Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	believe_v	church_n	infallible_a	2,870	5	9.5232	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30359	The infallibility of the Church of Rome examined and confuted in a letter to a Roman priest / by Gilbert Burnet.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1680 (1680)	Wing B5805; ESTC R15581	20,586	38

of them is infallible 27. Is the Pope infallible in all he says or onely when he gives out of his Chair his Decision of Controversies I know you choose the latter but then let me ask you what is necessary to put him in his Chair Must the Cardinals concur then you share the Infallibility among them without any colours either from Scripture or Antiquity Nor do I believe your Popes will allow this in their Decisions what ever they may do in the Political Government of the Ecclesiastical State By what means therefore shall I be assured the Pope speaks from his Chair that so I may acknowledg him infallible and if in any thing I must submit to his sentence then most especially when he according to the Decree of a Council takes care to publish a Bible which must be by all Christians submitted to as the Rule of Faith and set up as the Standard by which all other Translations Copies nay and the Originals of the Hebrew and Greek are to be compared This is a weighty and considerable business as any can be and yet we have seen Sixtus the Fifth publish a Bible with all the assurances could be that it was an authentical and true Edition requiring all Christians to receive it as the Rule of their Faith but upon this he dies and his Successor Clement the Eighth gives the World another Edition of the Bible and imposes it with the same Authority Sixtus did and took all care to suppress the Copies of the former Edition yet some escaped his industry The difference of those two Editions is such that the Catalogue of them makes up a Book and any that has compared them will find that in many places the whole sense is varied in these Editions This is as clear an evidence as may be that the Chair cannot make them infallible who do so flatly contradict one another and that in a matter of so high and so general concern 28. What reason have I to believe the Bishops of Rome infallible or that they have an absolute Jurisdiction over Christendom since I can find no traces of this in the beginning of Christianity though the defining it was then of great necessity I find the Apostles all acting by an equal Commission as indeed it must be where all were inspired with infallible Illumination And why must I think that St. Peter left none of this Infallibility at Antioch or Alexandria but brought it all entire with him to Rome And why was he so sullen as not to name his Successor when our Saviour shewed him that he was to put off his Tabernacle shortly Certainly it is hard to imagine that when he was writing his second Epistle as his last Will and Testament that though he had concealed till then who must succeed him he should not then have named him I deny not but the Faith of the Roman Church was spoken of throughout the whole World and that a Series of blessed and glorious Martyrs governed that See yet even then what ever reverence the eminence of the Imperial City and their own more eminent qualities procured them the absolute submitting all things to their Decision was not thought of It is true the Fathers gloried much in the first Founders of that See and in the worthy succession derived down from them but thought of nothing less then subjecting Christendom to their Authority Nor did the other Patriarchs pay any homage or subjection to them but still pleaded an equality of Jurisdiction yielding them nothing but a bare precedence It is a thing I will not here attempt to shew by what steps that See did degenerate from its first purity nor how it mounted to that height of Authority in which it glories at present but any who is acquainted with the Histories and Writings of the first six Ages must needs confess that the Scene of the Church is quite altered from what it was then in this obedience which the World does now pay the Bishops of Rome 29. What reverence can I pay a Succession of men who have plainly trampled on all Laws Divine and Humane Who have pretended to an absolute Temporal Power who have deposed as well as excommunicated Emperours Kings and other Princes who have animated their Subjects to rebel against them who have set on their neighbouring Princes to invade their Dominions which they had rent by Civil Wars and Rebellions and did for a Succession of many Ages fill Christendom with war and cover it with blood Nor are these excesses to be onely charged on some particular Popes as their personal faults but they founding them on a pretence to an absolute Temporal Authority to which they laid claim either they erred in that Decision or not if they erred then they are not infallible if they erred not then though the Reformation has made them a little more cautious yet still they are vested with the same power and all these Decretals of Pope Gregory the Seventh are still in force so that the Princes of Cristendome are at the Popes mercy for their Crowns and Dominions and are more obliged to the Reformation than they apprehend or acknowledg for the peaceable possession of their rights But it is apparent the Popes still retain the same high thoughts and