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A48243 The letter writ by the last Assembly General of the Clergy of France to the Protestants, inviting them to return to their communion together with the methods proposed by them for their conviction / translated into English, and examined by Gilbert Burnet. Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; Catholic Church. Assemblée générale du clergé de France. 1683 (1683) Wing L1759; ESTC R2185 82,200 210

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Evidence of those places of Scripture from which they deduced them 5. Since those of that Communion object a National Synod to the Protestants this may be turned back on them with greater advantage in some points established by Councils which they esteem not only General but Infallible In the Third Council of the Lateran it was decreed That all Princes who favoured Hereticks did forfeit their Rights and a Plenary Indulgence was granted to all that fought against them In the Fourth Council at the same place it was decreed That the Pope might not only declare this forfeiture but absolve the Subjects from their Oaths of Obedience and transfer their Dominions upon others In the First Council at Lions they joyned with the Pope in thundring the Sentence of Deposition against the Emperour Frederick the First which in the preamble is grounded on some places of Scripture of which if they were the Infallible Expositors then this power is an Article of Faith And in the last p●ace the Council of Constance decreed That the Faith of a Safe-Conduct was not to be kept to an Heretick that had come to the place of Judgement relying on it even though he would not have come without it When Cruelt● Rebellion and Treachery were thus decreed in Courts which among them are of so sacred an authority It is visible how much gre●ter advantages we have of them in this point than any they can pretend against us 6. For the Synod of Dort I will not undertake the Apology neither for their Decrees nor for their Assertions and will not stick to say that how true soever many of their Conclusions may be yet the defining such mysterious matters as the order of the Divine Decrees and the Influences of Gods Grace on the wills of men in so positive a manner and the imposing their Assertions on all the Ministers of their Communion was that which many as sincere Protestants as any are have ever disliked and condemned as a weakening the Union of the Protestant Church and an assuming too much of that authority which we condemn in the Church of Rome For though they supposed that they made their definitions upon the grounds of Scripture so that in this sense the authority of the Synod was meerly Declarative yet the question will still recur Whether they understood the passages which they built on right or not And if they understood them wrong then according to Protestant principles their Decrees had no such binding authority that the receding from them could make one guilty either of Heresie or Schism The Sixth Method IS to shew them that the Roman Church or that Church which acknowledges the Pope or the Bishop of Rome the Successor of S. Peter to be her Head all the World over is the true Church Because there is no other besides her that has that undoubted mark which is a perpet●al Visibility without Interruption since Christ's time to this day This is a Method common to all the Catholicks and is very well and briefly set forth in the little Treatise of the true Church joyned to that of the Peaceable Method This is that of which S. Austin makes most frequent use against the Donatists and chiefly in his Book of the Vnity of the Church and in his Epistles of which the most remarkable passages relating to this matter are gathered together by the late Arch-bishop of Rouen in the first Book of his Apology for the Gospel in which he handles this matter excellently well One may add to this Method the Maxims of which Tertullian makes use in his Treatise of Prescriptions against the Hereticks and also Vincentius Lyrinensis in his Advices It is enough to say on this occasion that those two Treatises may satisfie any that will read them without prepossession in order to their forming a just Iudgement of the true Church of Iesus Christ and of all those Societies that would usurp that name Remarks THis Method is so common that there was no reason in any sort to give Mr. Maimbourg the honour of it unless it was that the Assembly intended to do him this publick honour to ballance his disgrace at Rome But let us examine it 1. This asserts that no other Church has a perpetual Succession without interruption but that which derives it from Rome which is so contrary to what every one knows that Mr. Maimbourg was certainly inspired with the Spirit of his