Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
cause_n government_n prince_n supreme_a 1,460 5 9.4099 5 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A35128 Labyrinthvs cantuariensis, or, Doctor Lawd's labyrinth beeing an answer to the late Archbishop of Canterburies relation of a conference between himselfe and Mr. Fisher, etc., wherein the true grounds of the Roman Catholique religion are asserted, the principall controversies betwixt Catholiques and Protestants thoroughly examined, and the Bishops Meandrick windings throughout his whole worke layd open to publique view / by T.C. Carwell, Thomas, 1600-1664. 1658 (1658) Wing C721; ESTC R20902 499,353 446

There are 4 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

Pope as he is Pope or in respect of that Supereminent Authority which belongs to him as Saint Peters Successour but onely compares him with another private Bishop in respect of meer Character or power of a Bishop as Bishop onely And as he doth not de facto speak of the Pope as Successour of St. Peter so is it certain that de jure he could not speak any thing to the prejudice of that part of the Bishop of Rome's Authority without contradicting and condemning himself not onely in his Epistle to Pope Damasus already cited where he professeth that to be out of the Popes Communion is to be an Alien from the Church of Christ but also in his Commentaries on the 13. Psalm where he calls St. Peter Head of the Church and Epist. ad Demetriad Virg. where he stiles the Pope Successour of the Apostolick Chair and speaks to the same purpose in divers other places of his works But now the Bishop to give a home-blow as he imagin'd to the Popes Authority over the whole Church pretends to bring a great and undoubted Rule given by Optatus who tells us the Church is in the Commonwealth not the Commonwealth in the Church whence he positively concludes it impossible that the Government of the Church should be Monarchical For saith he no Emperour or King will endure another King within his Dominions to be greater then himself since the very enduring it makes him that endures it upon the matter no Monarch But the force of this Argument will presently vanish if we but consider that these two Kingdoms are of different natures the one Spiritual the other Temporal the one exercis'd onely in such things as concern the Worship of God and the Eternal Salvation of Souls the other in affairs that concern this world alone and consequently do not of their own nature hinder but help one another where they are rightly administred Neither must it come under debate whether the administration of the spiritual Monarchy ought to be endur'd or not seeing Christ hath so ordain'd it nor would the Relatour I suppose have urg'd this argument had he well reflected on the person of our Saviour who as the Bishop himself would not deny was whilst he lived on earth most truly and properly the visible Monarch of the whole Church his Kingdom whether the Kings of the earth would endure it or not Again is it not in a manner the same thing in regard of Temporal Kings to have had the Apostles Universal Governours over all Christians as if some one had been a Monarch or chief amongst them and yet the Bishop cannot in his own principles deny but Temporal Kings were bound to endure this and did actually endure it without unkinging themselves thereby Nay is it not as prejudicial to their Temporal Crowns Titles and Prerogatives to have all their people together with themselves subject to the decrees of a lawful General Council which the Bishop denyes not as to be subject to the Decrees of some one chief Bishop 3. Lastly who sees not that the force of this Argument is utterly broken by the daily experience we have of the contrary to what our Adversary pretends For instance do not the Two great Christian Kings of France and Spain endure it Nay do's not all the world see that they do not onely endure it but maintain the Authority and Government of such a Spiritual Monarch as we speak of in the very midst of their Dominions and is it not evident they prosper so well under it that it would be no less then Dotage to contend that the enduring it is a Diminution of their Majesty Our Adversaries reflection upon this particular by way of Answer is not onely injurious to those Two great Monarchs but destructive of his own Argument For he tells us the Popes power is of little esteem in the Kingdoms of these Two Catholique Princes further then to serve their own turns of him which they do saith he to their great advantage Thus what the two great Catholique Princes of Christendom profess to do upon the Account of Faith and Conscience the Relatour hath the confidence to tell us they do it meerly on the score of policy and for temporal ends though he plainly contradicts himself in this assertion since he told us but just now the enduring such a Monarchy made him that endur'd it no Monarch You see at once both his Civility towards Christian Princes and his Constancy to himself Moreover I wonder the Relatour could not see that this Argument The Church is within the Commonwealth ergo Subordinate unto it had it any force would conclude as much against the Aristocratical Government of the Church for which he so much pleads as the Monarchical For how I pray could the Bishops of so many different Kingdoms and States when the good of the Church did necessarily require it Convene in a General Councel or authoritatively Declare what ought to be believ'd when