Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostle_n	church_n	world_n	2,798	5	4.6161	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42563	The Council of Trent no free assembly more fully discovered by a collection of letters and papers of the learned Dr. Vargas and other great ministers, who assisted at the said Synod in considerable posts : published from the original manuscripts in Spanish, which were procured by the Right Honourable Sir William Trumbull's grandfather, envoy at Brussels in the reign of King James the First : with an introductory discourse concerning councils, shewing how they were brought under bondage to the Pope / [translated] by Michael Geddes ...	Geddes, Michael, 1650?-1713.; Vargas Mejia, Francisco de, 1484-1560.	1697 (1697)	Wing G445; ESTC R16012	203,517	370

THE COUNCIL of TRENT No Free ASSEMBLY More fully discovered By a Collection of Letters and Papers of the Learned Dr. VARGAS and other Great Ministers who assisted at the said Synod in Considerable Posts Published from the Original Manuscripts in Spanish which were procured by the Right Honourable Sir William Trumbull's Grandfather Envoy at Brussels in the Reign of King James the First With an Introductory Discourse concerning Councils shewing how they were brought under Bondage to the Pope By MICHAEL GEDDES LLD. and Chancellor of the Cathedral Church of Sarum LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil MDCXCVII TO THE Right Reverend Father in God EDWARD By Divine Providence Lord Bishop of VVorcester May it please your Lordship HAD your Lordship no other Relation to the following Papers which do so plainly discover the absolute Bondage the Trent Council was in to the Pope but only that of your being universally acknowledged one of the ablest Champions the Church of England or any other Church ever brought forth against Popery over which your Victories and Triumphs are numbred no otherwise than by the many Combats you have had with it that alone would have led me to the doing both these Papers and my self the honour of prefixing your Famous Name to them But when besides that the Originals of these Papers were put into my Hands by your Lordship to be translated and made publick for the Service of the Church this afforded me so just a Pretence for the doing of it that the Ambition I have of owning to the World how much I have been beholden to your Lordship would not suffer me not to make use of And having said this I will not interrupt your better Exercises by detaining your Lordship any longer but shall continue my Prayers to God that he would be so gracious to his Church whose very Foundations are at this time so fiercely attacked as to restore you to perfect Health and to grant you a long Life to defend Her against those Enemies of Hers with whom she now struggles with the same Success that you had formerly against the Papists her standing Enemies I humbly beg your Lordship's Blessing and am Your Lordship's most humble and most obliged Servant M. GEDDES An Introductory Discourse of COUNCILS Quid enim minus deest Tyrannis quam falsas pro veris causis effingere THE Letters I here publish are an undeniable Evidence of the Council of Trent's having been in such Bondage to the Pope that tho it had been never so well disposed it was not in its Power to have reformed the Church But to open that Matter better a short and faithful Account of the Incroachments that have been made on the Authority of Councils by the Bishops of Rome which here followeth seems to be no improper Introduction to the reading of them The Catholick Church being a Society instituted by Christ into which the People of all Nations having submitted themselves to him as their Law-giver were to be admitted Christ must necessarily be supposed at the same time that he erected his Church into a Society to have prescribed a certain Form of Government to it with a Power to make such Laws and Orders as should be necessary to its Preservation as also to punish such of its Members as should obstinately deny any of the great Truths or transgress any of the known Duties which upon their admission into it they did solemnly promise and vow to believe and observe Now this being supposed which of the three Forms of Government Democracy Monarchy or Aristocracy is the best in having the fewest Inconveniencies attending it about which People may wrangle to Eternity without ever coming to any Agreement is not the Question here but the true Question is Under which of these Forms of Government Christ when he founded his Church did put it As to Democracy it neither was nor could be the Form of Government under which Christ put his Church and that for this Reason because that Form of Government if it can any ways subsist must have its Subjects near together whereas Christ designed that his Church should spread it self over the whole Earth as it did over a great part of it within a few Years after it was first founded As to Monarchy it is true it might if Christ had so thought fit have been the Form of the Government of his Church but it is as certain that he did not ordain it to be its Government as it is that the Apostles did not immediately after his Ascension change the Government that he had instituted which if it is a thing not to be imagined Christ must then have put his Church under an Aristocracy it being very plain from the Scripture that that was the Form of Government the Church was under in the Apostles Days So the first time the Church after it was founded acted as a Body that we read of was when the Apostles and Elders assembled together to quench a Dissension arisen among Christians concerning Circumcision and some other Mosaical Observances Acts the 15th in which Assembly it is plain that the Church acted as an Aristocracy And tho it is most probable that St. James and not St. Peter was the President of this Council yet whoever was it is certain he did not preside therein as a Monarch but as a Fellow-Judg with the rest of his Brethren According to which Apostolical Pattern the Pastors and Governours of the Church who succeeded the Apostles as often as there was occasion used to meet together in Councils to treat about the Affairs of their respective Churches making such Laws and Canons and inflicting such Censures as the Necessities of the Church required All which was done without the least Syllable of the Church having a Monarch set over it on Earth by Christ Thus the Church was governed in all places for near 300 Years by Provincial Councils of Bishops Not that Presbyters nay nor Lay-Christians were wholly excluded from those Assemblies the Lay-Members of the Church when she is under an Infidel Civil Government being in the place of the Civil Magistrate to her nevertheless it is certain that the Bishops as of a superior Degree to Presbyters had always the chief Authority in all such Assemblies and had probably a Negative upon the rest In the 4th Century the Church being blessed with Christian Emperors began to meet by her Bishops in Oecumenical or General Councils which was an Advantage she had not before enjoy'd it not being a thing to be expected that Princes of a contrary Religion should suffer such Assemblies to meet under their Noses All which General Councils acted and were justly esteemed by all Christians to be the Supream Legislative Authority of the Church and they looking upon themselves as such condemned Heresies and made Canons about Discipline and in a word did every thing that belonged to the Ecclesiastical Legislative Power and that without ever taking the

