Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	catholic_n	church_n	universal_a	1,773	5	9.0565	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36263	A vindication of the deprived Bishops, asserting their spiritual rights against a lay-deprivation, against the charge of schism, as managed by the late editors of an anonymous Baroccian ms in two parts ... to which is subjoined the latter end of the said ms. omitted by the editors, making against them and the cause espoused by them, in Greek and English.	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1692 (1692)	Wing D1827; ESTC R10150	124,503	104

Letters could be hoped for whilst they continued in Communion with him 20. And then 5thly It is also as notorious on the same Principles of St. Cyprian's Age that such Schism from the visible Communion of the Catholick Church was also supposed to deprive the Person so divided of all the invisible Benefits of Church Communion God was supposed obliged to ratifie in Heaven what was done by those whom he authorized to represent him on Earth He avenged the Contempts of his Ministers and would not be a Father to those who would not own his Church for their Mother by paying her a Filial respect They were not to expect any pardon of their Sins They could not hope for the Holy Ghost who dissolved the Vnity of the Spirit They were uncapable of the Crown of Martyrdome whatever they suffered in the state of Separation This is the result of many of St. Cyprian's Discourses on this Argument And indeed it is very agreeable with the Design of God that they who cut themselves off from the Peculium should by their doing so lose all their pretensions to the Rights and Privileges of it Not only so but that they should also incur all the Mischiefs to which they were supposed liable who had lost their Right of being Members of the peculiar People Accordingly as they believed all Persons at their first admission into the Church to be turned from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan unto God so upon their leaving the Church or their being cast out of it by the judicial Act of their Superiours they were supposed to return into the state of Heathens to lose the Protection of those good Spirits who minister only to the Heirs of Salvation and again to relapse into their former condition of Darkness and being consequently obnoxious to be infested by the Devil and his Powers of Darkness And that this was so appeared by several ordinary Experiments in those earlier Ages not only of the Apostles but that also of St. Cyprian who has many Examples of it in his Book de Lapsis And this confinement of the Spiritual Privileges of the peculiar People to the External Communion of the Church as it was Fundamental to their Discipline so it was rational consequently to their other Principles God was not thought obliged to confer those Privileges but by the Act of those whom himself had authorized to oblige him But Dividers were supposed not to belong to that Body to which the Promises were made and ambitious Intruders into other Men's Offices could not in any Equity pretend to have their Acts ratified by God from whom they could not be supposed to receive any Authority when they did not receive it by the Rules and Orders of the Society established by him These things were then believed and believed universally Indeed nothing but an universal Belief of them would have maintained that Discipline which was then observed in the Church could have obliged them generally to suffer as they did then the severest Inflictions from the Magistrate rather than incurr the much more feared Displeasure of their Ecclesiastical Superiours When we are also of the same Mind and alike influenced by Principles and Regard to Conscience then indeed and then alone we may pretend to be a Posterity not degenerous from the great Examples of those glorious Ancestors Then it will not be in the Power of Acts of Parliament to drive us from our Principles and bring a Scandal on our Religion Then where our Bishops follow Christ we shall follow them and it will not be in the Power of the Worldly Magistrate or the Gates of Hell it self to prevail against our Church and to dissolve the Vnion between us Then Magistrates themselves will be more wary of involving Consciences on occasion of their little Worldly Politicks at least they will not pretend Religion and the Religion of that very Church which suffers by them for doing so May we live at length to see that happy day However it will hence appear how impossible it will be to excuse our Adversaries present Case from Schism if it be tried by that Antiquity which we do indeed profess to imitate and alledge 21. Now in this Case I am discoursing of I have purposely selected the Instances of St. Cyprian's Age rather than any other not only because they are the ancientest indeed the first we know of of one Bishop's invading another's Chair not vacant but because we have withal in him the most distinct account of the Sense of the Church in his Age of such Facts and of the Principles on which they proceeded in condemning them He had occasion given him to be so distinct by two Schisms one of his own Church in Carthage where Felicissimus was set up against himself another that I have principally insisted on of Novatian set up against Cornelius in Rome On these Occasions he has written one just Discourse besides several Epistles But these Principles were not singular and proper to that Age they descended lower and are insisted on by Optatus and St. Augustine in their Disputes with the Donatists whenever they dispute the Question of their Schism without relation to their particular Opinions 22. And now what can our Adversaries gain though we should grant them all they can ask concerning their Collection till they be able to disarm us of these earlier Authorities neither mentioned nor perhaps so much as thought of by their Author Till they do so we have all the Advantages against them that our Cause does need or we desire They give us a bare Collection of Facts without any other Evidence of the Principles on which they were transacted than the Facts themselves We give them here a contrary Fact of Persons of unquestionable Sincerity to Principles and not only so but the Principles themselves on which they proceeded acknowledged by the Persons themselves They give us Facts of the Greek Church only We give them one wherein the sense of the whole Catholick Church appeared not of the Greeks alone but of the Latines also They give us those of Modern of Barbarous of Divided Ages wherein the great Bodies of the Eastern and Western Churches were divided in Communion the Eastern Churches particularly within which their Instances are confined into Nestorians and several subdivided Sects of Eutychians who yet if they had been more unanimous were otherwise no very competent Witnesses of Apostolical Tradition not only in regard of their Age but their Corruptness their Vnskilfulness their Credulity We here have given them the sense of the Church in an Age wherein her Testimony is every way unexceptionable wherein she had certain means of knowing the Truth and withal valued it as it deserved Even there we find the Principles now mentioned universally received and universally received as the grounds of that universal Catholick Communion which she had received by an uninterrupted Tradition from the Apostles to that very Time Even there I say we

