussing In that very Councell of