Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	infallibility_n	infallible_a	1,916	5	9.7312	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30395	News from France in a letter giving a relation of the present state of the difference between the French king and the court of Rome : to which is added the Popes brief to the assembly of the clergy, and the protestation made by them in Latin : together with an English translation of them.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; Innocent XI, Pope, 1611-1689. Ad archiepiscopos, episcopos, totumque clerum in regno Galliae. English & Latin.; Fall, James, 1646 or 7-1711.; Catholic Church. Assemblée générale du clergé de France. Cleri Gallicani de ecclesiastica potestate declaratio. English & Latin.	1682 (1682)	Wing B5839; ESTC R21875	22,511	40

but I assure you whatever the Popes presumption might be in former Ages in comparing himself to the Sun and the Temporal Princes to the Moon that would now pass here for a piece of high presumption for this Glorious Monarch would think it a strange degradation if he to whom so many of the Glories of the Sun have been ascribed by hungry Flatterers were now to be compared to the Moon It is reported that these two Illustrious Princesses have expressed their Zeal on this occasion and have told the Arch Bishop of Paris That they were informed he and some others of the Clergy intended to break with the Pope they might do what they pleased but for their parts they were resolved to continue to be good Roman Catholicks Others say the King is a Good Catholick the Most Christian King and the Eldest Son of the Church full of Zeal for it but he sees by other mens eyes and as the common style in England of those who are displeased with the Government is only an arraigning of the Ministers the King himself being treated with the respect of Civil words even by those who study most to expose his Government so here the Zealots take the freedom to speak very liberally of the Clergy Indeed the Arch-Bishop of Paris carries the heaviest load the former parts of his life have been such that he is not proof against censure and upon all such occasions if there has been just grounds given for some ill reports malice and envy improves these with great industry even to a pitch that is scarce credible But I love not to dwell much on so unfavoury a subject I shall therefore say no more of him but that as he is certainly a man of great and polite thoughts and a very dexterous Courtier so there is nothing to be imagined neither for impiety nor lewdness with which he is not openly charged here not only in discourses but in Prints of which the Authors are known and some that are in the Bastile for them offer to justifie all that they have aspersed him with For the rest of the Clergy I understand they may be reduced to three Ranks or Classes The first and greatest is of those who have neither Learning nor Piety nor common Morality Some of the greatest of them where they think they may use freedom speak of Religion with all the Insolence of blasphemous scorn possible they are men of quality who have taken Orders meerly for the Dignity and Wealth that they aspired to and do scarce observe the common decencies of their profession In short the King is all the God they serve and so they are ready to advance any thing that will recommend them to his favour or contribute to their promotion The second Class is of the Cartesian Philosophers who approve of the Morals of the Christian Religion but for Miracles or Mysteries they believe very little and consider the several Institutions of Religion only as they do Laws and received Customs which are not to be rashly changed for fear of the Convulsions that may follow but as to their own perswasions of things all opinions and practices in the Ritual part of Religion seem indifferent to them So that when some gross things are objected to them they are Ingenuous enough to confess there is a great deal of reason in the Objection but after all they will comply with their Interests and this not so much out of an Atheistical temper as because they consider all the Institutions of Religion only as matters of Policy and Law A third Class which as it is much the best so it is much the least is of those who are both Learned and Good Men and are fully convinced of many Errors in their Church which they think need Reformation but what by a weakness of temper what by some principles which they have carried too far against every thing that seems to lead to Schism they have not Spirit enough to own the freedom of their thoughts and say they hope that God will forgive their temporizing since they know not how to emancipate themselves Nor do they see a party to which they can turn They have great prejudice against the Hugonots both as to the first Constitution of their Churches and several other things that are among them but I am confident if they were in England they would be more inclined to come over to the Church there and indeed I hear only two exceptions to the Church of England among them the one is the positive definition against the Corporal Presence in the Sacrament which they wish were left in general terms without positive definitions either one way or another the other is that there is not such a Spirit of Devotion and Mortification and exemplary Piety among the Church-men as ought to be They speak of Pluralities and Non-Residence and of the Aspiring