Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	canon_n	council_n	nice_a	2,852	5	10.4936	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62014	The XXXVI questions propounded for resolution of unlearned Protestants in matter of religion to the doctors of the prelaticall pretended reformed-Church of England, retorted for resolution on unlearned papists in matter of religion, to V.H. and V.N. doctors of the pretended Catholick Church of Rome / by T. Svvadlin ...	Swadlin, Thomas, 1600-1670.	1659 (1659)	Wing S6228; ESTC R38289	40,246	62

this and all other points of Doctrine Nay that the Popes themselves should be so ignorant of the true ground of this their Authority as to pretend to it not upon Scripture or universall Tradition but upon an imaginary no-such Canon of the Council of Nice That Vincentius Lyrinensis seeking for a Guide of his Faith and a preservation from Heresie should be ignorant of this so ready a one The infallibility of the Church of Rome All these things and many more are very strange to me If the infallibility of the Roman Church be in deed and was alwaies by Christians acknowledged the Foundation of our Faith And therefore I beseech you pardon me if I choose to build mine upon one that is much firmer and safer and lies open to none of those Objections which is Scripture and universall Tradition and if one that is of this Faith may have leave to do so I will subscribe with hand and heart Your very loving and true friend W. C. By Bramhall so you my Lord Bishop Bramhall so I when will you answer him or rather reply to his Answer to Mounseir Millitere he is alive and while he lives you dare not I suppose do it since he Commands as much Learning and Reason as any of you all put you altogether By Hammond Ferne Tayler so you Doctor Hammond Doctor Ferne Doctor Tayler so I nor should I have said less of any of your Roman Doctors so far have I read my Ethicks are all living and can answer for themselves with whom if you and yours hap to Cope I am confident you will fall in the Combate if you Conquer I will be your Proselite not for the strength of your Questions or pinning my Faith upon their Learning Religion Zeal Sincerity Vertue and Wisdom in all which they exceed but for the strictness of my own Conscience so that the Combate be decided before equitable and equall Judges Quest 30 All this is demanded supposing that the Roman Doctors were onely equall to those of Protestants in all the aforenamed Qualities conducing to the perfect Authority of a Master in Christianity But now I demand whether those that have Authority of Teaching in the Roman Church generally speaking in so much as can be prudently deduced by experience from them are not much excelling the Protestant Ministry in all the said Qualities What Councils have they worth the mentioning in comparison of the Generall Councils consenting with the present Roman Church even according to their own Confession as the second of Nice the Great Council of Lateran the Councill of Constance Florence and Trent wherein such multitudes of Learned men and holy Patriarchs Metropolitans Archbishops Bishops Doctors Prelates both of the Eastern and Western Churches unanimously confirmed the Roman and condemned the Protestant Doctrine What proofes of Learning have the Protestant Ministry comparable to those of the Roman Doctors whereof many have written one no small number two others three and foure others six eight ten twelve and some twenty and four and twenty great Tomes in folio and those replenished in the generall repute of Christendom even amongst Protestants also with profound and high Learning Who amongst their Ministry have they who have obtained the universall esteem of Sanctity as hath our Gregory Beda Thomas Bonaventure Antonine Dominick and diverse others Where find they amongst theirs that zeal to pass into the heart of so many barbarous and Heathen Nations to plant the Cospel even with the undergoing of unheard-of Torments and suffering most cruel Martyrdoms as many of the Roman Clergy have done within these late years Let them name but any sole Minister who hath suffered Martyrdom for preaching Christian Faith to Pagans What means have the Protestant Ministery with their Wives Goods and Families to apply themselves to study and devotion comparable to our single Clergy and retired Religions Where is that unanimous consent in all Points of Faith seeing they are perpetually jarring not onely one with another but the same Minister dissenting notoriously now from what they taught twenty years ago amongst them compared to the constancy and agreement of our Doctors What Miracles have any of their Ministery done in confirmation either of their Doctrine against the Roman Church or of the Christian Faith against Heathens as unless all human Faith be infringed many of ours have done both against them and Heathens I could instance in many more particulars but these may suffice for these short demands whence appears evidently That whosoever professes to be led by the sole Authority of Christian Doctors and Pastors must either deserve the esteem I say not onely of an unchristian but even of an imprudent man if he adhere to so undeserving and contemptible an Autho●ity as is that of the Protestant Ministry in comparison of the Roman Doctors who so incomparably outstrip them not onely in multitude but in all the motives and perfections which give credit to the Authority of a Christian Teacher Again Answ 30 at your incomparable comparison and with your addition of an undeserving and contemptible Authority in the Protestant Ministery outstript in multitude motives and in all perfections If this be your way to get credit to your cause much good may it do you but on an ordinary wise man I conceive it will not work Had you continued your supposition of Equality betwixt the Roman and Protestant Doctors it would more become you and might have proved a better way to overcome us how much you excell us will presently be seen in your demands The first whereof is What Councils have the Protestants worth the mentioning in comparison with the general Councils consenting with the present Roman Church and then you name five the Second of Nice the great Council of Lateran the Council of Constance Florence and Trent now I must marke a juggle here you name not what you name these Councils for but in the general the particulars must be guest at and I shall guess at them The second of Nice I conceive you name for Images or worshiping of God by Images for untill this Council which was not called untill the Year 787. Images or Worshiping of God by Images was never decreed and what value this Council is of I tell you truely from my Books There were more unlearned and evil-disposed men in it than ever were in any before or almost since it was called by Irene the Empress an Heathen borne converted Christian by Constantinus his Father to whom she was married and suffered her son Constantine to lofe his eyes for withstanding the determinations of this Council so much natural affection she had Called by her and managed by one Tharisius a Lay-man a Courtier and Bishop of one years standing and John Legate of the East Church of whom it is said he was a devout man but of no great Learning and the other two that ruled the rost in this Council were Theodosius and Constantinus of all whom together it hath been said There were

