Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A30335
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A discourse concerning transubstantiation and idolatry being an answer to the Bishop of Oxford's plea relating to those two points.
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Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing B5775; ESTC R23015
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24,041
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38
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the best Entertainment and the greatest Incouragement possible Nothing could so secure the Persons of Priests and render them so considerable as to believe that they made their God And in such Ages no Armour was of so sure a Proof as for a Priest to take his God in his Hands Now it is known that P. Gregory the 7th who condemned Berengarius laid the Foundations of the Ecclesiastical Empire by establishing the Deposing Power so P. Innocent the 3d who got Transubstantiation to be decreed in the 4th Council of the Lateran seemed to have compleated the Project by the Addition made to the Deposing Power of transferring the Dominions of the Deposed Prince to whom he pleased since before this the Dominions must have gone to the next Heirs of the Deposed Prince It is then so plain that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation was so suitable to the advancing of those ends that it had been a Wonder indeed if it being once set on foot had not been established in such times 3. Those Ages were so corrupt and more particularly the Clergy and chiefly the Popes were by the confession of all Writers so excessively vicious that such Men could have no regard to Truth in any of their Decisions Interest must have carried all other things before it with such Popes who according to the Historians of their own Communion were perhaps the worst Men that ever lived Their Vices were so crying that nothing but the Credit that is due to Writers of their own Time and their own Church could determine us to believe them 4. As the Ignorance and Vices of those Times derogate justly from all the Credit that is due to them so the Cruelty which followed their Decisions and which was employed in the Execution of them makes it appear rather a stranger thing that so many opposed them than that so many submitted to them When Inquisitors or Dragoons manage an Argument how strong soever the Spirit may be in opposing it is certain the Flesh will be weak and will ply easily When Princes were threatned with Deposition and Hereticks with Extirpation and when both were executed with so much rigour the Success of all the Doctrines that were established in those Days ought to make no Impression on us in its Favour VII It is no less plain that there was a great and vigorous Opposition made to every Step of the Progress of this Doctrine When the Eutychians first made use of it the greatest Men of that Age set themselves against it When the Worshippers of Images did afterwards deny that the Sacrament was the Image of the Body and Blood of Christ a General Council in the East asserted according to the ancient Liturgies the contrary Proposition When Paschase Radbert set on foot the Corporal Presence in the West all the great Men of the Age writ against him Berenger was likewise highly esteemed and had many secret Followers when this Doctrine was first decreed And ever since the time of the Council of the Lateran that Transubstantiation was established there have been whole Bodies of Men that have opposed it and that have fallen as Sacrifices to the Rage of the Inquisitors And by the Processes of those of Tholouse of which I have seen the Original Records for the space of twenty Years it appears that as Transubstantiation was the Article upon which they were always chiefly examined so it was that which many of them did constantly deny so far were they on both sides from looking on it only as an Explanation of the Real Presence VIII The Novelty of this Doctrine appears plainly by the strange work that the Schools have made with it since they got it among them both in their Philosophy and Divinity and by the many different Methods that they took for explaining it till they had licked it into the shape in which it is now Which is as plain an Evidence of the Novelty of the Doctrine as can be imagined The Learned Mr. Alix has given us a clear Deduction of all that Confusion into which it has cast the School-men and the many various Methods that they fell on for maintaining it First They thought the Body of Christ was broken by the Teeth of the Faithful Then that appearing absurd and subjecting our Saviour to new Sufferings the Doctrine of a Body's being in a place after the manner of a Spirit was set up And as to the Change some thought that the Matter of Bread remained but that it was united to the Body of Christ as Nourishment is digested into our Bodies Others thought that the Form of Bread remained the Matter only being changed And some thought that the Bread was only withdrawn to give place to the Body of Christ whereas others thought it was annihilated While the better Judges had always an Eye either to a Consubstantiation or to such an Assumption of the Bread and Wine by the Eternal Word as made the Sacrament in some sense his Body indeed but not that Body which is now in Heaven All these different Opinions in which the School-men were divided even after the Decision made by Pope Innocent in the Council of the Lateran shew that the Doctrine being a Novelty Men did not yet know how to mould or form it But in process of Time the whole Philosophy was so digested as to prepare all Scholars in their first Formation to receive it the more easily And in our Age in which that Philosophy has lost its Credit what Pains do they take to suppress the New Philosophy as seeing that it cannot be so easily subdued to support this Doctrine as the Old one was And it is no unpleasant thing to see the shifts to which the Partisans of the Cartesian Philosophy are driven to explain themselves Which are indeed so very ridiculous that one can hardly think that those who make use of them believe them for they are plainly rather Tricks and Excuses than Answers IX No Man can deny that Transubstantiation is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome but he that will dispute the Authority of the Councils of the Lateran and Trent Now tho some have done the first avowedly yet as their Number is small and their Opinion decried so for the Council of Trent tho I have known some of that Communion who do not look upon it as a General Council and tho it is not at all received in France neither as to Doctrine nor Discipline yet the contrary Opinion is so universally received that they who think otherwise dare not speak out and so give their Opinion as a Secret which they trust in Confidence rather than as a Doctrine which they will own But setting aside the Authority of these Councils the common Resolution of Faith in the Church of Rome being Tradition it cannot be denied that the constant and general Tradition in the Church of Rome these last 500 Years has been in favour of Transubstantiation and that is witnessed by all the Evidences by which it is