and which considering of how great moment they were ought to have been discussed with a close attention the Legates took a course that was extreamly dangerous and prejudicial For whereas after having disposed Matters according to their importance the Decrees ought to have been composed some days before the Prelates did assemble and to have been seen and examined particularly by every one of them that so they might have understood what they were about and whether there were any thing amiss in them that was so far from being observed that the Legates having assembled the Prelates in a General Congregation the night before the Session read the Decrees to them as they and their friends had been pleased to frame them By which means and by their not being understood by a great many of the Prelates and others not having the courage to speak their Minds and others being quite tired out with the length of the Congregation the Decrees were passed and having concluded many things after this precipitate manner they pronounced them next day which whether they were prejudicial or not let them see to it We for our parts who saw and observed all those doings cannot but lament both our own condition and the lost authority of Councils Farthermore Notwithstanding we are to believe that in Matters of Faith which have been decided by them the Holy Ghost would not permit them to fall into any Error we are nevertheless as I observed before to consider with what authority and discussion such Matters ought to be determined and how few of those that were here were qualify'd for that work for among those who had a decisive Voice I do not believe there were Twenty and for the other learned Men and Divines that disputed they had only the Hearing given them It was upon the Decrees being thus prepared and decided that the Embassadour Don Diego de Mendoza when the Legates were in such haste to pronounce the Decree of Justification sent a Prelate to acquaint them with three Things The first whereof related to his Majesty the second to himself and the third to the Bearer The first was That before they pronounced a matter of so great importance for to consult the Universities of Paris and Lovain about it The second was That if they went on at this rate his Majesty would send such a number of Bishops to the Synod as would not suffer them to carry things so The third was That there neither was nor had been any thing of liberty in the Council To the first they answered That they would die a thousand Deaths sooner than yield to a thing that would be so great a dishonour to the Council the Bishop reply'd That he did not see that there could be any inconvenience in the Legate's consulting those Universities and he might if he would have said farther nor in the Council it self having done it and that the World would never have condemned them for it For since as I have observed great Maturity and Discussion is necessary in all such Cases and Universities are Bodies that cannot go to Councils as particular Men may it was but just that those two Universities being so famous should have been consulted the taking of whose advice would not have hindred the Synod from determining what the Holy Ghost should have dictated to them In fine the Legate without taking any farther notice of that message caused the said Decree to be pronounced as it is And as to the other two Points any body may guess what sort of Answer he returned to them Farthermore In the Session wherein the Decree of Original Sin was pronounced the Legate without having consulted or said a word to the Synod thereof did all of a sudden read the Pope's breve in confirmation of that Decree a thing they have never since offered to do By which we may see plainly what account they make of the Council giving the World by that Act to understand That the Decrees are therefore valid because they were confirmed by the Pope without whose Confirmation notwithstanding their being agreed to by the Council they would have been of little authority This though a thing of great consequence passed without any Prelates offering to open his mouth against it Farthermore It was much insisted on that the Reformation of Abuses should go before Matters of Doctrine all the Mischiefs having sprung from Abuses they being the things that support the Hereticks and keep them in countenance and it being thereupon agreed that they should go hand in hand the Legates that they might seem to comply therewith begun with the Abuses of Scripture and being brought at last to treat of Abuses in Practice they decided so little therein and that too with so many limitations that it had been much better they had done nothing in it It being visible to the whole World that all that was done was done at Rome which was rejoiced at and boasted of here and that on purpose that the World might be made sensible how little the authority of the Council signify'd as to the redressing of things that are amiss Farthermore As the Legates were continually fencing off a Reformation made by any other way than that so being desirous to pump out of the Prelates what the things were they pretended to at the beginning as if they had designed to make a mighty Reformation and as if the day of Salvation had been come they intreated all the Prelates but chiefly the Spaniards to deliver them in Memorials for their instruction of such things as they would have reformed the Prelates believing that all would be remedy'd did very innocently acquaint them with all that was in their thoughts by which trick the Legates having discovered all that the Prelates and Provinces desired they sent an account thereof immediately to Rome as was understood afterwards This the Prelates did notwithstanding they were warned by one before-hand of what would be the consequence of it Farthermore As the Legates do nothing but with tricks and dissimulation so in the Session that was held here after such an irregular and tumultuous a manner they made use of an artifice which is now notorious to every body for having the Pope's breve always privately in their Pockets to make use of as there is occasion upon some Prelates having on the day of the last Session in their opposition unadvisedly said that the Pope knew nothing of that matter for that if he had ordered it to be so it would have been another thing the Legates thereupon immediately produced the Pope's breve and by ordering it to be read publickly did stop the mouths of those Prelates and gave a colour to what was done making a Jest afterwards of their having taken the Prelates at their word Such over-reachings as these have been their principal study in most matters Farthermore As it was the Legates drift so far as they were able to canonize the Abuses of the Court of Rome and so to weaken