Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	bishop_n	church_n	rome_n	9,289	5	7.3911	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30477	The unreasonableness and impiety of popery: in a second letter written upon the discovery of the late plot..	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1678 (1678)	Wing B5935; ESTC R7487	22,368	40

the express words of the Institution and contrary both to the Doctrine and Tradition of the Church for 1300 years 3. They have declared the Priests saying Mass to be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living though the Scripture plainly says That Christ was once offered for us It is true the Primitive Church used the words Sacrifice and Oblation as our Church yet does but their meaning by that was only in the general sense of these terms as Prayers Praises and Alms are called Sacrifices 4. They have brought in a new piece of Worship which is the hearing of Mass without receiving the Sacrament and it is now the great Devotion of their Church Though by the Institution it is as express as can be that the Consecration is only in order to its being a Communion And by the Apostolical Canons which some in their Church believe to be the work of the Apostles and are by them all acknowledged to be a Collection of the Rites of the first Ages all persons that were present at the Worship and did not communicate were to be severely censured 5. The adoring the Sacrament the exposing it on the Altar and carrying it about in solemn Processions to be worshipped as they are late Inventions so if Transubstantiation be not true they are by their own confession the grossest Idolatries that ever were And are not these considerable variations from the first Institution of this Sacrament As for their own Sacraments though there is no reason to equal them to either of these that were instituted by Christ yet some of them we use as they were at first appointed Persons Baptized are Confirmed with Imposition of hands the only Ceremony used by the Apostles We allow the use of Confession and do press it in many cases and give the benefit of Absolution but we do not make this an Engin to screw peoples secrets from them For which there is no warrant in Scripture nor was it thought necessary for many Ages after the Apostles Confession of publick Scandals was enjoyned and for private sins it was recommended but this latter was not judged simply necessary for obtaining the pardon of sin And what noise soever they make of the good that Confession and the enjoyning of Pennance may do if well managed we need only appeal to some of their own best Writers now in France whether as they have been practised they have not rather driven all true Piety out of the world If these abuses had been only the faults of some Priests the blame could not have been justly cast on their Church but when the publick Rules given to Confessors printed with Licence are their warrants for so doing then their Church is in fault So that nothing is more common among them than for persons after a confession made of their sins with a slight sorrow and some trifling pennance undergone together with the Priestly Absolution to fancy themselves as clean from all sin as if they had never offended God And this being the Doctrin of their Church it both lessens the sense of sin and takes men off from making such earnest applications to God through Christ as the Gospel commands For Orders they are among us with the same Rites that Christ and the Apostles gave them first And a learned Man of their own Church has lately published the most ancient Forms of Ordinations he could find From which it appears that all the Ceremonies in their Ordinations for the want of which they accuse us were brought in since the eighth Century so that even by their own Principles these things cannot be necessary to Ordination otherwise there were no true Orders in the Church for the first eight Ages For Marriage we honour it as Gods Ordinance and since the Scriptures declare it honourable in all without exception we dare deny it to none who desire it St. Paul delivers the Duty of Clergy-men towards their Wives with Rules for their Wives behaviour which had been very impertinent if Clergy-men might have no Wives We find a married Clergy in the first ten Centuries And we know by what base Arts the Caelibate of the Clergy was brought in and what horrid ill effects it has produced Neither do we allow of any devices to hinder Marriage by degrees of kindred not prohibited in the Law of God or the trade that was long driven in granting Dispensations in those degrees and afterwards annulling these and avoiding the Marriages that followed upon them upon some pretences of Law Thus it appears how they have corrupted the Doctrine of the Sacraments together with the Worship of God The last head of Religion is Government and as to this we can challenge any to see what they can except to us First in reference to the Civil Power we declare all are bound for conscience sake to obey every lawful Command of the Supream Authority and to submit when they cannot obey We pretend to no Exemption of Clarks from the Civil Jurisdiction but give to Caesar the things that are Caesars We do not obey the King only because he is of our Religion much less do we allow of Conspiracies or Rebellions upon our judging him an Heretick so that we deliver no Doctrin that can be of any ill consequence to the Society we live in And for the Ecclesiastical Government we have Bishops Priests and Deacons rightly Ordained and in their due subordination to one another every one administring these Offices due to his Function which has been the Governemnt of the Christian Church since the times of the Apostles So that we have a clear vocation of Pastors among us from whose hands every person may without scruple receive all the Sacraments of the Church But for the Church of Rome how unsafe is the Civil Government among them not to mention the Doctrin of deposing Princes for which I refer you to my former Letter What a security does the Exemption of Clerks from the Civil Courts in cases criminal give to loose and debauched Church-men and what disturbance must this breed to a Common wealth The denying the Civil Magistrate power to make Laws that concern Religion or oblige Churchmen takes away a great deal of his Rights for scarce any Law can be made but wrangling and ill-natur'd Churchmen may draw it within some head of Religion And that this was frequently done in former Ages all that have read History know The quarrels that were in the beginning of this Century between the Pope and the Republick of Venice were a fresh Evidence of it But for the Ecclesiastical Government they have spoiled it in all the parts of it The Pope has assumed a power of so vast an extent and so arbitrary a nature that all the ancient Canons are thrown out of doors by it We know that originally the Bishops of Rome were looked on by the rest of the Church as their Colleagues and fellow Bishops The Dignity of the City made the See

