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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	scripture_n	write_v	2,669	5	5.3981	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28581	A brief account of the first rise of the name Protestant and what Protestantism is ... / by a professed enemy to persecution.	Bold, S. (Samuel), 1649-1737.	1688 (1688)	Wing B3477; ESTC R16825	36,552	49

Name Protestant is a common Title to discriminate all those who renounce and forsake the Romish Communion because of its contradiction to the Holy Scripture from those who do own and are of that Communion But it was not designed to descriminate one sort of people renouncing and protesting against that Communion on the aforesaid Account from others who agree in the same Point And therefore in every Age and Nation other Names have been made use of to discriminate Protestants one from another according to the matter in difference betwixt them True Protestantism then consisteth more especially in two Points First Protesting against and renouncing Popish Corruptions and especially all such Infallibility Supremacy and Authority as the Bishops of Rome have for some Ages laid a claim to It is the renouncing the thing it self which Protestantism chiefly respects its reference to such a particular person is only accidental by reason of his audacious and arrogant challenging that Power But Protestantism would be equally against the Claim if that Bishop should lay it down and any other either in France or in any other Countrey should challenge it or if it should be pretended to be lodged in any other Man or Body of Men. Secondly Protesting for the Sufficiency and Authority of the Scripture That the Holy Scripture is a safe and full Rule for the Instruction of us in all things needful to be known or done in order to Eternal Life and that nothing ought to be admitted as an Article of Christian Faith which cannot by just consequence be proved by this Rule according as the Church of England expresseth her self Article 6. In these two things Protestantism doth consist the denial and renouncing of the Pope's arrogated Supremacy and all those Superstructions which have no foundation but that Authority and the owning and adhering to the Scriptures as the only compleat Rule of Religion This is the great fundamental positive Principle in Protestantism For Protestantism doth not take away an andue boundless Power and Authority from the Pope and conser it on another person It ascribes indeed to the Supream Power in every Nation what belongs to the same according to the constitution of the Government protesting against all forreign and every unjust pretence and claim to the prejudice of the rightful Owner And it asserts the only right of the Scripture to be the Rule that every Supream Power on Earth should observe in restoring and reforming Religion as occasions are offered by reason of the Decays or Corruptions which may have prevailed The Bible I say the Bible only is the Religion of Protestants whatsoever else they Believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable Consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds Believe it themselves nor require the Belief of it of others without most high and Schismatical Presumption And now seeing Protestantism doth mainly or rather only consist in asserting the Holy Scriptures to be the Rule the only Rule by which all Christians are to govern and manage themselves in all matters of Religion So that no Doctrine is to be owned as an Article of Faith on any account but what hath very plain warant and sound evidence from the Scriptures nor no instance of Religious Worship to be owned or submitted to as necessary nor any thing to be entertained as a part of Religion but what the Scripture doth appoint and warrant It may not be altogether unuseful to inquire briefly whether this Principle be really justifiable or no Or whether those who are called Protestants on this Account be truly in the right touching this matter For if we be right in this Point then the great Fundamental opposite Point of our Adversaries must needs have a slaw in it and cannot be solid and substantial and consequently all the particular Doctrines and Practices which have their whole being and Dependance on that Authority must necessarily expire and give up the Ghost Now much might be offered to evince that Protestants have very good ground to rest assured that they are not mistaken in this matter but I will only offer these few considerations which being well considered and improved may suffice to satisfie any unprejudiced and imp●●tial honest meaning person that Protestantism is not a ●●mersome precarious thing but is really accompanied with the greatest evidence and certainty any Perswasion can justly pretend unto First It is universally acknowledged by all who profess themselves Christians that the Holy Scriptures viz. those Books contained in the Old and New Testament as received by Protestants are the Word of God and were written at the appointment of God for the constant Use and Benefit of his Church and People by Persons Divinely Inspired for that purpose Secondly Supposing but not granting that those Scriptures do not contain the whole Revelation God hath made of his Mind and Will for the constant perpetual and obliging Use of his Church yet it is most evident that these Scriptures are a safe and most certain Rule in Matters of Religion so far as they do extend They are a certain Rule touching those matters of which they do treat and so far as they do treat of them So that there can be no just pretence of a Divine Revelation for any Doctrines or Practices which are inconsistent with or contradictory to what God hath declared in these Scriptures Because the Divine Veracity and Truth which is Essential to the Deity cannot permit that God should contradict himself All that can be pretended with reference to this matter is that God may make more Declarations of his Will and either inlarge the Discoveries He hath made of his Will touching particulars already made known or add Declarations of His Mind concerning Matters which He doth not at all discourse of in the Scriptures But it is not consistent with the Natural Notions of a Deity not with the Revelations God hath made any way of Himself that He should overthrow the Truth of a Former Revelation by a Latter or that Contradictions should be reconcileable in His Will. For any Man to affirm that a Divine Revelation may contradict any thing taught in the Scriptures whil'st he professeth these Scriptures are pure Divine Revelations is not only to involve himself in most obvious and horrid Absurdities but to contract upon himself to burthen and overwhelm himself with the guilt of the most plain and unnatural Blasphemy against God. If any thing that plainly contradicts the Scripture can be a Divine Revelation then a Man may be indispensibly obliged to Believe and not to Believe the same thing to do and not to do the same work And so Man will be brought under such Circumstances that whether he Believe or do not Believe whether he Practice or do not Practice it will be the same thing he will be equally guilty But certainly if our Adversaries can pretend to

