Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	council_n	pope_n	power_n	4,584	5	5.4437	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B22558	The Popish labyrinth wherein is made manifest, that the Papists are entangled in the fundamental article of their faith, that the church cannot erre / written in Dutch by ... Dr. Simon Episcopius, unto which is added, The life and death of the author ; as also, The life and death of James Arminius, both of them famous defenders of God	Episcopius, Simon, 1583-1643.; Bertius, Petrus, 1565-1629. Oratio in obitum reverendi & clarissimi viri D. Jacobi Arminii. English.; Chardon de Courcelles, Etienne, 1705-1775? Short and compendious history of Simon Episcopius.	1673 (1673)	Wing E3163	56,195	122

lawful if the succeeding Pope had approved of the same But now forsooth it shall be unlawful because the Pope that was made by this Council said not of himself and those like him that he was subject to the Council but on the contrary Lucifer-like maintained that he was above the Council Howbeit it is altogether credible that the Decree of the Council was approved of by Him before he was chosen for Pope Who here sees not a Circle of Absurdities However it be if the Authority of the Council be no more than the Popes it could not depose the Pope and therefore those ungodly Knaves Popes are to be reckoned among the Bishops that lawfully succeed by a continual Succession not interrupted by Reason of their Heresie Atheism Simony Force and Villanies or if there be granted an Interruption there will now forthwith be no Succession at all upon the same Account that Bellarmine denies that the Succession of the Greeks is to be accounted lawful He that seeth not that the Papists are wholly at a loss in all these Things as in an endless Labyrinth of Errours he truly seeing is blind For howsoever the Case stands touching Succession the Question concerning Truth will alwayes remain To what Purpose therefore do they enter into so intricate a Labyrinth and take so great Pains for to prove a Succession One of these must necessarily be concluded either that the Truth is sufficient to constitute a true Church or that it is not If the former be true To what End is Succession by these endless Windings to and fro proved If the latter What doth Truth avail if it do not constitute a true Church It is contrary to the Nature and Propertie of Truth not to constitute a true Church whether those who teach the Truth have it by Tradition from others or no or at least know not the List of their Names from whom they have it delivered to them Gold will be Gold although it have been hid and buried in the Earth a thousand Years But you will say it is requisite that there be some before I know Gold to teach me that that is Gold But say I shall the Church thorowly do this But then there is required some one besides by whom I may be sure that that this Church which doth affirm that this is Gold doth know it most exactly and cannot err therein Who shall that be Here the Papists make a Circle We assert that the Scripture is Truth which the Church of Rome granteth us But yet it is the Prerogative of the Church saith he to tell us that the Scripture is Truth But say I who shall tell me that the Church that affirms this saith true She hath not this Priviledge by Succession unless it clearly appear that she never defected from the Truth This cannot appear unless I know what is Truth If the Church herself assume this she then singeth to us the same Song and so the Church will be both Plantiff and Judge and that in her own proper Cause Here will be no End of contending And that is it which Tertullian meant in that most known Place and commonly in the mouth of all the Papists which they quote in all their Writings with a very perverse wresting of the Sense thereof in his Book of Proscript against Hereticks Chap. 32. Where he thus speaketh But if any Heresies dare insert themselves in the Times of the Apostles that so they may be thought to have been delivered by the Apostles because they were in the Apostles Dayes we may say that is we may in such Case demand of them the Succession of which they boast saying Let them produce the Originals of their Churches turn over the Order of their Bishops so running down by Succession from the Beginning as that first Bishop had some one of the Apostles or Apostolical men who yet continued with the Apostles for his Author and Predecessor c. And a little after Let the Hereticks feign any such Thing which is to be noted as serving our Purpose yet though they shall feign it they shall prevail nothing For their very Doctrine compared with that of the Apostles by its Diversity and Contrariety will aloud declare that it hath neither any Apostle nor Apostolical Man for its Authour For as the Apostles would not have taught Things differing among themselves so also the Apostolical Men would not have published Things contrary to the Apostles except it were those who revolted from the Apostles and taught otherwise According to this Form therefore or Manner note it well shall those Churches appeal which though they can produce none of the Apostles or Apostolick Men as their Authour as being long after and which lastly are daily instituted yet agreeing in the same Faith to wit with the Apostles or Apostolick Men they are not the less deemed Apostolical by Reason of the cousanguinity or nearness of kin of their Doctrine That is according to Tertullians style because they agree with the Apostles in Doctrine These words of Tertullian which the Papists so shamefully abuse and so violently wrest do not obscurely confirm what we have said For Tertullian says three Things First that those Churches which have the Truth agreeable with the Doctrine of the Apostles are no less Apostolical Churches then others although they cannot shew their Succession for that only Cause for that they have the Truth on their side Secondly that those Churches which glory of their Succession and Original derived from the Apostles and cannot demonstrate it are justly to be rejected as those who obtrude upon us that which is false And Thirdly that those Churches which demonstrate their Succession whether lawfully or unlawfully are not to be counted for true Churches unless it appear that their Doctrine is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Apostles What Churches agree therein the same are Apostolical although they be destitute of Succession This is more clear then the Noon-dayes Sun The same affirmeth Augustine in that Place which is also quoted as unfaithfully and contrary to the Meaning of Augustine by the Papists in his Book which he wrote against the fundamental Epistle of Manichee Chap. 4. For when he had said that he clave to the Catholick Church wherein from the See of Peter even to his Time the Succession of Bishops and Priests had been deduced he addes these words which are altogether agreeable with our Judgment With you he speaks of the Manichees where there is none of these to invite and detain me there is onely the noise of the Promise of Truth which indeed were it so manifestly shewed that it could not be questioned were to be preferred before all those Things by Reason whereof I am detained in the Catholick Church What could Augustine have spoken more clear to prove and shew that neither Antiquity nor Succession can avail so as that any one should be able to quit himself of the Labyrinth of Doubts touching the true Church but that the Truth