matters of Faith were question'd or how should they otherwise then precariously cause their Decisions to be receiv'd through the whole Church if either there were no Supream Spiritual Governour at all or he bound as it were to ask Princes leave to do what belongs to his Office Is not a General Council as much within the Commonwealth as the Pope If therefore the Pope in the administration of his Office be any way subject de jure to the Authority of Temporal Princes how can a General Council be absolute and independent of the same Authority in the execution of theirs Thus you see how by impugning the Monarchical Government of Christs Church he in effect overthrows all Church-Government whatsoever even that which himself would seem to approve It remains therefore fully prov'd that the external Government of the Church on earth is Monarchical not purely and absolutely but mixed as hath been already declar'd Neither do we stile the Pope Monarch of the Church but the Deputy or Vicar General of Christ that is his Chief Bishop by whom he governs his Church in chief He is neither King nor Lord of the Church but the Chief-Servant of it a Steward of Christs Family yea a Fellow-Servant with other Bishops to one and the same Master Yet the Care of the whole Family is committed to him and but part of it to other Bishops who govern by Commission from Christ with him but under him 4. This duly consider'd what the Relatour objects out of the Council of Antioch St. Cyprian and Bellarmin for the power of Bishops comes just to nothing For we acknowledge Bishops to have a portion jure Divino in the Government of Christs Flock They are no less Chief Officers of Christ then the Pope though not in all respects equal to him or so absolute as to govern without dependance on him And it seems strange the Bishop should attempt to prove out of Bellarmin that the Government of the Church Militant is not Monarchical in the sense
the Bishop translates him and doth not expresly say Semper retinebit it ever holds and not it shall ever hold the true Faith speaking of the Roman Church yet certainly in this place the word retinet coming after these other ab antiquis temporibus habet and having Semper annexed to it must in all reason be understood to relate to the severall Differences of Time past present and to come Sixthly that he wrongfully imposes upon Bellarmin the alledging of St. Cyril and Ruffinus as holding his opinion about the particular Church of Rome whereas Bellarmin hath not so much as St. Cyrils name in that whole Chapter nor Ruffinus's but onely when he cites St. Hieromes Apology against him and when he alledges those two Authors in his third Chapter he expresses both the places and their words but it is to prove another Proposition and that of St. Cyril is a quite different Text from what the Relatour thrusts into his Margent Thus eagerly fights he by Moon-light with his own shadows Seventhly that his Lordship confounds two Questions that are distinct and distinctly treated by Bellarmin viz. Whether the Pope when he teaches the whole Church can erre in matters of Faith which is the Proposition Bellarmin defends in the third Chapter and belongs to the Pope as he is chief Pastour of the Church with this whether the particular Roman Church that is the Roman Clergy and People cannot erre in Faith which question Bellarmin treats in the 4 th Chapter Lastly that the Text of Matth. 16. 18. Tu es Petrus c. Thou art Peter c. cannot in the Grammatical and proper sense be applied to the confession of St. Peter as abstracted from his Person but onely to his Person as made in that occasion for and in vertue of that Confession perpetually to endure in him and his Successours THE ROCK of Christs Church But of these hereafter The Bishop having long wandered from the Ladies Question concerning Infallibility whether to be admitted in any Church or not at length in the 20 th page removing St. Peters Chair out of his way and from the City of Rome and disporting himself a while in that particular City or Diocess in a kinde of Raillery upon its Infallibility his Lordship comes to the Greek Church on occasion of some words spoken by a friend of the Ladies in defence of that Church I believe that Friend did a friendly office to the Bishop in giving him a rise for a new Dispute and diverting the Lady from pressing him further for a satisfactory answer to her Querie 4. The question started by this friend was as I have already hinted about the Faith of the Greek Church which Mr. Fisher told him had plainly made a change and taught false Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost and that he had heard his Majesty should say That the Greek Church having erred against the Holy Ghost had lost the Holy Ghost This latter part of Mr. Fishers assertion the Bishop will needs interpret as a disrespect in him towards his King whereas in truth he highly honour'd his Majesty and shew'd the Kings great Learning and Judgement in that point touching the Holy Ghost But the Bishop with all his respect and present flattery is resolved to contradict his Majesty yet that he might seem to do it but in part he introduces this distinction viz. That a particular Church may lose the Holy Ghost two wayes 1. The one when it loses such special Assistance of that Blessed Spirit as preserves it from all dangerous errours and sins and the punishment that is due unto them 2. The other is when it loses not onely this Assistance but all Assistance to remain any longer a true