Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	apostle_n	church_n	doctrine_n	4,033	5	6.2595	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77347	Saul and Samuel at Endor, or The new waies of salvation and service, which usually temt [sic] men to Rome, and detain them there Truly represented, and refuted. By Dan. Brevint, D.D. As also a brief account of R.F. his Missale vindicatum, or Vindication of the Roman Mass. By the same author.	Brevint, Daniel, 1616-1695.	1674 (1674)	Wing B4423; ESTC R212267	257,888	438

which tho they do not sanctifie Sinners yet overflow them with Pardons I mean the Bulls and Indulgences the Confraternities the Masses upon priviledged Altars Pr●iers before certain Images Stations and Jubilees upon visiting of certain Churches great and extraordinary Powers conferred on certain Priests whensoever occasion requires it for dispensing with ugly things at easie rates poor Protestants I say want altogether all these Blessings and blessed Catholics abound with them And if any of these waies of attaining Salvation seem to some Men inconceivable this very inconceivableness is thought by others a proper Character to set out all for Mysteries And if that do not fully satisfie all Mens Consciences this must namely that their Roman is the undoubted Catholic Church and that the Catholic Church cannot err Such things as these have a great weight with Ignorant and sometimes too with intelligent Sinners who find themselves both loaden with their sins and unwilling to part with them And who could blame poor Creatures for going to Rome for such Pardons as it is certain they can never find among us nor in the Gospel nor in Heaven nor any where else but at Rome Therefore I think it charity to undeceive men in these matters and convince unhappy Saul if his obdurate Heart be not altogether incapable of reasonable Instruction that what he sees or hears at Endor tho perhaps sounding like the Voice and looking like the Appearance of Samuel in the night time will be found in the day light not to be any thing but the Enchantment or Cheat of a poor and silly Witch I will begin with the Catholic Church because it is the first Varnish that they adorn their Errors with and the general Illusion whereby they inveigle both themselves and others CHAP. II. How far and in what sense Papisls may be called Catholics and how the Roman Church is neither the true Catholic nor a truly Catholic Church THE Papists are much pleased with calling themselves Catholics and take it a Bellarm. de Eccles l. 4. c. 4. for the first Mark and Acknowledgment of their Church when sometimes others call them so not considering in the mean while that Titles in all kinds of Tongues do continue most commonly long after the things signified by them are gon and that we may call Rome the Catholic upon the same account that St. Matthew 4.5 calls still Jerusalem the Holy City tho this hath lost her Holiness as that hath depraved her Religion Catholic Doctrine and Service rightly applied and called so is the most essential Jewel and the very Soul of true Churches The first Title they ever had after Christ was gon up to Heaven was to be called Christian the second was after the blessed Apostles had planted them in most Countries to be called Apostolical the third if Churches did keep faithfully that Gospel which had bin Preached by the Apostles every where both such Churches and such Doctrines were entitled Catholic This last Title is the essential Seal and Character of the two other for whatsoever is thus Catholic that is thus grown Universal thro-out all Churches and in all times since the preaching of Christ and his Apostles let it be where it will at Rome or at Jerusalem is both Apostolical and Christian and therefore S. Paul Coloss 1.6 and 23. uses it twice as an infallible evidence to demonstrate that the Doctrine which the Colossians had heard either from him or from Epaphras was the true Gospel of Christ because it was come to them and all the world and was preached to every Creature under Heaven Men may set up small Candles that can fill with light private Rooms and if carried about lead Travellers some part of their way but none but God alone can make such a Light as the Sun is that can in a moment as the Sun doth spread a bright day over the whole world No Philosophers that we know were ever able with all their wit to extend their Opinions beyond their Scholes nor the greatest Kings with their might settle their Laws beyond their Dominions nor the worst Heretics spread their Errors much farther then their several Abodes The true Doctrine of Christ only and all such other holy Precepts Ordinances and Traditions as are proper to his Gospel as they went forth with a divine commission had sutable Power to carry them and to maintain them thro-out all parts and to all Creatures every where whom God would call in the whole world Matth. 