after mention made of the old and new Testament and the Apostles Creed these words are added and consequently is taught in the Christian Church But when Heydan had the second time upbraided him with audaciousness and Episcopius made no further reply he at length christened the Child And when Episcopius was going out he was reproachfully handled and called a seditious man and a disturber of the Church by some of the baser sort whom Heydans words had excited to such opprobrious speeches and when he was gone out of the Church he hardly escap'd beating or stoning to which some instigated the youth that were then present But God out of his fatherly care protecting him and restraining the fury of those wicked men brought him at length to his friends in safety Not long after this it happened in the same City That a certain Black smith seeing Episcopius passing by his shop run out with a bar of Iron that he was forging on his anvil and called him Arminian and a disturber of the Church and so pursued him as one having a mind to murther him which danger he escap'd by flight and the assistance of others that hindered and restrained this villanous Zealot Now if we should here insert a short but sad story of some Contra-remonstrants Plunderers we should not go far out of our way nor much digress because Arminianisme so called was the occasion and Rembert the brother of our Episcopius was the person pillaged and that in the time we have now under consideration The story thus runs There was in the year 1617 and on the 19th of February a false rumour raised and spread abroad that some Remonstrants were met together to hear a Sermon in the house of Mr. Rembert Episcopius who in Amsterdam was well known to be much addicted to the Remonstrants opinions and was for that cause much hated by the vulgar sort Upon this report many hundreds of vile persons run thither who first breaking the windows with stones then with a bar breaking up the gate enter the house in an hostile manner and as a Company of Robbers when they had drank up or spilled the wine and beer in the Cellar they scorch and sack the house opening forcibly above 12 chests carrying away what was portable for they stole thence a bag of money wearing clothes linnen pictures books houshold-stuff plate c. and what they could not carry away tore and broke leaving nothing there whole and untouch'd When they had emptyed the house they begin to demolish it and make it an heap of rubbish which they had done if the coming of the Magistrate had not hindered them The Gentleman and his wife escap'd their fury she by flying to a neighbours house he by hiding himself on the top of his own house whither he got by a ladder that he drew up after him His loss was estimated to be above six thou and florans And if he had not had some space while those religious Felons were breaking open his doors for the casting of his money and some part of his better houshold stuff into a neighbours house he had in that one day been well nigh spoyled of a good estate and reduced to poverty The other brother Mr. Jo. Episcopius being also of the Remonstrant perswasion though he was not pillaged as his brother yet was he often and much reproached by the dregs of the people a sort of malignant Zealots But to return now to our Episcopius who was a sufferer in his Relations and Christian Associates and met with many great personal afflictions especially at the time of the Dort Synod and afterwards of which we will here take a Superficial and cursory view In the year 1618 began the Synod of Dort which how unjustly it carryed it self towards the Remonstrants the Acts and History thereof long since published do saith Curcellaeus abundantly testify We will briefly mention here a few things that more nearly touch our Episcopius Although from that which happened not long before the convening of this Synod namely the violent ejecting of those Magistrates that favoured mutual forbearance it was not hard to conjecture that no good issue would attend this Synodical meeting yet notwithstanding our Episcopius being invited to it by the Letters of the Illustrious States of Holland and to sit there with the other professors of the Vnited Provinces did with some other Remonstrant Preachers make his appearance at Dort soon after the beginning of the Synod but the Synod which was the adverse Party and which shamefully took to themselves a power of judging in their own cause permitted neither him not any other Remonstrants to be present in their assembly but as cited persons appearing at the Syneds tribunal and submitting to the authority of the Synod as having power to order them when to speak when to hold their peace and also at length by majority of voices to judge and censure them Which how far from all equity it was let all judge that have eyes to see and are impartial The Remonstrants notwithstanding● lest they should seem wanting to a good cause did yield to a necessity and with a great and undaunted courage entred the Synod and there Episcopius with great grace and Oratorial gesture and as our learned Hales expresseth it recited that excellent Oration which is to be found in the Acts of the Synod and in the second volume of his works After this when the Remonstrants declared that they were ready to confer with the Synod the Ecclesiastical President in the name of the Synod answered That they by an authority granted to them from the States General were come together not to confer with them but to judge them Notwithstanding this yet the Remonstrants having protested that they could not acknowledge that Synod as a lawfull Judge in the present controversy because the greatest part of it consisted of their professed adversaries who had already condemned them and seperated from them did address themselves freely to propound explain and confirm their sentence or judgment before the Synod so far as they could and did judge necessary and so to do they were not onely exprespermitted but also injoyned by the Deputies of the States-General in their Citatory Letters But when the Synod would again circumscribe that liberty by these limits to wit that they should propound explain and confirm their sentence or judgment as far as the Synod should judge might be sufficient and ought to be then could not the Remonstrants satisfy their consciences to submit to such unequal and unrighteous conditions by which they should betray their cause and so they were at length cast out of the Synod as persons unworthy for the Synod any longer to treat withall Concerning the manner of their ejection I shall here adde something out of the letters sent from Dort to Sir Dudly Charleton at that time Lord Embassadour from K. James to the States-General and written by Doctor Belcanqual a member of the Synod and