possible to know Tradition The Writings of Learned Men the Sermons of Preachers the Proceedings of Tribunals the Decisions of Councils that if they were not General were yet very numerous and above all by the many Authentical Declarations the Popes have made in this matter So that either Tradition is to be for ever rejected as a false Conveyance or this is the received Doctrine of the Church of Rome from which she can never depart without giving up both her Infallibility and the Authority of Tradition X. There is not any one Point in which all the Reformed Churches do more unanimously agree than in the rejecting of Transubstantiation as appears both by the Harmony of their Confessions and by the current of all the Reformed Writers And for the Real Presence tho the Lutherans explain it by a Consubstantiation and the rest of the Reformed by a Reality of Vertue and Efficacy and a Presence of Christ as crucified yet all of them have taken much Pains to shew that in what sense soever they meant it they were still far enough from Transubstantiation This demonstrates the Wisdom of our Legislators in singling out this to be the sole Point of the Test for Imployments Since it is perhaps the only Point in Controversy in which the whole Church of Rome holds the Affirmative and the whole Reformed hold the Negative And it is as certain that Transubstantiation is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome as that it is rejected by the Church of England it being by Name condemned in our Articles And thus I hope the whole Plea of our Author in favour of Transubstantiation is overthrown in all its three Branches which relate to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church the Doctrine of the Church of Rome and the Doctrine of the Church of England as well as of the other Reformed Churches I have not loaded this Paper with Quotations because I intended to be short But I am ready to make good all the matters of Fact asserted in it under the highest Pains of Infamy if I fail in the performance And besides the more Voluminous Works that have been writ on this Subject such as Albertines Clauds Answer to Mr. Arnaud and F. Nonet Larrogues History of the Eucharist there have been so many learned Discourses written of late on this Subject and in particular two Answers to the Bishops Books that if it had not been thought expedient that I should have cast the whole matter into a short Paper I should not have judged it necessary to trouble the World with more Discourses on a Subject that seems exhausted I will add no more but that by the next I will give another Paper of the same Bulk upon the Idolatry of the Church of Rome AN ANSVVER To that Part about IDOLATRY c. THE words of the Test that belong to this Point are these The Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are superstitious and idolatrous upon which our Author fastens this Censure That since by this the Church of Rome is charged with Idolatry which both forfeits Mens Lives here and their Salvation hereafter according to the express words of Scripture It 's a damnable peice of Cruelty and Uncharitableness to load them with this Charge if they are not guilty of it and upon this he goes to clear them of it not only in the two Articles mentioned in the Test the Worship of Saints and the Sacrifice of the Mass but that his Apology might be compleat he takes in and indeed insists chiefly on the Worship of Images tho that is not at all mentioned in the Test he brings a great many Quotations out of the Old Testament to shew the Idolatry prohibited in it was the worshipping the Sun Moon and Stars or the making an Image to resemble the Divine Essence upon which he produces also sōme other Authorities And in this consists the Substance of his Plea for the Church of Rome But upon all this he ought to have retracted both the License that himself gave some Years ago to Dr. Stillingfleet's Book of the Idolatry of the Church of Rome and his own hasty Assertion in condemning both Turk and Papist as guilty of Idolatry the one for worshipping a lewd Impostor and the other for worshipping a sensless piece of matter It seems he is now convinced that the latter part of this Charge that falls on the Papists was as false as the former that falls on the Turks certainly is for they never worshipped Mahomet but hold him only in high Reverence as an extraordinary Prophet as the Iews do Moses It 's very like that if the Turks had taken Vienna he would have retracted that as he has now in effect done the other for I believe he is in the same disposition to reconcile himself to the Mufti and the Pope but the Ottoman Empire is now as low as Popery is high so he will brave the Turk still to his Teeth tho he did him wrong and will humble himself to the Papist tho he did him nothing but right But now I take leave of the Man and will confine my self severely to the matter that is before me And 1. How guilty soever the Church of Rome is of Idolatry yet the Test does not plainly assert that for there is as great a difference between Idolatrous and Idolatry as there is in Law between what is treasonable and what is Treason The one imports only a Worship that is conformable to Idolatry and that has a tendency to it whereas the other is the plain Sin it self There is also a great difference between what is now us'd in that Church and the Explanations that some of their Doctors give of that usage We are to take the usage of the Church of Rome from her Publick Offices and her authorised Practices so that if these have a Conformity to Idolatry and a tendency tō it then the words of the Test are justified what Sense soever some learned Men among them may put on these Offices and Practices therefore the Test may be well maintained even tho we should acknowledg that the Church of Rome was not guilty of Idolatry 2. If Idolatry was a Crime punishable by Death under the Old Testament that does not at all concern us nor does the Charge of Idolatry authorize the People to kill all Idolaters unless our Author can prove that we believe our selves to be under all the Political and Judiciary Precepts of the Law of Moses and even among the Jews the Execution of that severe Law belonged either to the Magistrate or to some authorized and inspired Person who as a Zealot might execute the Law when the Magistrate was wanting to his Duty so that this was writ inviduously only as it seems to inflame the Papist the more against us But the same Calvinist Prince that has exprest so just an Aversion to the