Order when he writ it Do not all the Greek Churches and all the Churches that have their Ordination from them all from the Northern Empire of Muscovy to the Southern of the Abassines together with all those in the East derive from the Apostles by an uninterrupted series For till the Authority of the Church of Rome is proved which is the thing in question their being declared Schismaticks or Hereticks by it does not interrupt this Succession 2. The Church of England has the same Succession that the Church of Rome had in Gregory the Great 's time to wave the more ancient pretensions of the Brittish Churches and the Bishops of this Church being bound by one of their Sponsions made at their Consecration according to the Roman Pontifical to instruct their flock in the true Faith according to the Scriptures they were obliged to make good this promise Nor can it be pretended that they have thereupon forfeited their Orders and by consequence their Succession 3. The Succession of the Church of Rome cannot be said to be uninterrupted if either Heresie or Schism can cut it off It is well known that Felix Liberius and Honorius to name no more were Hereticks and if Ordinations by Schismaticks or unlawful Usurpers be to be annulled which was judged in the case of Photius and was often practised at Rome then the many Schisms and unjust usurpations that have been in that See will make the Succession of their Orders the most disputable thing that can be especially during that Schism that lasted almost forty years all the Churches of that Communion having derived their Orders from one or other of the Popes and if the Popes at Avignon were the Usurpers then let the Gallican Churches see how they can justifie the series of their Ordinations To all which may be added the impossibility of proving a true Succession in Orders if the Vertue of the Sacraments depends on the Intention of him who officiates since secret Intentions are only known to God 4. The ground on which the Donatists separated from the Orthodox Churches being at first founded on a matter of Fact which was of the pretended Irregularity of those who ordained Cecilian which they afterwards defended upon this that the Church could be only composed of good men and that the Sacraments were of no Vertue when dispensed by ill hands all that S. Austin says is to be governed by this Hypothesis against which he argues And it being once granted that the Church was not corrupted neither in Doctrine nor Worship we are very ready
that threatening clause of forfeiture used by those of Constance in their Decree for a General Council And at Trent it was declared That if any Prince did suffer a Duel to be fought in his Dominions he was thereupon to forfeit that place in which it was fought Now by the same authority that they could declare a forfeiture of any one place they could dec●are a for●eiture of a Princes whole Dominion for both those Sentences flow from the same Superiour Jurisdiction And thus we see seven of those Councils which they esteem general have either decreed confirmed or assumed this right of Deposing Kings for Heresie or indeed for breaking their Orders and Writs 4. The fourth mark o● Tradition is ●hat which has been of late so famous by Mr. Arnauld's endeavours to prove from thence that the belief of the Corporal Presence in the Sacrament is a Doctrine derived down from the Apos●les days which is this If any one Age has universally received an opinion as an Article of Faith it must be concluded that that Age had it from the former and that from the preceding till we arrive at the Apostles days And this he thinks must hold the stronger if the point so received w●s a thing obvious to all men in which every one was concerned and to which the nature of man was inclined to make a powerful opposition I shall not examine how true this is in general nor how applicable in fact it is to the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence but shall only say that allowing all these marks to be the sure Indications of Apostolical Tradition the Doctrine of Deposing Princes for favouring Heresie has them all much more indisputably than the other has Take any one Age from the eleventh Century to the sixteenth and it will appear that not only the Popes the Bishops and all the Ecclesiastical Order received it but that all the Laity likewise embraced it Though this was a matter obvious to sense in which many were much concerned It might have been hoped that Princes upon their own account for fear of an ill Precedent would have protected the ●eposed Prince But on the contrary they either entred into the Croisades themselves or at least gave way to them vast Armies were gathered together to execute those Sentences and the injured Princes had no way to keep their people firm to