and Pomp of Church men with horror And it is certain that this Church could not have subsisted so long if the gross scandals that are given by the Bishops and Abbots of the Court were not counterballanced by the shining examples of some of their Prelates which I must confess is far beyond any thing I ever saw You may wonder that in this Enumeration I do not reckon up the Bigots but really there are so few of those among the Superiour Clergy that they scarce make a Classis I have not heard of one of them that believes the Pope Infallible or is perswaded of Transubstantiation I heard one pleasantly declaim against the folly of the Messieurs of Charenton for writing such Learned Volumes in confutation of these things which said he none of the Catholicks believed any more than They did so they might well spare the pains But he reckoned the Revenues of the Ecclesiasticks in their communion were fifty Millions a year In that said he is the strength of our cause Let Mr. Claude answer that and then Mr. Arnauld will be a feeble party to him Among the Monks and Fryars there is something very like Bigotry though there is so little sincerity among them that it is very hard to know when they may be believed I confess one thing I heard put to one of them that seemed unanswerable and it pressed them hard in this point of the Popes Infallibility The great Topick they use and that is in every bodies mouth against the Hereticks is that men must not trust to their own opinions but submit all to the Church and that truth could not be preserved if there were not a living Infallible Judge on earth and by this great numbers of well meaning Hugonots are drawn over It has an appearance that is apt to work on an humble and well disposed mind Now the people alwayes thought that this was to be understood of the Pope to whom all the Bishops were to make their application for the resolution of such controversies as might arise and so the argument had still some effect but now that the

behave themselves so toward it that We are sorced with many Tears to make use of these words of the Prophet My Mothers Children have fought against me Though in truth you rather fight against your selves when you set your selves in opposition to us in a Cause in which the welfare and freedom of your Churches is so much concerned and for which some pious and resolute men of your Order having appealed to us We did without delay stand up for defence of the Episcopal Rights and Dignity in that Kingdom which now for a great while We have maintained having in that sought no private ends of our own being set on to it meerly by that care that We owe to all the Churches and the love that We bear to you which is so deeply rooted in our hearts We perceived from the very beginning of your Letter that there was nothing in it that could be either welcome to us or worthy of that name you bear in the world For not to insist on what you said of the Rule that was observed in the calling and managing of Councils We observed that your Letter began from your fears and that is a motive by which Gods Priests are never animated to undertake any difficult or weighty cause that concerns either Religion or the Liberty of the Church with that Courage that becomes them at first or to persevere in it with that constancy which they ought to hold to the last And you were much mistaken when you thought you might pour out your fears into Our breast for the Love of Christ ought always to dwell in Our breast which casts out fear and keeps it at a great distance We have already demonstrated in many and signal instances that Fatherly Love that is kindled in Our hearts towards you and the Kingdom of France which We need not here reckon up And if there is any thing in which our affection has deserved well at your hands We think it has chiefly appeared in this business of the Regale upon which if the matter is well considered it will appear that the whole Dignity and authority of your Order doth depend You were therefore in fear where no fear was Whereas this only was that of which you ought to have been afraid lest you might have been justly accused before God and men for having been wanting to your Station and Honour and the duty of your Pastoral charge And you ought to have remembred the examples of Episcopal Constancy and Courage which in the like cases the ancient and most holy Bishops have set before you for your instruction and which have been imitated by many Bishops in every age from their days You ought also to have reflected on your own Predecessors not only those who flourished in the times of our forefathers but in Our own days You cite the words of Ivon of Chartres but you ought also to follow his actions when there is occasion for it You know what he both did and suffered in those troublesome dangerous contests that were between Pope Urban and King Philip. He thought it became his Function to endure the Kings displeasure to bear the spoiling of his goods and to suffer both Imprisonment and Banishment It became your Function even when others were forsaking the better cause to have joyned your endeavours to the Authority of the Apostolick See and to have pleaded the cause of your Churches before the King joyning the resolution that became Pastors with the humility of Priests and to have informed his Conscience of the whole matter even though you had apprehended the danger of drawing his Displeasure upon you That so for the