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A60320
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A sermon preached at Christ-Church in Dublin before the Lord Lieutenant and Council, the fifth day of July, 1674 by Mr. Andrew Sall ...
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Sall, Andrew, 1612-1682.
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1674
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Wing S392; ESTC R32075
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51,081
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162
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A SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN DUBLIN Before the Lord Lieutenant and Council The Fifth day of July 1674. BY Mr. ANDREW SALL Formerly of the Order of Iesus and Professor of Divinity in the Colledges of Pamplona Polencia and Tudela in Spain Rector and Professor of Controversies in the Irish Colledge of the University of Salamanca Professor of Moral Theology in the Royal Colledge of the Society in the same University now Preacher of the Gospel in the Reformed Church of Ireland and Chaplain to his Excellency the most Honourable ARTHVR Earl of Essex Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truths sake Psalm 115.1 I will speak of thy testimonies also before Kings and will not be ashamed Psalm 119.46 Published by Authority DVBLIN Printed by Benjamin Tooke Printer to his King 's most Excellent Majesty and are to be sold by Joseph Wilde Book-seller in Castle-street 1674. Imprimatur JA ARMACANUS To His Excelleney THE MOST HONOURABLE ARTHUR Earl of ESSEX Viscount Malden Baron Capel of Hadham Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland Lord Lieutenant of the County of Hertford and one of the Lords of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council May it please your Excellency THE love of Truth made me forsake what I loved most of worldly things and occasioned my dearest friends to become my bitter Enemies Tyranny did stop my mouth formerly from speaking Truth and malice subrogated now doth pursue me even where I expected liberty being busy as I am informed in contriving if not my destruction my discredit that I might not be able to speak against errours too much prevailing in the world or not to be credited when I should do it The same of your Excellency's Heroick Endowments Christian Zeal of Truth and Holiness derived from your illustrious Progenitors and more immediately from your most honourable and renowned Father of glorious memory for sacrificeing his life to Truth and Loyalty did encourage me to address my self to your Excellency's Protection in this more than ordinary necessity thereof The most gracious reception your Excellency was pleased to give me emboldened me to manifest the justification of my departure from the Romish Communion and adhereing to the purity of Catholick Religion as it is professed by the Church of England in a Sermon Preached at the Royal Chappel of christ-Christ-Church in your Honourable Presence And the singular â—â—â—ignity wherewith your Exâ—â—â—â—â—cy your Ilustrious 〈…〉 was pleased to hear and 〈…〉 prove of my discourse upon 〈◊〉 Subject giveth me confidenâ—â— to present to your Excellency commend to your protection the same Discourse being ordered to publish it That being Honoured in the Front with your Excellency's Illustrious Name it might the better withstand the assaults of envy and malice The adversaries of our Doctrine are so active in advancing their Faction that where they cannot practice Violence their contrivances do reach to terrify Sincere mindes from professing or speaking what they judgright I have but too much ground to think it is so with very many in this Country and abroad It is more want of courage than of knowledge that keeps many good men under their yoke and such as know their ways may think it a wonder that any who were among them of note should dare to oppose them It will be a singular glory of your Excellency if under your shelter we may enjoy the freedom of speaking Truth Peace is the Foundation of Happiness and Lustre in any Government and the fiercest Enemy of Peace is Dissension in Religion Of such Dissension the only remedy by ordinary Providence is a free exchange of reasons according to the Rule of God's Word and within the Bounds of Christian Modesty And this Freedom being all my ambition I cannot but assure my self of your Excellencies gracious Protection and Favour that may enable me to praise God in this way That we being delivered out of the hands of our Enemies Lu 1.74 might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life Praying continually to God he may be pleased to bless your Excellency with all prosperity and farther your holy intentions for the spiritual and temporal welfare of this Kingdom I cease to give your Excellency farther trouble but shall ever remain Your Excellencies most humble and obedient Servant And Chaplain ANDREW SALL THE PREFACE To my Dear Countrey-men Friends and Kinsmen of the Roman Communion in IRELAND THE great Scandal you seem to have taken at my withdrawing from the Communion of the Roman Church and adhering to that of England has occasioned I should the more willingly obey the order I had of exposing to publick view the account of my proceeding and motives of my alteration contained in this Sermon which I have preached in the Royal Chappel of Christ-Church at Dublin desiring that such as could not or would not go thither to hear it may at their leisure and without passion read it If my proceedings herein were indeed a scandal I might justly fear that woe to him that gives it But mens averse disposition is apt to term a scandal what in it self is an example And I have ground to hope it is so with you at present in my concern Certainly it may be called an example and a good one if you hear the voice of God not to harden your heart or shut your ears against it though you may prudently examine the calling and endeavour to be certified whether it be of God And when you are assured it is so to obey your Lord and Maker not heeding the cryes of the world against you nor the suggestions of humane fear or shame So did the blessed Virgin Mary who hearing that high and honourable calling of God by the mouth of the Angel Gabriel did neither harden her heart nor shut her ears against it nor yet did she give a sudden assent but replied with a pressing reason according to the rules of humane Discourse saying How shall this be Lu. 1.34 seeing I know not a man but convinced with superiour evidences represented by the Angel she obeyed promptly the will of God not regarding her former apprehension of fear and shame Her example I have followed I heard the voice of God by several ways interiour and exteriour calling me out of the errours of my former profession I neither hardened my heart with resolute obstinacy nor gave a hasty assent to change but by prayer and study of many years did endeavour to certifie my self of the truth by all the ways I could imagine fit to find it out and being at last fully convinced did resolutely embrace it and openly declare for it not heeding the cryes nor fearing the menaces of passion and malice against me If you will not think fit to follow my example in this kind of proceeding I hope you will