was one of those blind Guides which whosoever blindly followes is threatned by our Saviour that both he and his Guide shall fall into the Duch Th●● I hope you will grant it was not Pride but Conscience that moved me so to do for as it is a wise humiliation to obey those whom God hath set over me so it is a sinfull Credulity to follow every man or every Church that without warrant will take upon them to be my Guides Shew then some good and evident title which the Church of Rome hath to this office produce but one reason for it which upon triall will not finally be resolved and vanish into uncertainties and if I yield not unto it say if you please I am as proud as Lucifer In the meane time give me leave to think it strange and not far from a Prodigie that the Doctrine of the Roman Church being the Guide of Faith if it be true Doctrine should either not be known to the four Evangelists or if it were known to them being wise and good men they should either be so envious of the Churches happiness or so forgetfull of the work they took in hand which was to write the whole Gospell of Christ ●s not so much as one of them should mention so much as once this so necessary a part of the Gospell without the belief whereof there is no Salvation and with the belief whereof unless men be snatcht away by suddain death there is hardly any Damnation It is evident they do all of them with one consent speak very plainly of many things of no importance in comparison hereof and is it credible or indeed possible that with one Torrent or rather conspiracy they should be so deeply silent concerning this Unum necessarium You may believe it if you can for my part I cannot unless I see demonstration for it For if you say they send us to the Church and consequently to ●he Church of Rome this is to suppose that which can never be proved viz. That the Church of Rome is the onely Church and without this supposition upon the division of the Church I am as far to seek for a guide of my faith as ever as for Example In that great division of the Church when the whole world wondred saith St. Hierome that it was become Arrian when Liberius Bishop of Rome as St. Athanasius St. Hierome and St. Hillary testifie subscribed their Heresie and joyned in Communion with them or in the division of the Greek and the Roman Church about the Procession of the Holy Ghost when either side was the Church unto it self and each part heretical or schismatical to the other what direction could I then an ignorant man have found from that Text of Scripture Unless he hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen or a Publicane or upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Again give me leave to wonder that neither St. Paul writing to the Romans should so much as intimate this their priviledge of Infallibility but rather the contrary put them in fear in the 11. Chapter because they as well as the Jews were in danger of falling away That St. Peter your pretended Bishop of Rome writing two Catholick Epistles mentioning his departure should not once acquaint the Christians whom he writes to what guide they should follow after he was taken from them That the Writers of the New Testament should so frequently forewarn men of Hereticks false Christs false Prophets and not once arme them against them with letting them know this onely meanes of avoyding their danger That so great a part of the New Testament should be employed against Antichrist and so little indeed none at all about the Vicar of Christ and the Guide of the Faithfull That our Saviour should leave this onely means for the ending of Controversie and speak so obscurely and ambiguously that now our Judge is the greatest controversie and the greatest hindrance of ending them That there should be better evidence in the Scripture to entitle the King to this Office who disclaims it than the Pope who pretends it That St. Peter should never exercise over the Apostles any one Act of Jurisdiction nor they ever give him any one title of Authority over them That if the Apostles did know that St. Peter was made head of them when our Saviour said Thou art Peter they should still contend who should be the first and that our Saviour should not tell them that Peter was the man That St. Paul should say He was in nothing inferior to the very chief Apostles That the Catechumeni in the primitive Church should never be taught this foundation of their faith That the Fathers Tertullian St. Jerome and Optatus when they flew highest in commendation of the Roman Church should attribute no more to her than to all other Apostolical Churches That in the controversie about Easter the Bishops and Churches of Asia should be so ill catechiz'd as not to know this principle of Religion The necessity of conformity with the Church of Rome That they should never be pressed with any such conformity in all things but onely with the particular Tradition of the Western Churches in that point That Fryverus and many other Bishops notwithstanding Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam should not yet think that a necessary nor a sufficient ground of Excommunication which the Church of Rome thought to be so That St. Cyprian and the Bishops of Africk should be so ill instructed in their Faith as not to know this Foundation of it That they likewise were never urged with any such necessity of Conformity with the Church of Rome nor charged with Heresie or Error for denying it That when Liberius joyned in Communion with the Arrians and subscribed their Heresie the Arrians then should not be the Church and Guide of Faith That never any Hereticks for five Ages after Christ were pressed with this Argument of the Infallibility of the present Church of Rome or charged with the deniall of it as a detestable Heresie for that Aeneas Silvius should have cause to say Ante tempora Concilii Nicaeni quisque sibi vivebat parvus respectus habebatur ad Ecclesiam Romanam That the Ecclesiasticall story of those times mention no Acts of Authority of the Church of Rome over other Churches as if there should be a Monarchy and Kings for some Ages together and should exercise no Acts of Jurisdiction in it That to supply this defect the Decretall Epistles should be so impudently forged which in a manner speaks nothing but Reges Monarchas I mean The Popes making Lawes for and exercising Authority over all other Churches That the Africane Churches in St. Austins time should be ignorant that the Pope was Head of the Church and Judge of Appeales jure divino and that there was a Necessity of Conformity with the Church of Rome in