them but by assuring them they were not guilty of the matters objected to them which shewed that had their people believed them guilty they had forsaken them And yet as it was the terrour of a Croisade was such and the Popes authority to depose Princes was so firmly believed that they were for the most part forced to save themselves by an absolute submission to the Popes pleasure and to what Conditions or Penances a haughty Pope would impose on them So certain it is that this Doctrine was universally received in those ages And thus it appears that all the Characters by which it can be pretended that an Apostolic●l Tradition can be known agree to this Doctrine in so full and uncontestable a manner that they cannot bring such Evidence for the points in dispute between them and us So that the Assembly General by condemning this Doctrine have departed from the Tradition of their own Church more apparently than it can be pretended that either Luther and Calvin did in any of those Doctrines which they rejected and therefore they ought not any more to complain of us for throwing off such things as they found on Tradition when they have set us such an Example From which I shall only infer this That they themselves must know how weak a foundation Oral Tradition is for Divine Faith to build upon and that it must be established upon surer grounds FINIS ERRATVM Page 85. line 21. for First read Second Books Printed for and Sold by RICHARD CHISWELL FOLIO SPeed's Maps and Geography of Great Britain and Ireland and of Foreign Parts Dr. Cave's Lives of the Primitive Fathers in 2. Vol. Dr. Cary's Chronological Account of Ancient Time Wanley's Wonders of the little World or Hist. of Man Sir Tho. Herbert's Travels into Persia c. Holyoak's large Dictionary Latine and English Sir Rich. Baker's Chronicle of England Wilson's Compleat Christian Dictionary B. Wilkin's real Character or Philosophical Language Pharmacopoeia Regalis Collegii Medicorum Londinensis Judge Iones's Reports in Common Law Cave Tabulae Ecclesiasticorum Scriptorum Hobbs's Leviathan Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning Sir Will. Dugdale's Baronage of England in two Vol. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity Winch's Book of Entries Isaac Ambrose's Works Guillim's Display of Heraldry with large additions Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England in 2. Vol. Account of the Confessions and Prayers of the Murtherers of Esquire Thynn Burlace's History of the Irish Rebellion Herodoti Historia Gr. Lat. cum variis Lect. Rushworth's Historical Collections the 2 d. Part in 2. vol. Large account of the Tryal of the Earl of Strafford with all the circumstances relating thereunto Bishop Sanderson's Sermons with his Life Fowlis's History of Romish Conspir Treas Usurpat Dalton's Office of Sheriffs with Additions Office of a Justice of Peace with additions Keeble's Collection of Statutes Lord Cook 's Reports in English Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World Edmunds on Caesars Commentaries Sir Iohn Davis's Reports Judge Yelverton's Reports The Laws of this Realm concerning Jesuites Seminary Priests Recusants the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance explained by divers Judgments and resolutions of the Iudges with other Observations thereupon by Will. Cawley Esq William's impartial consideration of the Speeches of the five Jesuits executed for Treason 1680. Iosephus's Antiquities and Wars of the Jews with Fig. QVARTO DR Littleton's Dictionary Latine and English Bishop Nicholson on the Church Catechism The Compleat Clerk Precedents of all sorts History of the late Wars of new-New-England Dr. Outram de Sacrificiis Bishop Taylor 's Disswasive from Popery Spanhemii Dubia Evangelica 2 Vol. Dr. Gibbs's Sermons Parkeri Disputationes de Deo History of the future state of Europe Dr. Fowler 's Defence of the Design of Christianity against Iohn Bunnyan Dr. Sherlock's Visitation-Sermon at Warrington Dr. West's Assize Sermon at Dorchester 1671. Lord Hollis's Relation of the Unjust Accusation of certain French Gentlemen charged with aRobbery 1671. The Magistrates Authority asserted in a Sermon By Iames Paston Cole's Latine and English Dictionary Mr. Iames Brome's two Fast-Sermons Dr. Iane's Fast-Sermon before the Commons 1679. Mr. Iohn Iames's Visitation Sermon April 9. 1671. Mr. Iohn Cave's Fast-Sermon on 30. of Ian. 1679. Assize Sermon at Leicester Iuly 31. 1679. Dr. Parker's Demonstration of the Divine Authority of the Law of Nature and the Christian Religion Mr. William's Sermon before the Lord Mayor 1679. History of the Powder Treason with a vindication of the proceedings relating thereunto from the Exceptions made against it by the Catholick Apologist and others and a Parallel betwixt that and the