onely wait an opportunity of executing them as appear'd from the attempts of Pope Paul the Fifth on the State of Venice 30. In the interval of the Sede vacante who is Head of the Church Is it a dead body without a head or is it a Monster of many heads Does the Authority li edivided among the Cardinals or have they none at all You know the Conclave have been sometimes very tedious in their Elections the last continued divers months and others have been shut up much longer pray then satisfie me who has the Supreme Power of the Church all that while If you vest the Cardinals with it then you set up a Presbytery to govern the Church For the Cardinals as such are the Presbyters of Rome and thus before we are aware Geneve is translated to Rome and the Scottish Presbytery culminates in the Vatican and governs the whole World 31. If after these difficulties about the Authority of Pope and Council you tell me the Infallibility of the Church rests in the whole body and is to be taken from the universally received Opinions then what had become of me if I had lived when the whole World was become Arrian and Athanasius alone withstood the stream Certainly I must have run with the Current and may be should not have known what to have answered those who should have asked me Where was your Faith before Alexander and Athanasius 32. But upon the whole matter how shall I know what is either decreed by Councils or Popes or received by the body of Christians It is not to be expected I can go over the World to examine the belief of all Christians Nor can I examine all the Canons and Decrees of Councils much less all the Popes Decretals Into what therefore must I resolve my Faith You tell me a living speaking Judge is necessary but such a one is not to be had in every part of the World therefore I must languish under great and constant uncertainties otherwise I must resolve my faith into the Testimony of my Priest and Confessor And thus all these pompous high sounding expressions of the Infallible Catholick Church do at length dwindle into this that every one of your Communion must in all things believe what their Priest tells them without inquiry And in what a perplexity must they be when one Priest assures them one Opinion is the Doctrine of the Church another tells them the plain contrary is the Doctrine of the Church And this has fallen out in not a few cases betwixt the Molinists and Iansenists So that upon the whole I cannot see how private persons can be satisfied what is the belief of the Church And now Sir after I have led you through a great many Thickets and Inclosures I am afraid I leave you in a labyrinth out of which I protest I cannot help you but by advising you to break through or leap over these banks and hedges within which you have intangled your self And therefore you must forgive me if I cannot follow you unless I see you furnished with some thread to lead you out of that intricate Maze of difficulties that must follow on your Opinions in these particulars And I choose rather than ingage in so dangerous a passage to take the sacred Writings which you and I both acknowledge to be divine and peruse them with all serious care hoping that God will so direct me that if I be not wanting to my self I shall not err in any matter of salvation You will find I have treated these Opinions I have considered with all possible fairness and modesty of Stile and indeed the sad prospect I have of Christendom which is abused by such colours into so many and great mistakes raises in me thoughts full of pity and commiseration and not of insulting and scorn If you send me any return to this I shall expect the like fair dealing from you and if you give me satisfying answers to these difficulties you shall find that you deal with one over whom reason hath more Power than either Education Humour or Interest And so I bid you farewell FINIS Errata Page 1. line 3. read Infallibility pag. 2. l. 6. birth right pag. 3. l. 9. for one r. an pag. 6. l. 3. for derided r. decried pag. 9. l. 6. for then r. their pag. 12. l. 13. for means r. meanness l. 17. r. Westward l. 19. r. Priests p. 24. l. 8. for sacred r. secret l. 25. r. come

22. How shall I know who is Canonically Elected The Canon Law declares all Symoniacal Ordinations to be null and Pope Iulius the Second by a Bull de symoniaca Papae Electione declares him no Pope that is so elected How then shall I know that in the Elections there was no Symony For except I be sure there was none I cannot be sure the Pope is Canonically elected Now the secret transactions of the Conclave cannot be so clearly known as to free all people from scruples in this particular On the contrary we have the shrewdest grounds can be for suspecting foul dealings in these Elections Does not all the world know what interest the Factions of the two Crowns of the Nephews and the Squadrone Volante have in the Election of the Popes And all have seen the Intrigue of that Affair so that the very pretence of any Infallibility after such an Election is baffled out of the World Shall any body that understands mankind imagine these Elections go upon any other grounds but Interest Faction Expectation or some such base thing And that after the Pope is thus chosen to imagine the Holy Ghost is tied to all his Decrees is such a monstrous piece of Impudence that I cannot have so little charity for you as to think