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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	church_n	scripture_n	word_n	7,766	5	4.4516	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A13949	Three small and plaine treatises 1. Of prayer or actiue 2. Of principles, or positiue 3. Resolutions, or oppositiue Diuinitie. Translated and collected out of the auncient writers for the priuate vse of a most noble ladie. By an old praebendary of the Church of Lincolne.	Williams, John, 1582-1650.	1620 (1620)	STC 24259; ESTC S102025	30,759	166

yea and three National Councels from Pope Stephen in the yeere 250 i Bellar. de Ro. Pont. l. 2. c. 25. 46. Lindan panopl. l. 7. c. 89. Possevinus in Apparat. titul Carthag the Bishops of Carthage Schismatized from all Popes of Rome for an hundred yeres together about the yeere 409. lastly k Bellar. de Ro. Pont. l. 2. c. 31. Idem de Matri c. 15. art 2. the Greeke Church cut off from the Roman for 300. yeeres are sufficient testimonies there may be a true Church of God though seuered and diuided from the Pope of Rome And here in this kingdome it was no Protestant but Popish Bishops that concluded in a Nationall Synode l Institut of a Christian set foorth anno 1537. by Authority our King might if he pleased create a Pope of his owne in his own kingdoms and dominions and yet remaine a member of the Catholike Church Pap. Well the best is you haue beene so tedious in your answeres that I haue I thank God forgotten all that you haue said for your reformed Church Prot. But I will helpe that quickly by summing vp of all into these 12. Positions 1 We haue a Church as hauing Doctrine Saluation Discipline 2 It is a portion of the Catholique Church 3. It hath a Spirituall vnion of doctrine with the vntainted members of the Church of Rome 4 And yet hath seuered her selfe from the Church of Rome by crying against and dissenting from her Superstions 5 Which some of vs hold no true Church of Gods in regard of the preuailing Faction 6 Although we iudge charitably of the Saluation of some in that Church 7 Who notwithstanding are saued not as Papists but as Christians 8 And in one lumpe or communion with this Church liued ours before the Reformation 9 Which then for want of a Generall did seuer her selfe by a Nationall Councell from the same 10 Nor was it any by-respect of the Kings but God and the cry of that age that caused this reformation 11 Nor doe our reformed Churches dissent amongst themselues in doctrine but in outward politie and discipline onely 12 Our Bishops and Priests come by a lineall Succession from Henry the eights time nor can a supposall of Heresie cut off this descent CHAP. 2. Of the Scriptures Pap. DOe you then hold this Church of yours to bee the ground of your Faith and reason of your beleeuing So as you doe therefore beleeue all the points of your saluation to be true because the Church doeth teach and instruct you in the same Or haue you any other rule and ground of your faith Prot. The Authority and good conceipt we haue of Gods Church a August contra Epistol fundam c. 5. prepareth vs to beleeue the points of our Saluation and serueth as an introduction to bring vs to the discerning and perfect apprehension of these mysteries of our faith but the Scripture onely is the ground and reason of our beleeuing For as the b Iohn 4.29 Samaritans were induced and drawne on to beleeue in Christ by that talk of the woman but hauing heard Christ himselfe professe plainely they beleeue no longer for her saying but c Iohn 4.42 because they heard him speake himselfe So doe we beginne to beleeue moued thus to doe by the good conceipt we haue of the Church but rest not in it as the ground of our beleeuing but onely in the infallible assurance of Gods truth in the booke of Scriptures Pap. Then God helpe you if that be your last resolution For our Church cannot erre but your Scriptures without the helpe of the Church to tell you so much can neuer bee ascertained vnto you to be the word of God And therefore what assurednesse of beleefe can you propose your selues vpon so vnsetled a foundation Prot. The Catholike Church indeed Wald. doctr fid l. 2. art 2. c. 27. spread ouer the world cannot erre damnably though the Church of Rome and all other particula Churches may as your owne Writers confesse But the Scriptures wee know to be the word of God not because the Church or Churchmen doe tell vs so much but by the Authority of God himselfe a Caluin instit l. 1. c. 7. d. 4. whom we doe most certainely discerne to speake in his word when it is preached vnto vs. For if we bring pure eyes and perfect