Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	article_n	church_n	time_n	1,703	5	3.8101	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58905	A sermon preached before the King at Chester, on August xxviii, 1687, being the feast of S. Augustin, Doctor of the Holy Catholic Church by ... Lewis Sabran ...	Sabran, Lewis, 1652-1732.	1687 (1687)	Wing S221; ESTC R1786	28,293	35

a high Tree indeed and sees thence the Place he would go to but then ranges blindly in the thick Wood whilst the other walks securely in a Way leading right thither without fear or danger of going astray a large Royal Way made and kept by the Providence of the King of Heaven Then observing how all pious humble Catholics tho' never so plain and illiterate Men enjoyed as a Birthright that Happiness the Search whereof had been so dangerous the Purchase so painful to him What Lib. 8. cap. 1. Conf. want O Lord said he what want did your Little-ones feel of a deep and quick Wit How much did this Dullness of theirs injure them Whilst they were carried in your Catholica delici●tur Ecclesia dicat ego do●mio cor meum vigilat Quid est nisi ita qui●sco ●● audiam Tract 25. in Jo. Arms and rested in the Nest of the Catholic Church enlarging the Wings of their Charity and strengthning them by the Food of a sound Faith chosen for and brought to them without their labor Happy Men who enjoy a perfect Rest while their whole Duty is to hearken Behold the final Victory of Grace over the Pride of Human Wit captivated to Faith our Self sufficiency humbled under the Tutoring Discipline and Direction of the Church No wonder if this Saint afterwards us'd no other Method in reconciling misled Heretics to Truth but that by which Gods Grace had retrieved him from his Errors the infallible Authority of a Guiding Church He advised Unlearned Men in general to relie altogether and lean on the Authority Epist 56 of the Church He minded the most Learned who feared to be deceived where Truth seemed to them Fo. 7. li● contra cresco c. 33. but obscurely revealed to consult the Church which the holy Scriptures point out without ambiguity assuring them that even in Fundamental Articles of as immediate necessity as Baptism is where Scripture mentions nothing thereof the very Truth of Scriptures is followed whilst that is done which the Catholic Church declares for and with reason since we receive said he the Books of the Old and New Testament in the same number that the Authority of Fo. 10. Serm. 191. de tempore the Catholic Church hath Sealed and Delivered up to us since I would not give any credit to the Gospel if the Authority Fo. 6. l. contra Epist ●und c. 5. of the Catholic Church moved me not to it whatever Doubts there arise not to yield to the Church 't is the utmost Ad honor de util Cred. c. 17. Fo. 6. Impiety the most loose Arrogancy For whether in her most general necessary and first Principles or in remotest Truths leading to solid Devotion whether in Contra Faust l 15. c. 3. in Fo. 6. her Milk or in her Bread the Church alone possesses Truth Those then who have their Belief yet to choose who begin a serious Search into Religion desiring to De util Cred. c. 7. 8. know to which they are to commit their Souls for Instruction they must without any Doubt begin with the Catholic Church If they have been wavering in their Mind and desire to put an end to their toil in seeking let them follow the Way of Catholic Discipline which as it is derived from Jesus Christ to us Christus miraculis conc●liavit auctoritatem auctoritate meruit sidem De util cred c. 14. by the Apostles so must it be transmitted to our Posterity in succeeding Ages We must receive our Faith from that Church as the first converted to Christianity received it from the Apostles and they from Christ Her Authority being once established by the same Proofs which Domino cooperante sermonem confirmante sequent b●s signis Marc. ult the Apostles offered for theirs our whole Work is to embrace what God teaches by her Voice tho' it be above the level and reach of Human Reason For before our Minds be cleared from that Dullness which Sin hath left De agone Chron. c. 13. in it that especially of Insidelity we must believe what we cannot yet understand the Prophet having most truly said Without you believe you shall not understand for Faith is delivered in the Church in very few words in which Eternal Mysteries are comprehended which carnal man cannot yet conceive The first Heresie arose In Psalm amongst Christ's Disciples from the refusal of yielding to his words which seemed hard they unhappily made a Schism from him If Peter stuck stedfast to Christ was it by understanding the high Mysteries of that Speech of Christ No but he piously believed what he understood In Psalm 130. not Learn little ones of Christ learn from hence due Piety for those who will dispute of Mysteries they do not understand do but heighten their Pride whil'st that curse falls on them which the Royal Prophet speaks of in the 130 Psalm If I was not humble of heart but have swelled up my mind with Pride as the Child weaned from the breast is towards his Mother so be my Soul punished The Church of God is that Mother from which they are severed they should have been nurs'd and fed by her and so might have grown and become capable of digesting the Word and Mysteries of Faith. Ponder then well the sense of those two words of your Creed Catholic Church observe what a certain death Psalm in part Donati seizes the Vine-branch how it withers when lopt off from the Body of the Vine come and seek Life from the Root number the Priests in St. Peter's Chair observe how they have succeeded to one another that 's the Rock which the proud Gates of Hell never conquer This was his method of reducing those better-disposed Souls which erred by mistake rather than by malice but if he found any obdurate before he shaked against them the dust of his feet according to Christ's Command before he avoided them as already condemned following the Apostles Counsel he with a true Charity weeping Ad Tit. 3. 10. for the certain danger they ran minded them of it thus To be fond of ones proper Opinion or to be averse L. 2. con Don. c. 5. from better to that degree as to be guilty by breaking Communion of the Sacrilege of Schism or Heresie is a Presumption beyond all others but the Devils since it is to refuse a Submission to the Spirit of Truth guiding that Church it is promised unto and which God commands all to hearken unto and to obey 'T is the Crime of Corah erecting an Altar against an Altar which involves the weak and ignorant Followers as much as the Leaders when equally stubborn in standing to their Separation it seeming even a higher Crime in unlearned men who pretend not to extraordinary Parts and yet presume to be Judges of and to condemn the Universal Church preferring to her Decisions the opposite Errors of a few L. de Bapt. con

