Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	according_a	church_n	power_n	1,492	5	5.1156	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36261	Two short discourses against the Romanists by Henry Dodwell ...	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1676 (1676)	Wing D1825; ESTC R1351	55,174	261

it to that Multitude of Christians who are united under a visible Monarchical Head as a Principle of their Unity to which Jure Divino all are bound to be obedient 24. This Monarchical Head to which they pretend a nearer interest than others is the Papacy The Summary Seeing therefore that nothing else can excuse their new Impositions but the Authority by which they are Imposed And Seeing that no Authority can be sufficient for their purpose to oblige their Subjects internally to believe what is neither Necessary as to its matter nor Evident as to its proof Antecedently to the Definition of such an Authority but one that must be Infallible Seeing that they who do not in terms pretend the Popes Infallibility necessary and they who do so already own what I would prove that all must own according to their Principles can make no Plea to Infallibility but from those Promises of the Spirit which themselves confess to have been primarily made to the Catholick Church and therefore though an Infallibility even in Judgment were granted to belong to the Catholick Church yet that can signifie nothing to our Adversaries purpose till they can prove themselves to be that Catholick Church to which alone those Promises confessedly belong Seeing evidently they are not the Catholick Church diffusive and can therefore only pretend to the Title of their being the Catholick Church virtual Seeing this Notion of the Catholick Church Virtual must necessarily imply such a Principle of Unity to which all the Catholick Church diffusive is obliged to adhere as to a certain Standard of their Catholicism and this Principle of Unity to which they can lay claim above other Christian Societies is only the Papacy and the Papacy as a Principle of Unity must be a Principle not of Order only but of Influence and that independently on the Judgment of the Catholick Church diffusive All these things being considered together It will plainly follow that if this influential independent power of the Papacy cannot be proved all their pretences to Infallibility or even to any Authority for deciding these Controversies between us must fall to the ground and consequently all their particular Decisions depending on them will neither be valid in Law nor obliging in Conscience which will leave their Separation and Impositions destitute of any pretence that may excuse them from being Schismatical This is therefore the Fundamental Principle on which all their Authority in defining all other particular Doctrines must originally depend And to shew that this Principle is insufficiently proved will alone be enough to invalidate all their other Definitions Secondly Therefore to shew the insufficiency of their proof of it This Proof must either be α from Tradition And for this it is observable that I. This Notion of the Catholick Church Virtual if it had been True must have been originally delivered by the unanimous consent of the Catholick Church diffusive We cannot judge otherwise unless we suppose a great defect either of the Apostles in not teaching or of the Church in not preserving the memorial of such a Fundamental Principle of their Unity II. This Topick of Tradition delivered down by the Catholick Church diffusive is the only proper one for the Church who pretends to this Authority to prove it by And till it be proved and proved to the judgment of particular Subjects there is no reason that She should expect that they should think themselves obliged in Conscience to submit to her Authority For Authority can be no rational Motive to them to distrust their own Judgments till it self be first proved and acknowledged And therefore if it do not appear and appear to us from this Topick we can have no reason to believe it III. This Notion of the Catholick Church Virtual does not appear to have been ever delivered as the sense of the Catholick Church diffusive 1. Not of that Catholick Church diffusive which was extant in the beginning of the Reformation For then 1. The Greeks and most of the Eastern Christians professedly oppose it 2. Many of the Western Christians themselves especially of the French and Germans did not believe it 3. The Western Church it self Representative in four by them reputed General Councils of Pisa Constance Siena and Basile did not own the Popes Supremacy as a Principle of Catholick Unity but expresly by their Canons declared themselves to be his Superiors and treated him as being wholly subject to their Authority This was not long before the Reformation and what they did had not then been repealed by any Authority comparable to theirs 2. Not of the Catholick diffusive Church in antienter times 1. Not of the Greeks ever since their Schism as the Latines call it under Photius 2. Before that time even whilst they were united with the Latines the Popes Supremacy was disowned by them in that famous 28. Canon of Chalcedon which equalled the Bishop of Constantinople with him of Rome and owned only an Ecclesiastical Right in both of them for the dignity of their Cities which as I have already warned will not suffice for our Adversaries purpose that I may not now mention the Canon of Constantinople so expounded by the Fathers of Chalcedon in place and maintained by the Greek Emperors It was also disowned by the Council of Antioch against Julius Disowned by the African Fathers by whom the only Plea the Popes had from the Council of Nice was found to be a forgery 3. Not of the Catholick diffusive Church in those Primitive times while the Christians lived under Heathen Emperours For 1. The Romanists themselves are unwilling to be tryed by them unless we will allow them to quote from the Decretal Epistles c. which Learned Men among themselves do confess to be suspicious or manifest Forgeries 2. Aeneas Sylvius who was afterwards Pope Pius II. acknowledged that before the Council of Nice little respect was had to the Bishop of Rome above others 3. It appears by the freedom wherewith Pope Stephen was resisted by St. Cyprian and Pope Victor by the Asiatick Bishops and by St. Irenaeus And 4. By the Canon of Carthage under St. Cyprian which declared that no Bishop was subject to another but that every one was Supreme in his own charge under God not now to mention other passages in him to the same 5. By the weakness of the Testimonies alledged to this purpose the Presidency in the Region of the Romans in Ignatius the powerful Principality in St. Irenaeus the Pontificatus Maximus Ironically derided by Tertullian and the one Bishop and one See in St. Cyprian c. β For the Scriptures themselves do not seem very confident of them without the Expositions of the Fathers AN ANSWER TO Six Queries Proposed to a Gentlewoman of the Church of ENGLAND by an Emissary of the Church of ROME fitted to a Gentlewomans capacity By HENRY DODWELL M. A. and sometimes Fellow of

