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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	doctrine_n	scripture_n	word_n	3,246	5	4.1696	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91322	Dissertatio de pace, &c. Or, A discourse touching the peace & concord of the Church. Wherein is elegantly and acutely argued, that not so much a bad opinion, as a bad life, excludes a Christian out of the kingdom of heaven; and that the things necessary to be known for the attainment of salvation, are very few and easie: and finally, that those, who pass amongst us under the name of hereticks, are notwithstanding to be tolerated.; Dissertatio de pace. English	Przypkowski, Samuel, 1592-1670.; Biddle, John, 1615-1662,	1653 (1653)	Wing P4133; Thomason E1495_1; ESTC R203302	40,192	82

his colours Which not belonging unto men who go astray from the common road out of meer ignorance or injury of the times what shall we do to them that make use of this exception Shall they who in these calamitous times in this desolation of the Church being born a great while after the rise of Antichrist and not able fully to dispel the darkness of that long night turn aside into by paths be judged to sin out of perversity of minde Where now is that royal high-way thorow which the godly may pass securely on with an unerring foot to Salvation If it lie in the authority of the Church she hath now for many ages been beset with the snares of Antichrist We wonder that they are afraid of the suspected faith of the Church when they do the same after our example and in so great danger to fear even all the things that are safe is a point of prudence And we still dare to upbraid them with rashness in departing from the common doctrine when they seem to do it out of a just and well-grounded fear But if this way consisteth in the authority of the holy Scripture they do not stray from it whilst they together with us honour those Sacred books with due reverence But you will say that the right and orthodox sense of the Holy Scripture is rather the onely path that is able to bring us to the very citadel of Truth I confess that this way was heretofore worn with the publike going of Christians but now being first hidden with the springing briars of Antichrist and therefore trodden by very few and not as yet discovered by having all the brake cut down and besides called into doubt by so many intervening false paths it hath not as yet recovered the name and nature of a Royal high-way which it had for a long time lost And therefore the greater pardon is due unto such as deviate from the same For neither do they erre through desperate malice of heart who do not always walk therein amidst so many cross-ways and turnings Let any one reckon up to me all the sects of Christian Religion and I will say he is a brave fellow if he omit none In so great a concourse of opinions if they have not chosen the truer who will say that this is rather done out of improbity then out of ignorance For by what argument after so many errors have been introduced ought the Truth to lie open to their view By the unanimous consent of the Church O unanimous consent amidst six hundred different sects You will say that in the doctrine contrary unto them the greatest part are agreed But this is nothing since they have also agreed in very many errors So that we must again seek out a priviledge for the doctrine of the Trinity whereby it came to pass that though men erred in other points yet could they not mistake in this But if we suppose that they ought to examine all opinions by the rule of the Holy Scripture and afterwards to chuse the truer they have done both save that in the latter they have not followed that which indeed was but onely that which they thought to be truer Which certainly is an error and no malice nor can they be said to sin self-condemned in holding such an opinion for which they are ready to lose their life and fortunes For neither doth he condemn himself at least in his conscience who in the midst of cruel tortures hopeth for eternal life from God as the reward of defending the truth Wherefore since we are not certain that they are perverse and self-condemned but well assured that they are not such even from the death which they willingly undergo for their Errors and since such Errors as hath been before proved do not subvert eternal salvation it seemeth that they ought not to be segregated from the communion of the Church if they will testifie their love towards the Lord Jesus by obeying his commandments CHAP. XII What Hereticks are to be excommunicated what not and a fuller Apologie for those who in our Age pass for Hereticks BY this reckoning will some say How few Hereticks must be excommunicated who will not invent plausible pretences for his pravity There is no doctrine so absurd and pestilent which being palliated with that cloke of error may not creep into the Church To which I answer that there is no cause why we should be solicitous lest we should have no occasion to use this rigid law of excommunication Would the Church had even at this day no voluntary rebels against the Divine Majesty But neither in the times of the Apostles were there men wanting who subverted either our faith in God or the hope of immortality or the piety and love that is enjoyned us and such as did not by deductions and consequences but with open face as they say vent blasphemies and impieties Whose endeavour and impiety is not so obscure but that it is apparent that they were conscious to themselves of their pravity and fraud As if any one should deny the resurrection of the dead who seeth not that such a man after he hath viewed the clear and certain sentence of the Holy Scripture will be convicted in himself although he may perhaps dissemble it There is the same reason in the patron of some manifest vice All which being manifest for so are the works of the flesh and manifestly forbidden such a man hath no starting-hole in the ambiguity or obscurity of the Sacred Scripture unless he disbelieve the same and so overthrow all Religion Whosoever therefore bring into the Church such doctrines as do in their own nature subvert our Salvation and Faith they are deservedly commanded to depart together with the former not onely lest they should hurt others but also because they themselves as hath been shewn are of incorrigible malice and perversity and consequently self condemned For a Chirurgian doth not presently fear or cut-off an infected part because it may with its contagion hurt the rest of the body but would first have that very part cured of the infection which if it doth not succeed he then cuts it off as incurable But those doctrines that stand not within the boundaries of necessity to salvation are such that an errour in them especially in this disturbed state of things cannot be taxed of wilful pravity nor can it either damn its author or exclude him from the bosome of the Church But some one will here object Shall we brand with this spiritual censure the obstinate maintainer of none even the greatest error if so be it overthrow not our Salvation But there are many things which though in their own nature they take not from us our Salvation yet do they by degrees so undermine and weaken the same that afterwards it falleth down of its own accord And do you like it that such diseases should be cherished in the Church To which I answer that I would

