Selected quad for the lemma: opinion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
opinion_n	church_n	council_n	infallibility_n	587	5	11.2073	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61294	A discourse concerning the devotions of the Church of Rome, especially, as compared with those of the Church of England in which it is shewn, that whatever the Romanists pretend, there is not so true devotion among them, nor such rational provision for it, nor encouragement to it, as in the church established by law among us.	Stanley, William, 1647-1731.	1685 (1685)	Wing S5244; ESTC R1838	44,628	70

nor whether the Stock be spent and yet they spend as freely now as if they had been only laying up till this time and that the Treasure were now first opened Many other such Absurdities and unanswerable Difficulties there are in their Doctrine of Merit and in their practise of applying these Merits to the use of others And is it not a dismal thing that the Priests of the Church of Rome should teach men to trust in and as to Salvation depend assuredly on these of which they themselves have no manner of Assurance nor Ground to hope Is not this to play with Men's Souls and Eternal Salvation And especially can this be urged as an Encouragement of Devotion when if it were as true as it is false it tends directly to make Men vicious and to neglect Devotion For so a Man will think if there be such a Stock in the Church why should not he have a Share of it as well as another And if one can merit for another why should not he depend on others as well as they on his Merits And seeing Merits may be bought as the Roman Casuists have adjudged he may think it very reasonable that other's Merits should be given him in exchange for his Money So the Result of all is this according to this Doctrine and the supposed Church-stock only one thing is needful and that is Money and this will fully make up all lack of Piety and Devotion 10. And the belief of Purgatory and of the validity of Prayers for the dead is no proper Encouragement of true Devotion For true Devotion is such as we perform to God agreeably to his Will when we know what we do and for what ends and have a promise or hope of Success but when a man prays to God to deliver a Soul out of Purgatory he must suppose as true several things which are either false or at least very uncertain so that he can never pray in Faith or without great perplexity and distraction of mind for he knows not whether there be any such place or state as Purgatory For Scripture says nothing of it nor the Fathers of the three or four first Centuries He knows not whether the Soul that he prays for be in Purgatory if there should be such a place for it may be in Heaven or in Hell for ought he can tell And if the Soul be in Purgatory he knows not whether it be Useful or Lawful to pray for it for God hath given us neither Command nor Encouragement nor Liberty so to do Nay there are several particulars which they themselves cannot agree on concerning Purgatory viz. What Sins are promised there How the Soul without its Body can be tormented there with a material Fire Who are Gods Instruments in punishing the Souls there For the Devils are not and how the Pope by his Indulgences can apply the Satisfactions of Christ and of the Saints so as to deliver any Soul out of Purgatory And if there be such a place the Pope himself by his Example doth enough to dishearten all Men from endeavouring to deliver the Souls of their Friends from thence For it is not doubted but he can deliver all out of Purgatory he having the Command of the Treasure of the Church And it must needs be a wonderful Discouragement to a Devout Mind that among so many hundred Popes there should not be one found so Charitable as to release so many thousands of poor Souls that lye under intolerable pains and so must lye till the last day or till the debt of their temporal punishment be paid If the Pope can do so much with so little Charge or Trouble to himself and yet will not do it surely I have less Reason to do any thing Nor doth it follow that because it is a part of acceptable Devotion for one Man to pray for another whilst living here on Earth that therefore it is as pleasing to God for us to pray for Souls departed For our Prayers for others on Earth are either for Temporal Blessings or for the means of Grace We pretend not to desire God to reverse his own Laws and save such a Man let him be as bad as he will but to make him Holy first and then to make him Happy And to Pray any otherwise for another Man naturally tends to represent it as feasible to reconcile a wicked Life with the hopes of Heaven but when a Man is dead he can Work no more nor make any use of the means of Grace and therefore there is no room for this Prayer to God for him he is not capable of Repentance and Glory and Amendment and of being made fit for Heaven Lastly If they boast of the validity of the Orders of their Bishops and Priests as an Encouragement to Devotion the validity of the Sacraments dependnig so much on the Legality of the Ministry We answer that we have a Clergy as properly and truly of Christ's sending as any Church in the World against whose Ordination and Mission nothing can be objected We deriving the Succession of our Bishops not only from their own Austin but from the British Bishops before his time which is the only Regular way of Mission that we know of except that of an extrarodinary Commission from Heav'n as St. Paul had And I would not that there were that to be objected against us that is justly objected against them as to the Succession of their Popes even since the Reformation began For the Election of Sixtus V. was most notoriously Simoniacal and yet one that comes by Simony into the Popedom is by their own Canon Law by the Bull or Constitution of Julius II. approved in the Council of Lateran An. 1513. to be looked on as a Magician Heathen Publican Septimi Decretal Lib. 1. Tit. 3. and Arch-Heretick and his Election can never be made valid by any after Act and yet several of the Popes since were either made Cardinals by this Sixtus V. or received that Dignity from those that received it from him which is the very Case of this present Pope Innocent Eleventh As for their Vnity it is plain that they have more divisions among themselves then they can charge us with For they have not only such as openly dissent and separate from them but great and violent dissentions among their own Members and such as live in the Communion of their Church one against another and each party pleads the Doctrine of the Church and Decisions of its Councils And yet the Pope himself notwithstanding his Infallibility and Authority either cannot or dare not determine which is in the Right or which Opinion is True So that whatever Power and Authority their Church hath it hath no good effect to such ends and purposes to which Church-Power is designed to serve the encouragement of Holiness and Vertue and the discountenancing of Vice the Preservation of the Doctrine in Purity and of the Members at peace one with another It is