Church Now the Bishop denyes the Greek Church to have lost the Assistance of the Holy Ghost in this latter Acception viz. totally which would render it no true Church but grants it to have lost that special Assistance specified in the first branch of the distinction But this he sayes is rather to be called an errour CIRCA SPIRITVM SANCTVM about the Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost then an errour CONTRA SPIRITVM SANCTVM against the Holy Ghost Thus he minces what he had said before That the Greek Church did perhaps lose the Holy Ghost and that they erred against him But let us see what Arguments his Lordship brings in proof of his Assertion that the Greek Church continues a true Church and that their errour is not properly against the Holy Ghost Here the Bishop makes no great haste but breathing himself a while does very prudently prepare his Reader to expect no great matter from him in this kinde For dilating very speciously on his own modesty he adds There is no reason the weight of this whole Cause should rest upon one particular man or that the personal defects of any man should press any more then himself Also that he entred not upon this service but by command of Supreme Authority there being as he sayes an hundred abler then himself to maintain the Protestant Cause This his acknowledgement as I have no reason to blame him for it so I cannot see what just cause his Lordship had to censure Mr. Fisher for thinking so humbly of himself as to confess there were a thousand better Scholars then he to maintain the Catholick Cause Before we come to the Bishops proofs I must in the first place entreat the Reader to lend attention to his words which are these I was not so peremptory viz. as to affirm the Greeks errour was not in a Fundamental Divers learned men and some of your own were of opinion that as the Greeks expressed themselves it was a question not simply Fundamentall I know and acknowledge that errour of denying the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son to be a grievous errour in Divinity After this he adds as a Theological proof of his own Since their form of speech is that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father BY THE SON and is the Spirit of the Son without making any difference in the Consubstantiality of the Persons I dare not deny them to be a TRVE CHVRCH though I confess them AN ERRONEOVS Church in this particular Are not these very specious expressions I was not so peremptory Divers learned men were of opinion I know and acknowledge that errour to be a grievous errour in Divinity I dare not deny them to be a true Church They seem to agree with us They think a diverse thing from us But I pass by his trifling and make way for truth It is to be considered that now for many hundred years the whole Latin Church hath decreed and believed it to be a flat Heresie in the Greeks and they decreed the contrary to be an Heresie in the Latin Church and both together condemned the opinion of the Grecians as Heretical in a general Council how then bears it any shew of probability what some few of
remain obliged in any thing having done what lieth in him What I pray doth this signifie Nothing else but that even in the sense and intention of the Council it self the person that promises or grants Safe-Conduct in cases not proper for him is yet in conscience bound to do what lieth in him that his said promise or Safe-Conduct may take effect and that otherwise manet in aliquo obligatus he is not altogether free of the Breach of Faith Had the Relatour therefore not mangled the words of this Council to deceive the Reader but set down the Decree fairly and fully as it is the business had been so clear that it would scarce have admitted any dispute Neither could John Huss being a learned man a Doctour of Divinity and writer of some Volumes be ignorant what the force of a Safe Conduct was granted by a Secular Prince in a matter so clearly appertaining to Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction or not know the difference between a Safe Conduct given jure communi onely with the clause salvâ justitiâ and one granted jure speciali Wherefore the Bishop hath little ground to averre that he was deceiv'd by the Emperour in this But put case John Huss were ignorant both of the one and the other it was his own fault and could be no impediment to the proceedings of Ecclesiastical Discipline and Justice against him His Lordship has no better success in the allegation of Simancha whom he wrongfully cites as holding absolutely and universally that Faith is not to be kept with Heretiques whereas he teaches it onely in cases wherein that which is promis'd cannot be lawfully perform'd And this were as well true if the promise were made to Catholiques For as it was unlawful first so to promise so it is more unlawful to perform such a promise Hence it is that Simancha hath these words Veruntamen ut Marius Solomonius ait promissa contra Christum fides si praestetur utique perfidia est If faith be given against Christ that is to the dishonour of God or contrary to the precepts of true Religion it were perfidiousness to observe it Wherefore Simancha's meaning is clearly this that no private man can be obliged by vertue of any promise more to countenance and protect an Heretique contrary to the law then he can be oblig'd to do the same to High-way men or Pyrats because such a promise being against the publique good and forbidden by the law as 't is in Spain where