not know that he was in being to chalenge it This had made the Throne itself a Derelictum this made Meletius a Possessor bonae Fidei and sufficiently excused all who paid Duty to him Undoubtedly Lucifer Calaritanus who set up Paulinus in opposition to Meletius whose return from Exile was then expected would never have done it if he had any thoughts or hopes of the Return of Eustathius Eustathius was not onely as orthodox as Meletiu● himself but was free from the Charge brought against Meletius that of an Arian Ordination Meletius therefore being thus secured against the Title of Eustathius nothing could then be pretended against him but his receiving his Power from Arians But their Heresie was 〈◊〉 so manifest when he was brough●●nto Antioch by them all that 〈◊〉 required from him was to subscribe the Creed of Selencia drawn up Sept. 27. 359. the year before he was translated to Antioch and that expresly condemned the Anomaeans and laid aside both Words that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as unscriptural Nor did the Catholicks so much insist on the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where they could otherwise be satisfied that no ill sense was intended in avoiding it This was the onely Reason that could make any orthodox Person join with the Arians in bringing him to Antioch who otherwise owned no Communion with them when they once declared themselves And as soon as they who brought him to Antioch owned themselves Anomaeans as they did soon after Meletius never prevaricated but protested openly against them And why should that be made an Exception against him that he was made Bishop by them who after they had made him so declared themselves Arians This was looked on as a rigour in Lucifer by his Fellow ●onfessor Eusebius Vercellensis and Athanasius and the generality of the Catholick Church And if he was guilty of no incapacitating Heresie at his first coming in if he owned the Catholick Faith publickly before the Consecration of Paulinus and had been a Confessour for it if even those who gave him his Orders had not yet declared themselves Arians nor a distinct Communion when they gave them what Reason could there be to question his Title before Paulinus was set up against him If there was none the other Consecration being into a f●ll See must have been schismatical Thus we see how agreeable it was to the Canons and Discipline of the Church that St. Basil and St. Chrysostome should own the Communion of Meletius in opposition to Paulinus It does not appear that ever they did so in opposition to Eustathius Yet even in this Case it is observable that all those Catholicks who never from the beginning communicated with Meletius and who joined with Lucifer and Paulinus 〈◊〉 him owned other Reasons besides Heresie sufficient to justifie the●● ●●●paration from him They did not they could not charge him with that after 〈◊〉 had publickly declared for the Nicene Faith they never charged him as we can our present Intruders with Injury to any other Person whom they supposed to have a better Title to his Throne neither to his Predecessor Eustathius nor much less to Paulinus who was consecrated after him The onely thing they charged him with was the Original Invalidity which they supposed in his Consecration by those who afterwards declared themselves for Arianism And could they believe a lawfull Power necessary to confer a Title and not as necessary to take it away Rather Laws are favourable to Possessours and require more to take away an Office than to keep one in Possession whom they find so They therefore who were so difficultly reconciled to Meletius's being Bishop purely on account of the original Want of Authority in them who made him so must by the same parity of Reasoning much more have disliked the Deprivation of our present Bishops on account of 〈◊〉 Want of Authority as to spirituals and to Conscience in them who have deprived them However 〈◊〉 a clear Instance against our Adversaries and against the Collector himself of Catholicks who owned and owned by Principles that Orthodoxy alone without a good Title was not sufficient to excuse communicating with him whose Title was thought deficient For this was their Opinion concerning this Case of Meletius that he was indeed orthodox onely having an original Defect in his Title they thought themselves on this very acccount obliged to forbear his Communion How could they then have thought it safe to communicate with Bishops ordain●● into See● not otherwise vacated than by an originally invalid Lay-Deprivation of their Predecessors 13. The next Case is 〈◊〉 of St. Chrysostome It is indeed the first in the Summary subjoined to it probably because it was the first in the Church of Constantinople for the use of which this Collection was originally designed Or perhaps rather because that other Case of Meletius was produced onely as another Evidence of the Opinion of the same St. Chrysostome This is the Case which the Author is largest upon as deserving the particular consideration mentioned in the Introduction to it The reason I have now given because it seems to have been most of all insisted on by the Arsenians as most apposite to the Instance for which they were concerned But 1. This Deprivation was synodical and by two different Synods the former that ad Quercum that deprived Saint Chrysostome for not pleading but questioning their Jurisdiction upon an Appeal the other that of the following year which denied him the Liberty of Pleading upon the 〈◊〉 of Antioch for coming in again not without a Synod but by one 〈◊〉 they pretended less numerous than that which had deprived him formerly So far is this from our present Case And 2. Even as to the abetting this holy Person 's Case as to the In●ury done him by an otherwise competent Authority far the greater part of the Church was concerned against the Design of this Collector if to the Eastern Joannites 〈◊〉 the unanimous Consent of all the Western Churches They separ●●ed from the Communion of his Deprivers notwithstanding their ack●●wledged Orthodoxy and that not onely while Saint Chrysostome was living but after his Death also till an honourable amends was made to his Memory This how clear soever it was against our Author's general Remark in his Preface and elsewhere yet he neither denies nor pretends to answer a● if he were conscious to himself he could not do it Onely he prevents a farther consequence drawn from it by the Arsenians for unravelling all the Orders derived in a Succession from the ●njurious Intruders after the Person was dead who had been injured by the 〈◊〉 This also is none of our 〈◊〉 wherein the injured Bishops are 〈◊〉 yet even concerning that very Case he words his Observation ●o as to own that they might if they pleased have called in Question ●he present Orders derived from the Intruders He says indeed that the Church did