any of you believe it 23. How shall I know in the case of a Schism who is Canonically Elected Many of those Schisms there have been and all the Pretenders have put in a fair plea for themselves How then shall I be satisfied to which of them I must offer up my obedience And you know there are not three Ages past since for above forty years the Church of Rome was a Monster of two or three heads The several States of Europe being as divided in their Obedience as the Cardinals were in their Elections And it is little to be doubted but in many other Counter Elections had the Anti Popes been as strongly supported as the Popes at Avignon were they had been longer lived than they were Let me also ask you What right have the Cardinals to the Election of the Pope Which by the Primitive Constitution should belong to the Presbiters of Rome and the Bishops of the Province But that Bishops of other Nations shall be made Titulars to the Churches of Rome and so carry the Election as it is a very recent Constitution so can it pretend to no Divine Warrant And if the Election belong to the Cardinals you can give no reason why two thirds are necessary to make a Pope for in such cases either the whole must agree or the major Vote carry it and if the last be true then many a Pope is cast who is canonically elected having the majority of the Votes for him I confess in Political Constitutions men may mould matters as they will but in Divine things especially in choosing the Head of the Church and the Infallible Judg I must expect a better warrant 24. The Popes if infallible must either be such by immediate Inspiration or by a direction of the Divine Grace in considering what is proposed to them To the former they do not pretend nor do they wait for Enthusiasms but proceed as other men upon all emergents Now how can I be perswaded that a man who is wholly possest with affairs of State who minds nothing more than intrigues who has no education in any part of litterature but the Canon Law can upon a slight hearing a Controversie which puzles the most refined speculative heads judg exactly and truly when I plainly see he does not understand the points in debate And that this must be expected at Rome I remit to all who know that Court and it was truly the case of the Propositions of Iansenius which P. Innocent condemned though he confessed he understood not the matter and never gave the Iansenists a hearing but once nor can any body read the Bulls of the Popes but he must see the grossest misapplications of Scripture the falsest conclusions and the weakest reasons imaginable It were easie to instance this in a thousand particulars which must needs occur to every one that reads them Now a man may as soon believe day is night and night day as think that man infallible in his Decisions whom he finds plainly mistaken in many easie obvious things 25. What reason have I to think he has the Holy Ghost certainly going along in all his Decrees who seems plainly to have little or no sense of piety or vertue in all his actions and whole deportment The Divine Spirit purifies as well as enlightens it is true in immediate Inspirations this is not a constant Maxime but in one who expects the direction of the Holy Ghost by Prayers Fastings Applications of mind and other such means which is acknowledged to be the Popes case he must have prepared his mind to a right sense of Divine things by the previous purifying his soul otherwise a false Judgment is to be expected from a corrupt mind And the Prayers of the wicked and their Fastings too are abomination to God Now what men many of your Popes have been I rather refer you to your own Historians than rake such a puddle and since it is not to be disputed but vices of all sorts have been eminently lodged in the persons of not a few Popes who can force himself to think them a race of men that hold so near and close correspondence with Almighty God as to have his Spirit alway at command and yet have not by all that intimacy learned to escape the grosser and more common pollutions of the flesh Though St. Peter tells us that is the way to become partakers of the Divine Nature 26. How can I think the Popes infallible when it is certain if any thing in History be so that many of them have been guilty of opinions which General Councils have condemned and anathematised The Stories of Liberius and Honorius are too well known to be much contested the one having consented to semi-Arrianism against the Nicene Creed the other being anathematised by a General Council where another Popes Legats were consenting for a Heretick I suppose you are acquainted with the History and therefore give but a hint of these passages which are well known to learned men I name not many other Popes whom Historians accuse of Heresie but stand upon these two as more noted and signal And if one Pope be a Heretick the whole Infallibility falls to the ground and when I see Pope Innocent the First and Pope Innocent the Tenth differing so widely in their Decrees the one confirming St. Austin's Doctrin in the matter of grace and the other condemning Propositions which all who ever read St. Austin and are ingenious must see to be plainly consonant to his opinions I cannot forbear thinking neither one nor the other infallible for of two that contradict other I am sure one is in the wrong and if either of them be in the wrong neither