Simancha wrote and where the Law strictly obliges all persons to detect Heretiques as much as it doth Felons and Murtherers cannot be observed without sin Which meaning of his is also further confirm'd by what he writes afterward Si tamen fides Haereticis data est à Principe vel publicâ Potestate exactè servanda est c. But saith he if Faith be given to Heretiques by the Prince or by those that have Publique Authority it must be exactly observed save onely when the thing promised is against the Law of God or of Nature By which it appears how insincere or unadvised the Bishop was in quoting this Author Nor deals he any better with the Jesuits they are likewise accus'd in general to teach that Faith given is not to be kept with Heretiques whereas neither himself nor all his gang are able to name one of them for that opinion 4. But if you please let us take yet a Turn or two with his Lordship in this part of his Labyrinth First John Huss sayes he and Hierome of Prague were burnt for all their Safe-Conduct by which manner of speaking he seems to insinuate that both their Safe-Conducts were granted jure speciali viz. to preserve them not onely from unjust violence but even from process and execution of Justice which in that of Hierome of Prague is apparently false for the clause Salvâ tamen justitiâ is expresly inserted in it and till our Adversaries have prov'd the contrary we must suppose that the like and no other was granted to Huss Secondly he takes for granted that publique Faith was violated in the persons of those two Delinquents which in relation to Hierome of Prague is notoriously false the Council observing most punctually towards him whatever it promised and for Huss it promised him no security at all If what the Emperour promis'd him were jure speciali which our Adversaries cannot prove yet being granted by a Secular Prince in a cause so clearly Ecclesiastical and Spiritual we have said above it could not impede the proceeding of that Supreme Ecclesiastical Tribunal If it were jure communi onely to an obstinate Heretique as he was it signified nothing But all men know sayes he that the Emperour was us'd by the Fathers of the Council to bring Huss thither which he pretends to prove by a Latin Authority of I know not whom for he cites onely Edit in 16o. and afterwards ibid. leaving us to guess who his Authour should be But we will shew his Lordship all the respect we can and suppose he meant to cite some Authour of Credit What doth he say onely this Sigismundus Hussum Constantiam vocat missis literis publicâ side cavet Which no way intimates whether it were done by the Councils instigation or meerly of his own motion How then can his Lordship hence prove any secret Compact between the Emperour and the Council or any underhand dealing of the Council by the Emperours means to bring Huss within their power by his relying upon an unsufficient caution The Bishops Dilemma therefore is easily solv'd who argues thus If the Fathers did it in cunning that the Emperour should give Safe Conduct which themselves meant not to keep then they broke Faith If the Emperour knew they would not keep it then he himself broke Faith in giving a Safe Conduct which he knew to be invalid This is his Argument But I answer Neither did the Council use any such deceitful practice with the Emperour nor did the Emperour give Huss any Security but what he thought might be good and effectual yea he did make the Security good at least to the utmost of his power that is so farre as in such a case it either beseem'd or concern'd him to do We have already told his Lordship that the Council onely declar'd that when promise is made by Secular Power to the prejudice of Ecclesiastical Proceedings in causes of Heresie it is not of force This is the whole intent of the Council and the Relatour is much to blame for imperfectly citing the Decree with so many c's to dazzle the eyes of his Reader and make him believe what he pleases Whereas that which the Council ordains is not onely of most undeniable right in regard of the Church but also of evident necessity For if Temporal Princes may claim a Power by their Safe-Conducts or other promises made to Heretiques to impede and frustrate the Churches lawful and Canonical proceedings in such causes what
way of Authority or Command but of Mediation as using his Interest with the Pope which he might do without breach of the Canons What he did afterward he openly protested to be in it self unlawful and not belonging to him he did it therefore onely in condescendence to the Donatists importunity and would have askt the Bishops pardon for it as S. Austin witnesses whose sentence here lamely cited by the Bishop is far from proving his intent viz. that the judgement of this cause was a thing properly belonging to the Emperours Authority Nor doth it concern us at all that the Emperour gave sentence in the business since being wrought to it by the importunity of the Donatists he was bound in conscience to act the part of a just Judge and pronounce a right sentence which as he finally did in condemning these Schismaticks as we said above so no doubt it is all St. Austin means by the words alledged 4. His Deductions from the Civil Law are no better For first suppose that an inferiour Prelate could not appeal from the sentence of his Patriarch yet when the Patriarchs themselves have differences one with another must there not according to the rules of good Government be some higher ordinary Tribunal where such causes