yet thus much at least will follow that we cannot be satisfied that they had any such Evidence which is enough to render it doubtful to us whether it were an Apostolical Tradition Now that they did not mention this Supremacy I do not desire the Ignorant to take the bare word of our Authors but I am content that they trust their own Judgments concerning the passages produced as far as they are capable of judging them or where they find themselves unable that there they acquiesce in the Confessions of candid learned Men though of our Adversaries Communion Which is no more than what they themselves count Prudent in the like Cases when they occurr in the management of their secular affairs use II § 7. Nor is it only thus Convenient but it is almost Necessary in dealing with our Adversaries to begin at least with this Fundamental Principle For till they be convinced of the Fallibility of their Guide all the Reasons produced against them are only taken for Temptations and tryals of the stedfastness of their Implicite Faith And in affairs of this nature they are taught to distrust their own Judgment nay in matters of Faith the most Learned Clergy are taught to do so as they are considered in their private capacity as well as the more ignorant Laity and they are further taught that in such matters their Faith is by so much the more excellent and meritorious by how much more it captivates their Understandings and that this captivating of their Understandings implies a denial of their own Judgments when different from that of their Superiors Now upon these terms it is impossible to deal with them by particular Reasonings For the utmost that can be expected from the clearest Reasonings is that their private Judgments may be convinced by them But if when this is done they distrust their own Judgments nay think themselves obliged to deny their own Judgments in complyance with that of their Superiors nay take it to be the greater glory of their Faith to deny the greater and more powerful Convictions it will then follow that by how much more Conscientiously they Act according to their own Principles by so much the less capable they must be of this kind of Reasoning It must needs be in vain to urge them with such Reasons by which they will not be tryed though they should indeed prove convictive and that to their own Understandings § 8. Nor indeed is it rational to expect that they should be otherwise disposed pursuant to their Principles For all Prudent Considerers of things will confess that one direct proof that a thing is actually True is more considerable than many Probabilities to the contrary Especially if the direct proof be of it self stronger than any contrary Objection as indeed no Objection can be so sufficient to prove any Proposition false as the Infallibility of the Proponent is to prove it true Which must the rather hold considering that they take the judgment of their Judge of Controversies for an adaequately-infallible Proof never remembring that though indeed the Spirit of God be Infallible yet the Arguments whereby they prove their Judge of Controversies so assisted by that Spirit as to partake of its Infallibility that is so assisted as that their Judge of Controversies shall Infallibly follow the Infallible Guidance of the Spirit otherwise themselves cannot pretend that all assistance of the Spirit must infer Infallibility unless they will grant that every good Christian is Infallible because they cannot deny that he is so assisted I say these Arguments are only Moral and such as may in many Cases be exceeded by Arguments taken from the nature of the thing and that the Consequence must follow the weaker part so that still their Faith can be no more than morally certain though their Judge of Controversies were granted to be Infallible in regard of his assistance § 9. Yet even so it should be remembred on our part that no Arguments were fit to be admitted against the sense of an infallible Judge but such as might exceed those whereby their Judg of Controversies seems to them to be proved Infallible which would cut off many of those Arguments which are used in the particular Disputes But beginning at their First Principle it is easie to shew that they are obliged to take our Arguments into serious consideration and to determine according as they judge Reasonable in their private Judgments For the Judge of Controversies cannot in reason oblige them to captivate their Understandings to it self till it be proved And the Arguments here used are Antecedent to that Proof And when upon examination of the Credentials of the Judge of Controversies their proof of such a Judge shall be found insufficient they will then and not till then have reason to trust their private Judgments in the particular Disputes And then and only then the particular Disputes may be likely to obtain an equal hearing from such of them as are truly Conscientious use III § 10. Besides if this Hypothesis hold true it will be very useful both to retain several in the Reformed Communion and to bring several others over from the Roman who are already by their Principles disposed for the Reformation 1. There may be several who in the particular Disputes may probably incline to the Roman side and yet have an abhorrence for the Roman rigour in those principal ones concerning Infallibility and the Popes Supremacy These if they may be perswaded that they may be admitted to that Communion without professing the Belief of those Principles to which we are as yet to suppose them so very averse may be tempted to think it lawful to joyn themselves in Communion with them This seems plainly to have been Mr. Cressy's Case whose entrance into that Communion was very much facilitated by the account of Infallibility given him by Dr. Veron whereby he was perswaded that it was only a School-term not used in the Decrees of any received Councils no nor any way expresly defined and that the use of it would not be exacted from him by their Church as a Condition of her Communion For he acknowledges he had formerly believed that this main ground of the Roman Religion so he calls it namely the Infallibility of that Church was as demonstratively confutable as any absurdity in Mathematicks And particularly he confesses that Mr. Chillingworth's Arguments against it had to him appeared unanswerable and that his Book alone had the principal influence on him to shut up his entrance into Catholick Unity But it is here proved that whatsoever may be thought of the Word concerning which more may be said than was observed by Mr. Cressy's Friends but that it is unnecessary to say it on this occasion yet the Thing must necessarily be maintained by them on the same Principles by which they have presumed to censure the Reformation and in that very sense wherein our Arguments are so conclusive against it It is very