that the Socinians impiously contradict the manifest words of the sacred Scripture and scornfully reject the clear Truth coming-in upon them To which I answer That whatsoever pains and travel they undertake in this business is employed not against the holy Trinity as they are unjustly defamed nor against the Sacred Scripture but against the Humane Explications of both Hence we may see that they willingly assent and give credit to all the Sacred Oracles touching this matter onely rejecting certain interpretations and forms sprung-up certain ages after They believe that they are according to the command of Christ to be baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Matth. 28. They believe those three sacred Witnesses in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit 1 Joh. 5. They acknowledge that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was a God Joh. 1. yet such a one to whom all power in heaven and earth was given as he speaketh of himself Matth. 28. It would be tedious to recko● up all the Scripture-testimonics of this kinde to which they give credence without any exception Those hard and subtil opinions concerning the Essence and Person of God concerning the communication of properties and others of that batch they either understand not or think them repugnant to the simple and plain word of God Give us leave say they to be ignorant of such things as are believed with danger In these so subtil and thorny explications if they after the maner of men chance to erre shall they presently be termed the enemies of God and Christ Shall there be found no pardon for an error in so great difficulty of things no excuse for weakness which notwithstanding we ingeniously seek even for the greatest crimes though we be never so well provided of means to avoid them Are they who out of ignorance and error violate the Edicts of Princes acquitted from the crime of treason and shall he that offendeth about the Divine Oracles in our opinion have no refuge for his weakness in the mercy of the Heavenly Father But you will reply that their Blasphemies are horrid wherein impiety leaveth no place for pity and reproachful against the Son of God and overthrowing the foundation of our faith To which I answer that if there have been any amongst them of a more intemperate tongue or quill they are infamous not onely with us but also with them But what is here meant by the Foundation of Faith I do not sufficiently perceive It hath been abundantly evidenced before that such errors do necessarily take away neither our Faith nor our Salvation For it is not the foundation of Salvation to know his Essence who hath promised the salvation to us so that we have no impious and contumelious opinion of him as the ignorance of the nature of the promiser taketh not away the certainty of the promise unless he hath promised us anything under the condition of such knowledge As for the knowlege of the Father they therein do in a maner agree with us They likewise adore and reverence with Divine worship the Son of God as the author and mediator of their Salvation the heir and Lord of the Universe and the General of our warfare But you will here reply that they deny his eternity I answer that they together with holy Paul care not much to know any thing but Jesus Christ and him crucified and had rather with so great an Apostle rest in the simplicity of this knowledge then either with Arius to ascend to non-enliti●s or with Athanasius to co-essentialities As for the honour which they give to the Holy Spirit the greatness thereof appeareth in that they scarce distinguish him from the Supreme Father Shall they then be said to blaspheme against these if they be somewhat mistaken in the other knowledge of them Indeed many opinions are drawn out of their doctrines that the wretches may be loaded with more envie and that by them who whilst they are so vigilant in other mens errors are fast asleep in their own But if all the chaff were to be sifted out of humane opinions I would wish that a great part of the Reformed Churches would labour to defend their own cause before they undertake to oppose that of others but those above all who have from the age of Chrysippus recalled down to these very times that secret and inevitable law of Fate and who hold also that the sins and destruction of mankinde and finally all and singular motions and impulsions of our will proceed from the Decree of Eternal Destiny to whom this false perswasion also seemeth to be fatal From which opinion if we lay aside prejudice more and more shameful errors will be deduced then out of the books of Socinians For which is more reproachful unto God to hold that he is one as well in Person as Essence or that I may clothe naked injustice with soft words to bring-him-in punishing men for not doing those things which by his own procurement were impossible Is it more absurd to conceive that there is one Essence of the Father another of the Son then that God I shudder to speak it hath one thing open in his tongue and another thing contrary thereunto shut-up in his breast This is reproach enough to the most high God although we do not adde that this dissimulation is joyned with deceit Is the dignity of the Holy Spirit more traduced whilst he is said to be onely the vertue and power of God then the goodness of God whilst he is held the author of sin which consequence doth also flow by a fatal and inevitable flux from that doctrine of Fate For he that decreed men should necessarily sin certainly would have them sin otherwise he would have decreed every thing against his owne desire Now he whose decree and will the event doth immutably follow may certainly be termed the cause of that event whether he effect it by himself or by another Finally is it a greater derogation to the dignity of Christ to deny two natures in him lest we should make him two persons then to the wisdome of God to affirm that he would perswade men to that whereto nevertheless he hath not perswaded them namely that he would give salvation unto all when notwithstanding he hath designed it onely to a few Truly if we look more narrowly into the matter the doctrine of the Socinians touching the Holy Trinity is not to be accounted so much evil and impious in its owne nature as imperfect and maimed For it seemeth to ascribe to the Holy Trinity nothing false or absurd but only to take away something that is true namely the divine nature of Christ and the proper person of the Holy Spirit Whereas this doctrine touching the fatal predestination of particular men laboureth not with any defect but with manifest ptavity For it not onely offereth injury to God by most unworthy calumnies but also