26.13 Mark 14.9 Hence come such Doctrines and the Churches on their account to be called Catholic As for all other private Tenets Customes and Traditions whatsoever however intended by their Authors to follow close after them they could never reach half the way they staied behind they wanted breath they had not the Arm of the Lord nor the power of his Spirit which the Gospel had to carry and convey them so far Thus without any exception whatsoever you can find has bin made thus general among Christians from its very beginning and nothing else is Christian and Apostolical and truly Catholic by this infallible token and upon this account because it had the strength and Almighty Spirit of God to make it so and without which it could not be so Thus one may judg of the Catholicness which Romanists brag of and challenge on two accounts the first when they give it to their Church and themselves the honor of being the Catholic Church the second when they give it to their new Doctrines and Traditions and obtrude all as Catholic By the Catholic Church in the first sense nothing else can be understood but an Universal Collection of all the Churches in the world and of all Christians in those Churches which by the same faith join together into one Communion of Christ their Savior and their Head as all the Boughs of a Tree however spread and scattered one from the other unite into one stem as all Rivers into one Sea and as the twelve Tribes of Israel into one Kingdom After this rate if the Pope be the Universal or Catholic Bishop you must needs conclude thence against him as Pope Gregory the great did several b Gregor Magn. l. 4. Indict 13. Ep. 32. item Ep. 36. item l. 7. Ind. 1. Ep. 30. times against the Constantinopolitan Patriarch if one saith he be called the Universal Bishop this one hath all and all the other Bishops have nothing left and thus if Rome be the Catholic Church the other Churches are no Churches Rome alone is the whole World and this Tiber the whole Ocean To this some are pleased to say that the Roman is the Catholic Church not collectively or extensively that is not by being in her self the collective and extended body of all the Churches but virtually and as the eminent Cardinal Du Perron expresses it eminently that is the Roman hath an eminent Power Influence and Empire over other Churches Thus Rome is all Christendom as if one

to his Successor his special Commission and Apostleship over the Jews Did St Paul leave either at Rome or in any other Cities he was in proper Apostles to succeed him in all his Prerogatives among the Gentiles Let any one shew me where the twelve are whom James John and Thomas and all the rest of the Apostles left endued with equal Power in their rooms and then let if you please the Popes in quality of Peters Successors reign over them Thirdly Suppose there were any where in the World such an Apostolical Sacred College What claim hath Rome more then another place to the Headship of this College Is it not as likely that St. Peter would have left his Throne at Antioch where he made the first Christians as at Rome where no Scripture saies he was ever to make any Would not one think that his first Chair namely that of Antioch which alwaies hath bin honored with a kind of Holy-day thro Christendom should assoon be the Seat of their Universal Empire as his other second Chair at Rome which if it have now the same Honor hath it but i Bell. de Rom. Pontif. l. 2. c. 6. since the other day They say that this was k Ibid. c. 12. his last Throne wherein he died and never removed any whither else but they should prove that this was his last Will also it should stand there He removed this Seat no whither else because there he was put to death Thus Nero made it his last Throne as about six hundred Years after Phocas made l Paul Diacon Gest Longob l. 4. c. 11. Vet. Edit Platina in Pelagio 3. Anastas ibid. it Universal This last did it to vex his Bishop Cyriacus for having m Theophanes Graecorum Annal. apud Baron ad An. 606. saved out of his Bloody Hands the Empress Constantina and her two Daughters and to gratifie the Bishops of Rome who were so base as to flatter him So these two renowned Worthies the Murderer of his own Mother and the Murderer of his own King have first founded that