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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
head_n	church_n	pope_n	vicar_n	3,197	5	10.9896	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33098	A sermon preached at Edinburgh, in the East-Church of St. Giles, upon the 30th of January, 1689 being the anniversary of the martyrdome of King Charles the first / by James Canaries ...	Canaries, James.	1689 (1689)	Wing C423; ESTC R20246	68,911	94

nec Religio nec Patria nec Natura esse voluit Wherefore I shall only let all Papists see that by the very Tenor of their Religion they ought to be of such a damnable Opinion as leaves nothing no Prince inviolable when Popery comes in Competition I know it were needless to run to the Practice and Bulls of their Popes to the Doctrine of their greatest Doctors to the Books of their Cannon Law or even to the Decisions of their Councils for proving this For a Courtly sort of Papists set up in France and Brittain within some years ago have made it their great business to contradict these with a down-right impudence as manifestly as they use to do Sense and Reason in the point of Transubstantiation Had there been no more writ against them than what the Bishop of Lincoln has done one would think that either such Principles must be rejected by them or else Popery it self But some People know how to be Proof against all manner of evidence Peter Welch has indeed writ well against that Doctrine tho not against that Bishop He has clearly made it to appear that by universal Tradition nothing ought to be admitted by Christians that savours in the least of such a Treasonable tendencie As Mr. Allix has demonstrated that Transubstantiation was not the belief of the Romish Church before the Council of Trent And the great thing I admire in the Man next to his ingenuous following the Truth in it self is that he never understood he was pursuing a Protestant Tenet upon a Protestant Principle And I 'll engadge to refute all the Heresies of the Church of Rome as effectually as he has done That one of it by the same method he has taken in this affair And when he has for upwards of sixteen years been excommunicated by the Pope for such pranks we may look upon him as a Man of any other Religion rather than the Popish even when he stretches himself most to vindicat it from the most absurd and most gross of its Errors as you shall just now see by what I am to say It is then a short course I am to take with them being to Argument ad hominem And so in the first place I lay down this general Principle of theirs Namely That there is no Salvation out of the visible Communion of the Church of Rome I need not offer to prove that they own this For if they deny it Mr. Nicol may put up his Pen and I 'll ask no more for overturning St. Peters pretended Chair But none can be in visible communion with the Church of Rome but these who are in visible Communion with the Pope Because according to the Papists the Pope is the Vicar of Christ and so the Head of the Catholick Church and the Center of Catholick Unity Hence the common definition that their Divines give of the Catholick Church is That she is a Society of Men joyned together by the Profession of the same Faith and by the Communion of the same Sacraments under the Government of their lawful Pastours and especially of the Roman Pontife Christs only Vicar upon Earth And it were wholly unaccountable how the Pope could be Head of the Church and yet one might not be in visible Communion with him and nevertheless in visible Communion with the Church that is to say in visible Communion with the Body and not in visible Communion with the Head of that Body which is so indispensably its Head as that it could not be a Body unless it had that Head. I love not alwayes to reproach the Papists with Transubstantiation But bating that I know few contradictions they could be more coursly guilty of than they would be should they attempt to defend that one might be in visible Communion with the Church of Rome and yet not in visible Communion with her Head the Pope But further all Papists must either understand by that governing Power which they say is inherent in the Pope as he is Pope as immediat a Jurisdiction over the whole Catholick Church and all its Members as any particular Bishop has over his own Diocess Or else they must acknowledge him to be no more but only a certain Patriarch at best And I would fain have any Papist state me any Midle Power of Primacy and Head-ship betwixt such a Jurisdiction and such a Patriarchal Priority They must speak sense closely to the point and not meer words But why am I pleading only for an equal Jurisdiction in the Pope over the whole Church to that which privat Bishops have over their respective Flocks For that of Primacy must go much higher And if his Holiness be a Holiness at all he has committed to him the Superintendency of the Faith and Manners of the whole Church not only in as immediat a manner as any other Bishop has of that special portion of Christians which is alloted to his Care but also with a more Authoritative Force suitable unto such a transcendent elevation as is the Papacy Because not to speak yet of any infallibility residing in him when he Acts under the full extent of his Character he who can immediately command both those whom another commands and that other too who commands them can much more powerfully by himself immediately command them than can he who is also subject to be commanded by him As the Authority of a chief Stewart is much more prevalent than is that of those Inferiour ones who tho constituted also by the Master of all are yet accountable to that grand Fellow-servant And all this is manifest from the Popes assuming a Power to hear and Judge all Causes Originally and his reserving many Cases to himself which the Ordinary dares not meddle with Now it is without all doubt that any ptivate Bishop may in virtue of that Power he has over his Diocess not only inflict Censures upon the Persons of those who broach or maintain things prejudicial to the Faith but also condemn or approve Propositions as contrary to or consistent with it and annex Anathema's to those Definitions so that thereby they become Terms of Communion with him And this is the known Practice of the Bishops throughout all the Roman Church And whoever conforms not to their Definitions are actually excluded Communion with them and are no more Members of that Body namely their Diocesian Church of which they are the Head. From all which it is easie to infer that the Pope may and does deal so as to the whole Roman Church and that those who do not submit to his Definitions are consequently exterminated that visible Communion with him which is as essentially necessary to the being a Member of that Church as visible Communion with an inferiour Bishop is to the being a Member of his particular Church And this was very palpable in the fate of the Jansenists who were forc'd either to renounce and abjure those Propositions which the Pope had condemn'd or else to suffer