time to come you might without blushing use the words of David when you address your selves to God in the daily Psalmody I did speak of thy Testimonies before Kings and was not confounded But how much more ought you to have done this when you had so well known and so often tryed the justice and piety of your excellent Prince of whom you your selves write that he hears the Bishops with a singular gentleness and that he is resolved to maintain the Episcopal Authority without suffering it to be entrenched upon which We read in your Letter with great joy We do not doubt that in the defence of so just a cause you could either want Arguments fit to be used or the King a heart tractable and inclined to grant your desires But now since you seem to have forgot both your own duty and the Kings justice and that you have been silent in a matter of so great consequence we do not see upon what probable ground you can found that which you represent to us that you have been induced to do what you have done because you have been overcome in this Dispute and have lost your cause But how could he lose it that never stood to it And how could he be overcome that never struggled Who of you all did plead this weighty this just and this most Sacred Cause before the King Whereas your Predecessors even in the like danger did defend it oftner than once with all freedom both before the former Kings of France and even before this King himself And having carried their cause they were dismist by their most just King with rewards for having so manfully performed the duty of the Pastoral charge But who of you have ingaged in this contest that he might raise a Wall for the house of Israel Who has had the boldness to expose himself to envy Who has uttered so much as one word that savoured of the freedom of former times The Kings Officers have indeed cryed aloud as you write they have cryed aloud in an ill cause for the Rights of the Crown whereas you in the best cause that was both for the Honour of Christ and the Church have been silent Nor is there any more weight in what you say when you render us an account or indeed rather offer us an excuse for the things that have been done by you in this Assembly You aggravate the danger of a breach between the Priesthood and the Civil Power and the ill effects that may follow from thence both in Church and State And inferr that therefore you thought it became you to find out a mean for removing the difference that was encreasing and that no mean appeared more convenient than those remedies proposed by the Fathers of the Church for tempering the Canons by a prudent condescention according to the necessity of the times in such things as might no way endanger either the truth of Religion or the Rules of Morality and that you thought your Order and the whole Gallicane and indeed the Universal Church owed so much to a King that had merited so eminently of the Catholick Religion and who was daily desiring to merit further of it and that therefore you passed from your Rights and resigned them to the King We forbear to mention what you represent to us of the Appeal

you made to the Secular Magistrate by whom this Cause was judged against you for We wish the remembrance of that might be buried in oblivion and would gladly have you dash out those words out of your Letters so that they might not remain upon the Records of the Gallicane Church to your eternal reproach As for what you bring for your own defence concerning Innocent the Third Benedict the Twelfth and Boniface the Eighth there have not been wanting some who have by Learned Treatises demonstrated how frivolous and foreign they are to this matter and it is so notoriously known that it is needless to mention it with what zeal and constancy those great Popes defended the liberty of the Church against the Secular Powers So little reason have you to maintain your error by those precedents We do readily allow of and commend the Resolution of relaxing the Discipline of the Canons according to the necessity of the times where that may be done without any prejudice either to Religion or a good life and we add with St. Austin That things are to be sometimes endured for the good of unity which ought to be abhorred if considered according to equity Nor are the tares to be rooted out if there is danger of plucking up the wheat likewise with them But all this is so to be understood that it may be done only in some particular case and for a time and upon an urgent necessity as was done by the Church when she restored the Arrians and Donatists to their Churches upon their abjuring their errors that so the people that had followed them might be the more easily governed But the case is very different from this when the Discipline of the Church is weakned and the foundation of the whole Ecclesiastical Discipline and Hierarchy is indeed overthrown through the whole extent of so great a Kingdom without any limitation of time and with the manifest danger of establishing a precedent which may spread much further These consequences must certainly follow if We should suffer the things to be put in execution which have been lately done by The Most Christian King even with your consent in the affair of the Regale against the Authority of the holy Canons and chiefly against the General Council of Lions and against Our mind that has been long ago signified to you in that affair and contrary to that Sacred Tye of your