Universal Eminence which hath made Rome thus Catholic The Foundation being thus laid down both for Primacy over other Churches and for Reverence and Dignity among most Christian Potentates who ever shewed themselves exceeding liberal on these accounts for as yet the Roman Papacy went but thus far the next task was to raise it up from this degree to in absolute Monarchy Both the Invasions of Turks and the Broils and Dissentions that happened among the Christian Princes helped the Popes to shake off all Subjection and Gregory the seventh understood and practiced so well the Art of Building upon Ruins that he left to his Successors partly in Design partly in actual Usurpation very fair ground to advance farther by these Rules commonly called the Popes Dictates n Dictatus Papae Greg. l. 2. post Ep. 55. 1. That the Pope alone is the Universal Bishop 2. The Pope alone can make new Laws 3. That the Pope alone can take the Arms of Empire and Soveraignty 4. That the Pope alone must have his Feet kissed by all Princes 5. That the Pope alone hath the Power to Depose Kings 6. That the Pope alone can release Subjects from Allegiance 7. That the Pope cannot be judged by any Man 8. That the Roman Church never erred hitherto nor can ever err hereafter 9. That he is not a Catholic that is a Christian whosoever dissents from Rome There are many more Dictates of the same sort but these are enough to intimate how Popes would master the whole World After Gregory the Seventh comes Pope Boniface the 8th to hoist this immense Power from this World both up towards Heaven thence fetching Angels o Wessel Groning de Potest Papae c. 8. sect Neque parum by his Bulls for the care of his dead Pilgrims and then down to Purgatory thence pulling p Ibid. up such tormented Souls some three or four at one bout as his Croisado-men shall require Hell it self is related to the Popes Dominions for if he be pleased by negligence or otherwise q Gratian Dist. 40. Si Papa to send whole Nations to Hell and to deliver them as well as himself to the Prince of the Devils many are of an Opinion that no Man ought to rebuke him for it The Project of this vast Empire comes fully either to the Infernal Pride that St. Gregory r Registr l. 4. Ind. 13. Ep. 34. charges him with who would be call'd Universal Bishop I will saith he exalt my Throne above the Stars of God and I will ascend unto Heaven Isa 14.13 or to their Bedlam Distemper who whatsoever they hear or see imagine it to be their own But take the whole work as you please either as mad or as impious it becomes well its three Builders The first is Phocas a Villain who Å¿ Theophan Miscell l. 17. Murthered both his own Master and Emperor his Masters Roial Family his Wife his six Sons and two Daughters His Holiness I say ows his first Title of Universal Bishop to this abominable Massacre The second is Gregory the Seventh before called Hildebrand who is branded among many for a Magician of the worst fort and for a pestilent Incendiary both in arming Subjects against their Princes and which is more unnatural the very Children against their Fathers And at last being at the point of death he himself confessed in the presence u Matth Paris Willelm 2. Anno 1086. of his Cardinals That by the Devils perswasion he had provoked the wrath of God against Mankind The third is Boniface the Eighth who is reported in the x Fasciculus Temporum in Bonifac. 8. Chronicles To have crept up to the Popedom like a Fox and there reigned like a Lyon and at the last died like a Dog These are the Men that have preferred the Church of Rome to the Dignity she takes upon her of being the Catholic Church Thus it appears that the Church of Rome is the Catholic Church in no sense neither formally or properly as it signifies the whole Universal Church of Christ nor virtually or eminently in their unproper and unusual notion by having any lawful universal Dominion and Headship over all other Churches t Benno Cardinalis de Gest. Hildebr Now I come to the second part of the matter in question to demonstrate That the Church of Rome is no truly Catholic Church at all much less the Catholic Church further then it agrees with ours and that the proper notion of Catholic excludes as inconsistent with the Apostolical and Christian Religion whatsoever she pretends as proper to the Popish Faith First I begin with the Doctrine concerning St. Peter and the Roman Dominion Ask them that know what is properly Catholic they will tell you after honest Lirinensis x Vincent Lirin c. 3. 'T is that which is believed by all Christians in all ages and every where I have