the infamy and other Punishments which the Church of Rome uses to pour out upon all those she calls Hereticks Hence the Popes Faith must either be the chief standard of the Faith of that whole Church or else contrary to what I have now so irrefragably proved one may be formally a Papist or in visible Communion with the Roman Church and yet not in visible Communion with the Pope Because if what the Pope has defin'd may be rejected and laught at without breaking visible Communion with that Church one may be out of visible Communion with her Head and notwithstanding in visible Communion with her self And that in plain terms is to be a Member of that Church and not a Member of her since according to the Power all Papists contend is in the Pope it is absolutely necessary for being a Member of her to be in visible Communion with him Or God would require a condition of being a true Member of that Church which that one might be so he were obliged not to perform to wit in case the Pope should define contrary to the true Faith which undoubtedly he can do if he be not infallible Since even then one were obliged to be a Member of the Catholick Church But he could not be that unless he were in visible Communion with the Pope But now he could not be in visible Communion with the Pope and a Member of the Catholick Church too because if he were in visible Communion with the Pope of necessity he must outwardly profess a Doctrine inconsistent with the true Faith and so with being a Member of the Catholick Church And consequently contradictory obligations were exacted of all Christians if the Pope could be fallible in his Definitions and if a necessity of conforming to them were requisit for being in visible Communion with him and visible Communion with him were essentially necessary for being a Member of the Catholick Church All Papists therefore must acknowledge that either the Popes Definitions are universally to be acquiesced in or that the being in visible Communion with him is no Essential Constituent of being a Member of their Church And if they cannot deny the latter as certainly they cannot then it evidently follows that his Authority is infallible in deciding any thing he shall take under his cognizance and that all his Thunders are the Thunders of Heaven indeed It is therefore undenyable that every Papist is bound by his Principles to be of the Popes Faith and to Pin his Salvation upon his Holinesses Sleeve Neither can any thing be objected to the least Sentence of all this unless it be That since private Bishops are not infallible tho they Excommunicate with an Anathema so the Pope may be both fallible and yet have Power to Excommunicate with such a heavy Curse too But there is a great disparity between the case of private Bishops and that of the Pope For however much they may be in the wrong there is always Redress and place for an Appeal And before one or his Doctrine be condemn'd by the Supreme Judge tho that private Communion were broke yet the Catholick would be entire And God has not absolutely requir'd the one as he has done the other So that the Argument I have here adduced depends upon no more from the case of private Bishops than this That as they can condemn Propositions and therefore all those in their Diocesses who do not embrace their Condemnation becomes formally thereby to be excluded visible Communion with them so it fares betwixt the Pope and the Roman Church in general And I did not infer that as therefore those Bishops ought to be infallible the Pope is so too For the consequence of that Antecedent from which this last Consequent is brought is altogether false But the Popes Infallibility is deduced as a Result from these three the first that as privat Bishops can exclude from Communion with them those of their Diocess who submit not to their Definitions so the Pope can do those of the whole Church the second that it is essentially requisite for being a Member of the Catholick Church to be in visible Communion with the Pope and the third that it is absolutely necessary to the having of the true Faith to be a Member of the Catholick Church Now it not being so requisite for being a Member of the Catholick Church and so for having the true Faith to be in visible Communion with any privat Bishop the Popes Infallibility can never be denyed because no privat Bishop pretends to it whatever Power of making Definitions he is invested with since thus one part of my Argument is only considered without reflecting upon the rest And here I defie the whole Papists in World to give me any solid Answer to it What else then remains for demonstrating that all Papists either are or ought to be of that Opinion whereby it is held lawful for the Pope to Excommunicate all those Princes he shall reckon for Hereticks and to loose their Subjects Oaths of Allegiance to them But only to make it manifest that the Pope and the Court of Rome has declar'd that the contrary Tenet is Erroneous and Heretical and robs him of that Power he as Christs Vicar has bestowed upon him Now what Popes have done and what Stile they have used in their Bulls toward Princes since Pope Hildebrands time all the World knows As also how Cardinal Bellarmine treated our Country-man John Barclay as a Heretick for maintaining the Interest of Princes against the Usurpations of the See of Rome and how this poor mans Circumstances obliged him to Retract at Rome what he had Printed at London and that in as publick a manner if a Preface to his Paroencsis can be accounted to be such But I shall only Appeal to all those Witnesses by which the Matter of Fact of this can be Attested I my self indeed have been call'd a Liar to my Face for having said last when I preached in this place That the Pope is as tenacious of this Doctrine as ever he was I shall say no more but that I might have been allowed as much common Honesty at least as not to be thought impudently to Averr those things in a Pulpit which all that have ever been at Rome cannot but understand if they can understand any thing there at all And truly the very nature of the Tenet renders it a matter of such Vulgar knowledge that it cannot be less notour at Rome than the great Points of Treason are here it being as hazardous there to question the Popes Power over Kings as it is here to question the Kings just Power over his People One therefore might with equal Confidence Averr at Rome that Scotland has no other Government than what is Democratical as he might pretend here that the Sentiments of the Court of Rome are that St. Pauls Sword as well as St. Peters Keys was delivered over into the Popes hand if they were not truly