Oaths by which when you received the Episcopal character you bound your selves to God to the Roman Church and to your own particular Churches and if we by delaying longer should suffer this evil to become more inveterate and should not in imitation of the examples of our Predecessors and according to that Supream Authority over the whole Church which is given by God to Our Meanness condemn it and that the rather that by the abuse of the Regale the Discipline of the Church is not only overthrown as is notoriously evident but even the purity of the faith is brought in danger which you may easily gather from the very words of the Kings Edicts by which the Right of conferring Benefices is ascribed to the King not as flowing from any Concession of the Church but as a Right innate and coaeval to the Crown Nor could we read that part of your Letter without horror in which you say you have departed from your Rights and have transferred them on the King as if you were the Masters and not the Guardians of these Churches that are trusted to your care and as if the Churches themselves and the Spiritual Rights belonging to them could be brought under the yoke of the Secular Power by the Bishops who indeed rather ought to become slaves themselves for setting them at liberty You your selves did acknowledge and confess this truth when upon another occasion you declared that the Right of the Regale especially in that branch of it that belongs to the Collation of Benefices was a servitude that could not be brought upon the Church but by her concession at least by her consent By what right then have you conferred that on the King and since the holy Canons forbid the alienating the Rights of the Church how could it enter into your minds to alienate these Rights as if you could derogate from the authority of the Canons Call to mind what that renowned Abbot of Clarevall writ excellently to this purpose whom you justly call the Light not only of the Gallican but of the Universal Church when he was putting Pope Eugenius in mind of his duty He bids him remember that the Keys of the Church were delivered to him but not the Sheep themselves There were others that kept the Gates of Heaven and were the Pastors of the Flock but whereas every one of these have their several Flocks assigned them to him were the whole trusted one Flock under one Shepherd and that Eugenius was not only the Shepherd of the Sheep but of the Shepherds themselves and therefore according to the appointment of the Canons the other Bishops were called to a portion of the care but he to the fulness of the power But as it is expedient to give you warning of the obedience and submission that you owe this holy See which We though unworthy do now by the Divine appointment govern so our Pastoral care doth stir us up now at last to set about the discharge of our Apostolical Office which we have hitherto delayed perhaps by an excessive long suffering being willing to give time to repentance Therefore We through the authority of Almighty God committed to us do by these present Letters Condemn Rescind and Annul what has been done in this your Assembly in the affair of the Regale together with every thing that has followed thereupon or that may happen to be attempted for the future and We declare them to be for ever Null and Void though these things being of themselves manifestly Null it was not necessary to interpose any Declaration for annulling them Yet We hope that you your selves having considered better of this matter will by a speedy retractation consult the good of your own consciences and the honour of the Gallicane Clergy of which Clergy as hitherto some have not been wanting so we hope that for the time to come others will not be wanting who following the example of the good Shepherd shall be ready to lay down their lives willingly for their Sheep and for maintaining the Inheritance conveyed down to them from their Fathers As for our part We are ready according to the duty of our Function and by the assistance of Divine Grace to offer up the Sacrifice of Righteousness and to maintain the Rights and Liberties of the Church of God and the authority and Dignity of this holy See not trusting in Our selves but depending for all things on God who comforts and strengthens Us and who commanded Peter to come unto him walking on the waters for the fashion of this world passeth away

Councils of Constance are declared for that lodged this Infallibility in a General Council the Church has lost her great advantage against Hereticks for there is no such Council in being there has been none that pretended to that Title now almost one hundred and twenty years and it is not probable there shall ever be another so there is no living Infallible Judge The Fryar said so little in answer to this that I clearly perceived he looked on the belief of the Popes Infallibility as the Basis or the Center of the Church But they are so much afraid of the Arch-Bishop of Paris his Spies and of the rigour of the Court of Parliament that they speak of this matter only in dark Figures or Riddles One of them would say no more but that it was safest to stick to the root of the tree another said all things will return to their center The truth is the Regulars are much concerned in the maintaining of the Popes authority for all their exemptions depend upon it And there is no Heresie of which they are so apprehensive as that of losing their priviledges