way they are not the only Persons guilty and of all people in the world the Romanists have the least reason to insist on a charge of this nature for though their fault doth not excuse any of our Writers if guilty in the same manner yet it renders them very unmeet to upbraid and reproach and make tragical complaints against others for what they are more enormiously faulty in themselves It is but too obvious that some pains have been taken of late to misrepresent the Protestants all over and to perswade the world into a belief of very odd and strange things both concerning their Persons and Religion yea the very Name by which they are every where known Indeed the word Protestant and its Rise have been so decyphered and represented under such ungrateful Characters by persons of one complexion and of another that some who it might have been expected had had more knowledge and more wit have been almost or rather quite ashamed of that Name which their Ancestors accounted an honour and by which the Religion they pretend to is every where known what thoughts such have of the Religion it self time may discover Who would ever have thought that Englishmen who had a long time or rather all their time been brought up in the Church of England and would fain have made a Figure in their Countries should yet be at a loss by what name to call the Religion they did profess certainly the common name might have past well enough had not some unjust prejudice prevail'd And it 's very probable this prejudice did take its Rise from one or others misrepresenting and giving a wrong account of that Name Those who prefess true and unmixt Christianity have for a great while been distinguished in most parts of the World by the name of Protestants from others who have mingled with a profession of Christianity a great many gross contradictions and inconsistencies And till now of late none who owned the Religion were ashamed of the Name Those who liked not the Romish Communion did not think it a reproach to be called Protestants Though the Name might be first devised by the Adversaries of our Religion and might be used by them at first in scorn and contempt with reference to those who would not imbrace and submit to all the forreign and unscriptural Notions and Practices which received life and authority from Rome yet the antient love to and zeal for Religion only as commanded by divine Authority and as warranted by those Books which are universally acknowledged by all Christians to be writ by men divinely inspired reconciled our Ancestors to that Name by which the Adversaries of their Religion would have redicul'd them out of their Profession And how it is come to pass that people professing the same Religion should now appear shy and boggle at the Name as if some dreadful and hideous matter were wrapt up in the word Protestant I cannot imagine unless either their love to and zeal for their Religion be less than their Ancestor's was or that some false representations have been made to them of the importance and first occasion of this Name What sort of writers have contributed most to create prejudices in mens minds against the name Protestant I will not determine but I do not lay all the fault of misrepresenting in this case on those who do openly profess themselves of the Romish Communion and yet I cannot wholly excuse them because of late they have been at no small study and trouble to perswade people to entertain very wrong Idea's both of the Protestant Name and Religion We are lately told that The Protestant Perswasion has its Name Being and Support not from what it is in it self but from what it is not in defying and protesting against their Neighbours Rep. in behalf of Amicable Accomod pag. 17. Now it may not be altogether improper in order to the setting of some weaker people right in their apprehensions to give a short and true account of the first occasion and rise of this Name Protestant and its general use ever since from Authors of the best credit and repute on each side And that this Account may be the more clear and distinct it will be requisite to observe in general That a great corruption had for many Ages overspread Christianity in the Romish Church Afterwards we may take notice how Princes and People were more directly prepared to renounce and cast off those Corruptions and then it will be proper to relate the particular matter of Fact which occasioned this Name Protestant and when these are dispatched you shall hear what Protestantism is and wherein Protestantism doth really consist The word Protestant is a forreign word derived to us from other people and it has been and is still used with relation to Religion in all Nations where it is mentioned So that every where those who have owned and professed the Protestant Religion have past currently with all sorts of people for Protestants And the Protestant Religion is the true Christian Religion rescued and reformed from those Corruptions and humane Additions the Church of Rome had for many Ages without good warrant intermixed with it The Mystery of Iniquity which began in the Apostles days did by degrees increase to that height in the Roman Church that it almost overwhelmed true Christianity and made Religion appear and be in the world little else than a trick of policy and a meer piece of Pageantry And when the people had been a great while inured to nothing but lifeless Superstitious Formalities and were brought up blindly in a superstitious carnal gay sort of practice which was called Worship the Bishops of that See did by several artifices and tricks first acquire and then improve opportunities to gratifie their own utmost and unreasonable ambition for the Princes and People were in many places so effeminated made so soft and easie and unthinking by their methods they very tamely and patiently gave way to their most unjust incroachments till at last they were not able to help themselves nor oppose the increasing greatness of that See. And when matters were brought to this pass then several points were forced on the whole Western Church the burthen of which the Inhabitants of those parts had never before felt and which those who first gave way to the Usurpations of that See never dream't of Now an universal Supremacy over the whole Church was challenged and a power pretended to make whatever pleas'd a Duty In short the Bishop of that See pretended an Infallibility which must not be call'd in question he assum'd a power to dispose of People's Sins and Souls as he thought fit and perswaded them he could consecrate any thing they would buy to be an effectual means to purge away their guilt Nay at last he claimed a power to dispose of Governments appropriating to himself a Superiority in every Prince's Dominions and both Princes and People were blinded to that degree