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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

without any Knowledg in me of your Design says he which was that by true Knowledg he might bring me to you I loved and valued him but not as a Teacher of Truth for I despaired of finding any such in your Church Secondly Besides that general Prejudice he nourisht he misrepresented to himself the particular Tenets of the Church and then hated and reviled the ugly Idol of his own carving If ever saith he my Soul lifted up and moved her self towards the Catholic Faith I was soon driven back for alas Catholic Faith was not that which I took it to be Thirdly He was willing to be convinced but not to believe to see but not to submit his Understanding to Faith He sought a clear Evidence and such as should not controul his usual Apprehension or oppose his Senses as if they had been fit Judges of the Objects of Faith revealed Truths My sick Soul says he could not be cured but by Believing Valetudo animae meae quae utique nisi credendo sanari non poterat ne falsa crederet sanari recusabat c. Conf. l. 6. c. 1. and for fear of being surprized and made to believe what might be false I refused to admit of a Cure I was resolved either to see things or if I could not to conceive them as evidently as that Seven and Three make up Ten. It was on these his Three mistaken Methods that he reflected afterwards when sighing he said What am I Quid sum ego mihi sine te nisi dux in praeceps quis homo est quilibet homo cum sit homo Conf. l. 1. c. 4. to my self but a Guide leading into a Precipice What a sad Man is each Man when he is but one Man That is when he is left to his own Private Sense abandoned to his own Judgment Was it possible that Gods Grace had it been less than Omnipotent should prevail against these stubborn Ill-dispositions of his Mind Long was the Combat violent the Strife but Grace conquered at last and by this Method gained the Field First God by a particular Light convinced him That L 7. conf c. 5. Religion was not Opinion but Faith not a calling of things Divine to the Test of our weak Judgment and carnal Senses but a captivating of our Understanding and humbly sacrificing it to the Divine Truth Next he observed how numerable those things were which he believed though he had never seen them How he had ever adored God and owned his Providence though he knew not what a Kind of Substance he was nor what Way led unto or from him I thought on these Things says he and you were present to me I was carried away by restless Waves and you governed and steered my Course I sighed and you heard me Then he resolves to seek more narrowly Let Time be assigned says he let some Hours be allotted Ibidem c. 11. to the Study of that great Science How I shall save my Soul. Let all Vain and Empty Concerns perish and all my Thoughts and Endeavors be spent in the sole Pursuit of Truth this Life at best is but Toylsome and Miserable Death certain and at Hand if it surprizes whither do we go He presently applyed himself seriously to an humble Search after a Guide to Truth when favoured with a new Light from Heaven he cryes out Conceive better Hopes my Soul the Catholic Faith doth not teach what we Believe and fondly accused her of Thus disposed and weighing with a due Attention the Articles of the Catholic Belief he owns his Heart was filled with Joy and his Face covered with Shame to see how profanely he had strove so many Years not against Catholic Faith as he conceived but against his own Dreams how Rash he had been and equally Impious That whereas he should with Submission have learnt from the ●o quippe temerarius impius fueram quod ea quae debebam quaerenda discere accusando dixeram l. 6. Conf. Church that which she held he fastened on her what he pleased and accused her of it He reads next Holy Scripture with the due deference he owed to that Churches Interpretation owning there is no Text of Scripture into which a false Gloss may not Foist an Error that the Letter ever kills when severed from the Spirit Nulla scriptura est quae non apud illos qui cam non intelligunt possit reprehendi l. 1. de gen contra Manich. which ought to quicken that the very misapplying a Text otherwise truly Interpreted is the most dangerous Weapon that a tempting Devil could use to deceive even if possible Truth it self with an It is written that stubbornly to maintain our own Fancy to be the Word of God because we uphold it by a forced Text is to set up the greatest Abomination of Desolation in the House of God an Idol upon his Altar and to adore it by the worst of Idolatries Self-worship proudly challenging as our own what Christ only could bequeath and left to his Church to each Member as united to the whole the Spirit of Truth who alone must Interpret what he Dictated alone On which score Christ left as a Depositum in the same Hands of the Church the Letter and the Spirit the Book and the Sense the Word and the Truth to be delivered to all succeeding Ages by the same Authority because the separating of the one from the other would Neque enim natae sunt haereses nisi dum scripturae bonae intelliguntur non bene quod in ●is non bene Intelligitur etiam temeré audacter asseritur Tract 18. in Jo. turn the most wholsom Food of our Souls to present Poison whence Heresies have had their birth from good Scriptures ill understood and from the bold and rash asserting of such Errors So that this only is the holy Method to be followed that what we find in Scripture conformable with the Faith we have received we feed on it but when any part thereof appears not uniform with that Rule that it create in us no Doubts but only an humble Quod secundum sanam sidei regulam intelligere non poterimus dubitationem a●feramus intelligentiam disseramus Ibid. persuasion that we understand not yet such a Scripture He had scarce receiv'd this Light when behold all his Doubts raised before by the same Lecture disappeared all those seeming Contradictions vanished whence he was perfectly convinced that the Catholic Church was the unerring Guide to be followed by all the Disciples of Christ He expresses the difference of this present Submission from that former Search into Scripture without this Guide under the Comparison of two Travellers whereof Aliud est de silvestri cacumine videre pat●iam pacis iter ad cam non invenire frustra con●ri per invia aliud viam tenere illuc ducentem cura coelestis imperatoris munitam Conf. l. 8. c. 1. of the one climbs up