and being brought under the Jurisdiction of their Bishops and this the Bishops do all so openly pretend to that it would be the first step that would be made after a rupture with Rome to bring them in all points within the care and under the authority of their Diocesans This present Assembly of the Clergy had this matter under their consideration and by this time it is probable they would have made some progress in it if the King had not ordered them to adjourn for some time So you need not doubt but that they are very careful to possess all people in such secret methods as they dare venture on with very tragical apprehensions of the Issue of the present contest with Rome And if the severity against the Protestants were not interposed as a signal evidence of the Kings Zeal for the faith it is probable this meeting with the other things that raise so much discontent in this Kingdom might have produced more considerable effects than have yet appeared That this may be alwayes in the peoples eye new Edicts come out every day which shew that the King is resolved to make his Hugonot Subjects grow weary either of their lives or of their Religion Two came out the other day the one was that no Protestant may have the Relief of an Evocation or appeal from any Court of Justice where he finds himself aggrieved The other is that no Sea-man nor Tradesman shall offer to go out of the Kingdom without leave under the pain of being sent to the Gallies So that it is resolved that all who profess that Religion shall be miserable if they stay in the Kingdom and much more so if they offer to fly out of it These things give the people some comfort who cannot be easily made to doubt of their Kings firmness to their Religion as long as he continues true to one main branch of it which is persecuting those of other perswasions But upon the whole matter it is not probable that all this business on which the World has now lookt so attentively for some time will produce any great effect The King does not meddle in matters of Speculation himself and there is little reason to expect much from a man of the Arch Bishop of Paris his temper So that we begin generally to think that some Expedient will be found The King has declared that he is resolved not to break with the Pope and he has lately received a Brief from him writ in a more obliging strain than those formerly sent I have not yet seen a Copy of it so I cannot send it only the first words are much talkt of for it begins thus My Son give me thy heart It seems it has made some impression on the King and that he is in hopes of bringing the whole matter to an amicable conclusion and therefore he takes cares that there be no new provocation given the Pope and so he has ordered the Assembly of the Clergy to adjourn for some time which they did on the 30th of May last and many think they will hardly meet again except it be for forms sake Some begin also to talk of a Legate to be sent into France for concluding this affair and Azolini is the man most talked of who is a very fit person for such an Employment for he has the reputation of a very prudent and devout man Last Winter he retired from all business and gave himself wholly to devotion and meditatitiom So whether he will leave his retirement to do so great a service to his Church or not we do not yet know It is true I found at Rome last Winter his character much lessened among the Italians who look upon such retirements as either the effects of melancholy or affectation For indeed few there understand either the Philosophy or the piety that should work such a change in a man dignified with the Purple But the Pope has a much better sense of such things as appeared in this last promotion of Cardinals which I found all at Rome confess was the best that ever was made This is the state of the affair of the Regale which has set both France and Rome in such a fermentation But for the last Edict touching the Popes authority over Princes his Infallibility and the Superiority of General Councils over him it is a harder Chapter for as at Rome it is not to be imagined they can ever comply with it or endure it so it is not likely this Court will ever suffer it to be altered or recalled The temper that will be perhaps found will be this the Edict will be still left upon Record but there will be secret directions given not to execute it The Pope has by his Brief annulled all that the Assembly has done and so he will look upon it as condemned by his authority and perhaps will be satisfied with this without proceeding to a more express condemnation On the other hand a secret intimation from the Court not to proceed any further in the execution of it will be perhaps easily obtained and so this which is the greatest difficulty may be so made up that at present this difference will be carried no further The Court of Parliament will think it enough that the Edict is past and will advise the keeping it as a perpetual terrour for the Court of Rome So that hereafter upon every disgust offered to this Crown by that Court this Edict will be made use of and by the shaking this Rod it may be thought the Popes will be kept to their good behaviour Somewhat of this will appear within a few days for many of the Doctors of the Sorbon have complained highly of the proceedings of the Parliament and in particular of the making a Declaration on such points and the requiring them to Register it without ever asking