Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	authority_n	church_n	scripture_n	4,231	5	6.1426	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65321	Dialogues between Philerene and Philalethe, a lover of peace and a lover of truth, concerning the Pope's supremacy. Part I	Watts, Thomas, 1665-1739.	1688 (1688)	Wing W1156; ESTC R27584	35,721	46

Test quest 57. Tract 47. in Joh. St. Augustin We might add to this what (g) Tertull. Carm. Tertullian says That all the Apostles had an equal power and that they were all the same as St. Peter was as (h) Cypr. lib. de unitat Ecclesiae St. Cyprian explains it and that they had all the same dignity as Pope (i) Append. com Theod. Ep. 8. Gelasius says Philér I am very well satisfied as to your first proof and I think you have shewed sufficiently by the Holy Scripture that the supream Authority is in the Church and in the Council which represents it That St. Peter himself tho he were the Prince of the Apostles was subject to it and that he was not looked upon as the supreme Judge in things that concerned Religion but as the first Minister in the College of the Apostles I desire you now to pass on to your second proof and to shew me by the perpetual and constant Tradition of the Church that the Popes who have succeeded St. Peter were never considered as the supreme arbitrators of things concerning Religion but that the Soveraign Authority to which the Popes themselves ought to be subject was esteemed ever to be in the Council Phila. I will readily perform the promise I made to you but I would have you observe by the by That the Bishops of Rome have not succeeded St. Peter in the charge of his Apostleship which was a personal employment and particular to those whom Jesus Christ had immediately called whom he had Bapized by his Holy Spirit and enriched with extraordinary gifts by which means these blessed people were Infallible and possessed a soveraign and Independent Authority in the Church and a Ministry which was not restrained to a certain place but which was dispersed throughout the whole World. I would also have you observe That the succession of the Bishops of Rome to St. Peter was but in the charge of a Bishop whereof St. Peter and the rest of the Apostles did communicate the Rights or Prerogatives to their successors and that this Charge hath this common Right with the Apostleship that it confers the power of Preaching the Word of administring the Sacraments and of using the power of the Keys but it gives no infallibility or power of exercising the Ecclesiastical Ministry all the World over After this Observation which is not amiss to our purpose I come to what I promised you And I observe in the first place that in the most Ancient Monuments of Christian Antiquity I find no traces of this Supreme Power which the Roman Bishops of the last Ages would attribute to themselves We have the Epistles of St. Ignatius which are of an Apostolick Character but there is not so much as the least foot-step of this supreme Authority attributed to the See of Rome This Holy Prelate speaks of the Church of Rome as of other Churches He calleth it the Church sanctified and illuminated by the will of God without giving it the least authority over any other and in his 7th Epistle to those of Smyrna he directeth it to the Bishop in the name of the Church and acknowledgeth nothing above him which he would never have done had he believed the Bishop of Rome to have been not only above other Bishops but also above a Council St. Justin Martyr in his Apology for the Christians gives an account to the Emperor Antoninus of the behaviour of Believers in his time but there is not one word of a superior and supreme Master that resided at Rome and made his Soveraign decision concerning matters of Religion St. Polycarp the Disciple of St. John as Eusebius relates it in his Book of Ecclesiastical History came to Rome to confer with Anicetus who was there Bishop concerning the day whereon he was to keep Easter but yet he followed not this Bishops Opinion which without doubt he would have done if it had been true that the Bishop of Rome had been at that time held the supreme Judge of the Church St. Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons in his Epistle to Victor Bishop of Rome as † Lib. 5. cap. 2 24. Eusebius saith sharply reproves him for separating from his Communion the Eastern Church because they would not keep Easter upon the same day that he did How could this Bishop have reproved things of this nature if he had believed that Victor had been in this conjuncture the absolute judge to whose Decisions and to whose Tribunal the Church was obliged to submit There were several Synods held both in the East and West There was one in the East where Policrares Bishop of Ephesus presided wherein far from acknowledging the Bishop of Rome for the Arbitrator of the whole Church they condemn his opinion as Eusebius witnesseth Was not there a Council also held in France our own Country wherein the Bishop of Rome had no share But St. Irenaeus presided and wrote a very pressing letter to Victor to oblige him to retain Communion with the Eastern Churches Do you think now seriously that things would have been carried thus if they had believed that the Bishop of Rome had held a Soveraign authority in the Church Some time afterwards the Heretick Novatians whose Picture Cornelius Bishop of Rome hath drawn in his Epistle to Fabian Bishop of Antioch being deprived of the Roman Chair which he had usurped and where he had published this Error That they ought not to be admitted to Repentance who had fallen into grievous sins Cornelius did not undertake of himself to condemn this Error which he would have done without all question if he had thought himself to have been the soveraign Arbitrator of the Church but he assembled at Rome a Council of Sixty Bishops There were also held without any order of Cornelius many Councils in divers places namely at Antioch which had been an horrible attempt had Cornelius been the absolute Magistrate of the Christian Common-wealth Matthew Bishop of Arles having joyned himself to Novatian Faustinus Bishop of Lyons did not address himself to Cornelius but to St. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage who wrote to the neighbouring Bishops of France and to the Bishop of Rome to exhort them to do their Duty and in this Letter he saith That he held in his own hand the ballance of the Church Government Doth not all this then demonstratively prove that the Bishop of Rome was not at that time looked upon as the Monarch of the Church I add to these Examples that of the famous Council of Antioch held in the year 265. against Paulus Samosatenus wherein assisted more than 270. Bishops This sworn enemy of our Saviour's Divinity being relapsed into the Heresy which he had formerly abjured in an Assembly held in the same City and because he could not be brought back to his Duty by the Letters and Remonstrances of the neighbouring Bishops it was their Opinion to call a Council and to this purpose Helenus Bishop of Tharsus and