senses the maiestie of God forthwith presenteth it selfe vnto vs in the holy Scriptures and beating downe all thoughts of contradicting or doubting things so heauenly forceth our hearts to yeeld assent and obedience vnto the same And therefore if you doubt whether that which you reade in your Bible be the word of God or finde any reluctancy in your vnderstanding to the doctrine of the same it is in vaine to flie vnto either Church or Churchmen to be perswaded in this point but down vpon your knees and pray feruently vnto God for Faith and the illumination of the Holy Ghost which can only assure you of the trueth of the Scriptures Caluin instit l. 1. c. 7. dist 5. For after wee are enlightned by the Spirit we do no longer trust either our owne iudgement or the iudgement of other men or of the Church that the Scriptures are of God but aboue all certainety of humane iudgement wee most certainely resolue as if in them wee saw the maiestie and glory of God that by the ministerie of men they came vnto vs from Gods owne most sacred mouth Pap. But what certaine ground of faith can you place on the Scriptures seeing by the seuerall interpretations of men and women they are turned and wrested like a nose of wax to euerie priuate designe and purpose Doe not you obserue how the Catholikes Protestants and especiallie the Brownists and Anabaptists doe fit all their turnes out of the holie Scriptures on which of these senses and imaginations is your faith rooted or peraduenture haue you some odde capritchious kinde of interpretation of your owne apprehension to direct you in these businesses Prot. Wee lay-folkes are licensed in the Church of England to reade Doe all interprete 1. Cor. 12.30 but not to interprete Scriptures excepting onely those passages which containe the necessarie points of our Saluation the which passages are so plaine easie euery where that any man or woman of the meanest capacitie especiallie if he or she be instructed in their Catechisme or grounds of religion may perfectly conceiue Staplet cont 6. q. 7. exp si art and vnderstand them But for the harder and more difficult places we leaue them to be interpreted by our Church-men in their Sermons and dailie ministerie For the ordering of which interpretations there are as I haue beene told 10. seuerall helps Obserued out of D. Field M. Hooker Chemnitius and Trelcatius the which if they be followed wil be sure and vnfallible guides to bolt out the true meaning of each place of Scripture 1 An illumination of the vnderstanding by

was presently cantl'd out into as many factions almost as there are Countries witnes the Lutherans soft and rigid the Caluinists Puritans Conformitans Brownists Anabaptists c. So as one may easily guesse from what Lerma and fenny ground this Hydra of so many heades had her first Originall Prot. This argument sounds very bigge in a ladies closet and weighs much with the ignorant and vnlearned people but with a man but of a reasonable vnderstanding this seeming diuision is no scandall at all to our reformed Churches What man of any reading in the Histories of the time but knowes well that after the trumpet for this reformation had blowne the first warning by a In the yeere 1375 Wicklef b In the yeere 1410. Hus and Hierome of Prage and then the second by c de signis ruin eccl Gerson d 1411. Peter de Aliaco e Bucholcer Anno 1517. Cardinall Cusanus f in Theor. Picus Mirandula g Phil. Comin l. 3. Sauanorola and many others of whom we reade in h Guic. hist l. 4. Guicchiardyn when i In the yeere 1512. Luther in Germany blew the last and that there appeared no hope of a free and indifferent Councell so as seuerall kingdomes were thus necessitated to prouide and take care for themselues this worthy Act of Reformation beginning in sundry estates by reason partly of their diuers shapes and formes of gouernements and partly of a great disaduantage that one part of Christendome knew not what another did nor consulted with their fellowes that so they might with vnanimitie proceed in the same did necessarily produce a seeming difference in the outward formes of particular Churches But loe the goodnesse and prouidence of Almighty God Although these Churches haue seuerall faces yet haue they all but one heart there being no essentiall fundamentall or materiall difference amongst any of vs of the reformed Religion as you may easily finde by reading the confessions of our seueral churches And therfore for these odious Nick-names of Lutheran Caluinist Huguenot Zuinglian and the like be more sparing of them vntill you haue reconcil'd your own churchmen as your