degree Superiour to God himself in the Government of humane kind If the Laws of England were not to be understood or practised in Ireland but according to the will and declaration of the King of France certainly the King of France would be deemed of more Power and Authority in the Government of Ireland and the people more Subject to him than to the King of England So if the Law of God is to be measured by the Popes will and declaration certainly the Pope is above God in the Government of man kind Who would believe that any Christian would presume to say that it should be a greater sin to transgress an Ecclesiastick Law of the Pope than to break the Law of God Costerus c. 15. enchiridii propos 9. yet Costerus one of the chief defenders of the Romish Doctrine sticketh not to say so much resolutely asserting that it is a greater sin in a Priest to Marry than to commit Fornication or keep a Concubine in his house That Greater sin in his opinion being but a transgression of a Papal Law and the other reputed by him for Lighter a trespass against the Law of God expressed in his Divine Decalogue What Christian ears can abide to hear such execrable Blasphemies will they wonder now that the Pope should be taxed with that Antichristian Impiety declared by Daniel the Prophet Dan. 11.36 2. Thessa 2.4 and by St. Paul who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God Here you see the Romish Church guilty of that Abomination mentioned in our text of extolling man above God Pope's Supremacy To this enormity of robbing God of his prerogatives is joyned another of making the Pope Supreme Head and Master of all Christians not only in spiritual matters but also in their temporal interests with power to depose Kings and move their Subjects to Rebellion against them when they do not obey his will as it was declared in the Lateran Council under Innocent the Third by these terrible words If a temporal Lord warned by the Church doth neglect to purge his Land of Heresie Concil Laterar c. 3. let him be excommunicated by the Metropolitan and if within a year he gives no satisfaction let that be signified to the Pope that from thenceforth he may declare his Subjects absolved from their obedience to him and expose his lands to be occupied by Catholicks And so was done to King John of England by the same Pope Innocent the Third as it is recorded by Polidor Virgil Polidor lib. 15. Suar. li. 3. defens c. 23. to the Emperour Henry the Fourth by Gregory the Fourth To Frederick the 2d by Innocent the 4th and to several other Christian Princes as Suarez relates making the Practice of Popes herein an Argument of their Power for doing so Which kind of arguing as I was admiring in so exact a Schoolman and reflecting upon the power of prejudice and education even over the most sublime wits an ingenious Divine of the University of Dublin reply'd facetiously it was a very concluding argument that proceedeth ab actu ad potentiam being he did so it 's sign he could do it that was good for a jest But Suarez to be in earnest and give consistence to his argument subsumed that the Church Universal did see and approve of this proceeding and the Church being Infallible could not approve it if not Lawful Many other controversies would have a quick decision if this discourse were Legal That all saw it is allowed but that all approved of it freely is denyed Force and fear made them suffer what they would have resisted if they knew how I remit enlarging upon the injustice of the Pope's pretensions herein to another occasion and their unreasonable exclamations against the claim of our Princes to Supremacy of power over their subjects being they pretend no other than such as the godly Kings of Israel had in their time over the Jews and the Christian Emperors in the primitive Church over their respective subjects as it is declared in the 37. Article and 2. Canon of the Church of England Only I will reflect at present upon the cruelty the Pope has practised of late towards the unhappy Irish his Followers in pursuit of his pretended power of deposing Kings That being no matter of Faith nor passing a probable Opinion as Azor Peron Azor to 2 li. 11. c. 5. q. 8. Peronus in replica sua typis data anno 1620. and other very learned Authors of his own party do declare If we may call probable a doctrine so damnable that the great Parliament of France wherein of 200. Votes only 6. were Protestants in the year 1604. commanded Suarez his Book containing this doctrine to be burned by the hands of the publick Executioner and ordered the Jesuits to have their preachers exhort the people to the contrary doctrine or otherwise they should be proceeded against as Traytors and Disturbers of the publick peace Besides all their own Divines generally asserting that in a probable controversie one may with safety of conscience follow the side he pleaseth Yet the Pope prohibited severely the Irish to disclaim that seditious doctrine let them suffer never so many penalties and suspicions for it So zealous is his Holiness not of the salvation of souls but of the conservation of his own Grandeur in having all power upon Earth at his will and the Crowns of Kings to stand or fall at his beck is not this to exercise tyranny and cruelty in the conduct of souls Transubstantiation Touching the second Point proposed of Transubstantiation I signified before how prodigious that engagement was and what weak Foundation they had for it in Scripture Now I will declare how directly contrary to Scripture it is and to the doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church The Council of Trent accurseth such as affirm Bread and Wine to remain in this Sacrament after Consecration Trident. Sess 13. can 2. And yet St. Paul teacheth us expresly and repeateth the same doctrine some five times over that after Consecration it is Bread which is broken and eaten 1 Cor. 11.23 24. The Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took Bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and said Take eat this is my Body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me Of the Bread he took in his hand all that followeth is affirmed to wit that he brake it and that it was his Body And whereas in a literal sense it could not be said with truth or propriety that the Bread was his Body as you may not say with sense that a stick is a stone he declareth immediately that he spoke in a figurative sense willing it to be a commemoration or remembrance of him the Bread still remaining in the nature of Bread though elevated by Christ's Institution to a supernatural and spiritual power of giving grace to well disposed Receivers And so S. Paul