more remarkable and the belief of St. Peters having founded it with his suffering Martrydom there with St. Paul made it much honoured so that when the Empire became Christian then the Dignity of the Imperial City made the Bishop of Rome be acknowledged the first Patriarch From this beginning they arose by many degrees to the height of pretending to a Supremacy both Civil and Spiritual and then they not only received appeals which was all they at first pretended to but set up Legantine Courts every where made the Bishops swear Obedience and Homage to them and the Arch-Bishops receive the Pall from their hands in sign of their dependance on them Exempted Monasteries and other Clarks from Episcopal Jurisdiction broke all the Laws of the Church by their Dispensations So that no shaddow of the primitive Government does now remain And though Gregory the Great wrote with as much indignation against the Title of Vniversal Bishop as ever any Protestant did yet his Successors have since assumed both the Name and thing And to that height of Insolence has this risen that in the Council of Trent all the Papal Party opposed the Decree that was put in for declaring Bishops to have their Jurisdictions by Divine Right The Court Party not being ashamed to affirm that all Jurisdiction was by Divine Right only in the Pope and in the other Bishops as the Delegates of the Apostolick See and they were in this too hard for the other Party So that now a Bishop who by the Divine appointment ought to feed the Flock can do no more in that then as the Pope gives him leave The greatest part of the Priests have no dependence on their Bishops The Monks Fryars and Iesuits being immediately subordinate to the Pope so that they do what they please knowing they can justifie any thing at Rome and they fear no Censure any where else From this so many abuses have crept in and the Canonists have found out so many devices to make them Legal that there is no hope of Reforming these at Rome The whole State of Cardinals is one great Corruption who from being Originally the Parish Priests of Rome and so under all Bishops have raised themselves so high that they do now trample on the whole Order and pretend to an Equality with Princes The giving Benefices to Children the unlimitted Plurality of Benefices in one Person the Comendam's the reserved Pensions with many other such like are gross as well as late Corruptions And no wonder if all men despair of Reforming the Court of Rome when these abuses are become necessary to it by which the greatness of the Cardinals and the other Officers or Ministers there is kept up I need not mention the gross Simony of that Court where all the world knows every thing may be had for money The Popes themselves are often Chosen by these Arts and if their own Rules be true such Elections with every thing that follows on them are void The Infinite Swarmes of the Inferiour Clergy do plainly drive a Simoniacal Trade by the Masses they say for Departed Souls for Money And for Publick Pennance they have Universally let it fall in stead whereof private Pennance is now in use And if their own Writers say true this is made an Engine to serve other ends when by enjoyning slight and easie Pennances they draw the People after them upon which the Jesuites have been loudly accused these Forty Years last past In Sum all the Corruptions or rather defects that are in the Government of our Church are only such as they brought in and have not met yet with such effectual remedies as must cure the Church of these inveterate Distempers their ill Conduct did cast her into If any of that Party will review these Particulars and so far trust their own Reasons as to judge according to the plainest Evidence they cannot resist the conviction that they must needs meet with when they see the simplicity of our Faith the Morality of our Doctrine the Purity of our Worship and our Primitive Government and compare it with their vast Superfetation of Articles of Faith the Immorality of their Rules of living the Superstition if not Idolatry of their Worship and the most extravagant Innovations in Government that are in the Church of Rome And indeed these things are so clear that few could resist the force of so much plain truth if it were not for some prejudices with which they are so fettered that they cannot examine matters with that freedom of mind that is necessary Therefore much care must be taken to clear these in the most familiar and demonstrative manner that is possible They may be reduced to these Five chief Ones First That the true Church cannot Err. Secondly That out of the true Church there is no salvation Thirdly That the case of the Church of Rome is much safer than ours is since the Church of England acknowledges a possibility of salvation in the Church of Rome which they on the other hand deny to the Church of England Fourthly That unless there be a Supreme Judg set up we can be sure of nothing in Religion but must fall into many Factions and Parties And Fiftly That the Reformation was but a Novelty begun in the former Age and carried on in this Nation out of an ill design and managed with much Sacriledge The First of these seemed necessary to be cleared in the beginning of this Discourse and I am deceived if it was not done convincingly And for the Second we agree to it That out of the true Church there is no Salvation But then the Question comes What makes one a Member of the true Church The Scriptures call the Church the Body of Christ of which he is the Head So then whoever are joined to Christ according to the Gospel must be within the true Church But the deceit that lies hid under this is That from hence they fancy that the Unity of the Church does consist in an outward Communion with the See of Rome And upon that they calculate that there must be an Unity in the Body of the Church And that cannot be except all be joined to the See of Rome Now we grant there is but one Church but this Unity consists not in an Outward Communion though that is much to be desired but consists in an Unity of Belief about the essentials of Christianity There is nothing more evident than that even according to their own Principles other Churches are not bound upon the hazard of Damnation to hold Communion with the See of Rome for it is not an Article of Faith nor certain according to their own Doctrine That the Pope is Infallible And except that were certain we cannot be obliged to hold Communion under such a Sanction with that See For if it be possible that a Pope may become an Heretick or Schismatick which many of them confess and all agree that the contrary is not of Faith