Minorits and Dominicans about the conception of the blessed Virgine your Iesuits and Dominicans about predestination and those dependant questions your Sorbonists and Iesuits about the bounding and mereing out the Regall and Papall Authority and you shall finde more doctrinall oppositions in your owne then you can imagin in our Churches But keepe you at home in your natiue countrey and looke without enuie or partialitie vpon this flourishing Church of England name me one Kingdom in all Europe that hath continued very neere this hundred yeres in that constancie and immutabilitie of doctrine or discipline Wee are ordered with that consecration that † Sand. de schis Angl. lib. 3. Archbishop ‖ 32. of Henry 8. Cranmer was we renounce the Pope by that abiuration that Archbishop Cranmer did we subscribe to those Articles of religion which * In the yeere 1552. Archbishop Cranmer in the Reformation pitch't vpon before we can be admitted to any Ecclesiasticall function Some wilde coults we haue that start and boggle at the first if they see but their owne shadowes but by the discipline of the Church they are curb'd and fetch 't about againe and taught in a little while to come on gently to this vniformitie and subscription So that malice it selfe cannot challenge the Church of England this most glorious portion of that Catholike Church of any fractions or diuisions in points of Doctrine Pap. Nay but I haue often heard that you haue no Bishops or Priests at all in your Church But that in the beginning of Q. Elizabeths raigne lay-men in the Parliament did appoint you Bishops who consecrated one another in a Tauerne at the * Sander de Schism lib. 3. Harding against Iewell Nags-head in Cheapside and that your Priests were ordered onely by these Parliamentary Prelates Prot. This tale of the Nags-head Harding Sanders and Stapleton haue forged out of their owne Nagges-heads without any ground or likelihood at all And yet as easily as they came by it it put a a M. Mason Archdeacon of Suff. Minister of our Church to an infinite deale of learned paines Who by his Maiesties speciall commandement did search out the auncient Records of the Archbishop of Canterbury agnized sithence by many Priests and Iesuits in the Clincke and other prisons and out of them hath composed a learned booke shewing the successiue Consecrations of all the Bishoppes of England from that first conuocation that b Institut of a Christian fol. 19. banisht the Pope about the yeere 1536 so as any Minister looking out that Bishop who gaue him Orders may presently ascend in a right line of Bishops to those Prelates that liued in the raigne of Henry the eighth before the reformation And therfore if your owne Priests be lawfull you may not quarrell with ours differing onely from yours in their renouncing of your impieties and superstitions Pap. This Record you speake of is somewhat to the purpose vnlesse the heresie of those first Bishops did disable them for granting of lawfull Consecrations and Orders Prot. c S. Basil Nazianz. S. Ambros S. Hierom. S. Austen were in their times called heretiques Lindan panopl. lib. 4. cap. 7. Heretique indeed is a common word for vs in the mouth of euery woman that is but a little Romanized But is it not strange how d Institut of a Christian fol. 18 he should be an Heretique that sayes the Creed and the Lords prayer in that literall and explicite sense and meaning that all the Fathers of the Church for the first 500. yeeres vnderstood the same Yet this is nothing to the point in hand For first if the Bishops in Queen Maries time were lawfull notwithstanding their being consecrated by Cranmer and other tainted Bishops as you terme them why may not the Bishops in Queene Elizabeth and King Iames his time expect the same priuiledge And secondly your owne e Dominic a● Soto in 4. Sent. d. 25. Biel. in 4 d. 25. q. 1. Con. 4. Capreol in 4. d. 25. q. 1. art 3. c. Writers confesse that Heresie which we suppose but not yeeld these Prelates fallen vnto cannot rase out from that Character of a Bishop this inseparable power of consecrating and ordering Pap. Yet there remaines an obiection against your Church that it cannot possibly be a true Church because it is seuered from the true visible head thereof the Pope of Rome Prot. This is a stale obiection and soone answered The church of f Euseb li. 5. c. 23. Eras epist in Agrippa de vanit c. 59. Asia seuered from Pope Victor in the yeere 200. g Baron tom 3. ad ann 375. Athanasius and his fellowes from Faelix and Tiberius in the yere 375 h Euseb l. 7. c. 2. 3. 4. Casian consult art 7. Cyprian and his brethren