may be heard and determined I say Ordinary For it would be a manifest defect if that which is the extraordinary High Court of Ecclesiastical Justice viz. a General Council should be of necessity assembled for every particular difference between Patriarchs Secondly what the Law sayes is rightly understood and must be explicated of Inferiour Clerks onely who were not of ordinary course to appeal further then the Patriarch or the Primate of their Province for so the Council of Africk determines But 't is even there acknowledg'd that Bishops had power in their own causes to appeal to Rome The same explication is to be given to the Text of St. Gregory viz. that he speaks of Inferiour Clerks since Bishops were ever accustomed to appeal to the Pope But I wonder his Lordship would expose to view the following words of St. Gregory Where there is neither Metropolitan nor Patriarch even Inferiour Clerks when they appeal must have their recourse to the Sea Apostolique Then surely it follows the Bishop of Romes Jurisdiction is not onely over the Western or Southern Provinces as the Relatour limits it pag. 168. but over the whole Church whither the Jurisdiction of Metropolitans and Patriarchs never extended Neither could such Appeals be just if the Bishop of Rome were not the Lawful Superiour and Judge of all the Bishops of Christendome it being confest that no Juridical Appeal can be made but from an inferiour to a superiour Judge To those words of St. Gregory quae omnium Ecclesiarum Caput est wherein he intimates the reason why Appeals should be brought from all parts of Christendome to the Sea Apostolique his Lordship thinks it best to use this evasion I have said enough to that saith he in divers parts of this discourse But in what parts hitherto I cannot finde though I have us'd some diligence in the search I could therefore wish he had spoken something to it here where he had so fair an occasion I onely say this If the Roman Sea be the Head of all Churches as St. Gregory sayes it is surely it hath Authority over all Churches His Lordship as long as he stands upon the Roman ground stands upon thorns and therefore makes a step or rather a leap from the Church of Rome to the Church of England with whose Encomiums given heretofore by Antiquity he is much pleas'd But what those Antient times of Church Government were wherein Brittain was never subject to the Sea of Rome we desire should be prov'd and not meerly said I should not have envy'd his Lordships happiness much less the honour of his Sea had he and all his worthy Predecessours as he calls them since St. Austin been enobled with the Eminence of Patriarks yet I see no reason why a velut Patriarcha pronounc'd by the Pope by way of Encomium onely upon a particular occasion should be of force to make Canterbury a Patriarchal Sea Similies fall alwayes short of the thing it self Again it imports little that there was a Primate in Brittain for that onely proves that inferiour Clerks might not ordinarily appeal from him to Rome but that Brittain was not subject to the Roman Sea or that the Brittish Bishops did not as ocsion requir'd freely and continually appeal to Rome it doth not prove yea the contrary is manifest by all the monuments of the Brittish Church What ever is meant by the words in Barbarico cited by his Lordship out of the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Universae certain it is that whoever were under the government of the Patriarch of Constantinople were not exempted from the Authority of the Bishop of Rome neither ought the Relatour to suppose it unless he had first prov'd that the said Patriarch had been himself legally exempt or not subject to the Pope which he neither offers to do nor can it be done nay the contrary is evident 5. To me truly it seems very strange his Lordship should be so little acquainted with the Ecclesiastical History of England as to affirm so confidently that in ancient times Brittain was never subject to Rome meaning in Ecclesiastical matters For to instance in the very business of Appeals doth not Venerable Bede tell us that in King Egfrids time which was about the Year of our Lord 673. St. Wilfrid Archbishop of York being unjustly depriv'd of his Bishoprick appeal'd to the Sea Apostolique was heard by Pope Agatho in the presence of many other Bishops and by their unanimous Sentence was pronounced innocent Was he not restor'd again to his Bishoprick by vertue of that sentence Doth not the same Authour affirm that being the second time expell'd his Sea he did the second time also appeal to Rome and was likewise acquitted upon a full hearing of his cause in the presence of his adversaries Was there not upon his second return into England a Synod of Bishops call'd in obedience to the Popes order in which by the general vote of all the good Bishop was again restor'd Is this no Evidence of Romes Authority over England in ancient times 'T is now almost a thousand yeares since Bede wrote and doubtless his History is one of the most Authentick we have he being a most holy and learned man Again is it not manifest out of him that even the Primitive Original Institution of our English Bishopricks was from Rome See the Letter of Pope Gregory the first to St. Austin our English Apostle which Bede reports in these words Quia nova Anglorum Ecclesia ad omnipotentis Dei gratiam codem Domino largiente et Te labor ante perducta est c. Seeing by the goodness of God saith he and your industry the new English Church is brought