same to cure his last and inmost Wound Sinful Customs Potinian a Noble African and Friend of his who followed the Emperor's Court renders him a Visit and finding S. Paul's Epistles opened in his Study express'd the joy he had to see him bestow so well his best hours Their conversation thus falling on a pious Subject Potinian takes an occasion to rehearse the eminent Virtues practised and the wonderful Miracles wrought by S. Anthony not long before deceased and so famous thro' all the East even whil'st living that the Great Theodosius had often begged the Protection of his Prayers for his Empire and Army and granted that he owed to them the Prosperity of the one and the Victories of the other Augustin wondred at the Greatness of those Tam recenti memoria prope nostris temporibus testatissima mirabilia tua in fide recta Catholica Ecclesia Miracles of so fresh a date of so unquestionable a Truth wrought in the true Faith in the Catholic Church and stood amazed he had never observed or even known them before A great Motive to unite himself with it in that Communion for which she had that Hand and Seal of God to shew From this great Guide and Father of solitary Eremits and devout Religious the Discourse pass'd to his holy Followers and the most flourishing Monasteries and Religious Cloysters which Augustin could not but acknowledge to be a peculiar Flock of Christ endued with singular Piety their Number and eminent Piety were a second Motive to embrace the Faith which they such eminent Conquerors of the World and exact Followers of Christ did profess Potinian finding him much moved adds Fuel to this well-kindled Fire by a relation of what he had been a witness of when the Court was at Treves I went said he with three other Courtiers to view some neighboring Eremits Cells and Gardens the Company was divided two entring a Cell where dwelt some of those Servants of God poor in Spirit to whom by that claim the Kingdom of Heaven belongs found on the Table S. Anthony's Life they opened and read it and God representing by his interior Grace in a far more lively way than the dead Letter could the Virtues of his Servant the one of them an Agent in Court inspired with a holy Love for Virtue and ashamed of his so different a Life What drive our hopes at says he What slatters most our wishes It is that we may perhaps gain our Princes Favor 't is but a perhaps many dangers will way-lay us before we reach it and then that height is slippery and threatens a sore bruise in the fall whereas in this very moment I may if I will enter into a particular Friendship and Intimacy with my God. Full of these thoughts he recollects his discomposed mind opens the Book again and his heart at the same time to the Divine Seed of God's Grace which took root presently and the Fruit soon appeared God altered interiourly the whole frame of his Soul broke all his Chains sever'd him from the World He sighs and reads and sighs again he ballances resolves rises and now God's Courtier The strife is at an end says he adien Court and World none of my hopes are now lodged in thee 't is God only I will serve 't is resolved and that at this hour in this place and adieu Friend also unless you have taken the same resolution He had both rich enough by that general resolution of sacrificing all to God begun to build happily that Noble Tower of Christian Perfection How surprized were we when having but viewed some neighboring Gardens we found them so altered in so short a time so fix'd in their new resolutions If we were not otherwise altered having heard their Choice and their Motives so far we were at least as to weep for our weakness and insensibility We did congratulate Nihilo mutati à pristinis fleverunt se tamen their happiness envy their condition crave their Prayers and brought home with us a heavy heart too too unseparably wedded to this World whil'st those dwelt in mind in Heaven in Body in their narrow Cells Whil'st Potinian related this passage what a storm was raised in Augustin's breast who compared his wavering delays with the firm resolutions his deafness to God's Voice with the quick obedience of these his Servants In vain he cast himself behind his own back and turned away his eyes God placed him still in his own sight and uncovered the old Sores of his lasting Sins Not bearing with these interior reproaches as soon as Potinian had left him he betakes himself to a Garden to divert those thoughts His intimate Friend Alipius followed him God's Graces pursue thither their Fugitive and renew a brisk Attaque against that strugling heart There is exposed unto him how certain he is now that 't is God who calls and presses him to obey He had nothing to answer all his put-offs and excuses failed him a stubborn silence had succeeded a Remanserat muta trepidatio quasi mortem reformidabat restringi à fluxu con●uetudinis quo tabe●●ebat in mortem Conf. l. 8. c. 8. strange fear seized him he apprehended more than Death to divest himself of those ill habits that poysoned his Soul to Death In these violent Convulsions of his mind he starts back towards his Friend and seizing him What is this Alipius says he What did we hear Unlearned illiterate people rise and seize on Heaven and We with all our eminent Parts and Knowledge for want of Courage behold we wallow in the sink of our sins Are we ashamed then to follow such Leaders or should we not rather blush that we do not at least follow now they have opened the way His troubled and wandring eyes his discomposed and dejected looks his pale co●tenance and faltring voice spoke the rest of his mind He was sinking into a kind of wholsom distractedness as he calls it He sits down displeased with himself even to passion to see that he could not persuade himself effectually to make his peace with his God by a full submission to his preventing Graces that all the powers of his Soul violently led him to it whil'st his stubborn Will abandoned him and withdrew that he would and could not resolve 't was but a half-will that strove against the other wounded half still pa●ting and withdrawing back His disordered Soul suffered strangely in this strife He pluck'd the hair off his Head knock'd furiously his Forehead and Breast with joyned hands he clipt his Knees then said How easily all the parts of my Body obey my Soul How they move at her Will and my Soul cannot obey her own Commands She would resolve she asks with a more violent passion that resosolution Imperat animus ut velit animus nec alter est n●c facle tamen voluntas non utique plena imperat ●deo non est qued imperat from her self yet cannot obtain it