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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	world_n	write_v	yield_v	73	3	6.4780	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48243	The letter writ by the last Assembly General of the Clergy of France to the Protestants, inviting them to return to their communion together with the methods proposed by them for their conviction / translated into English, and examined by Gilbert Burnet.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; Catholic Church. Assemblée générale du clergé de France.	1683 (1683)	Wing L1759; ESTC R2185	82,200	210

if their Absolution is thought to have any other Vertue in it than a giving the Peace of the Church with a Declaration of the terms upon which God pardons Sinners If the Vertue of the Sacraments upon which so much depends according to their principles is so entirely in the Priests power that he can defeat it when he pleases with a cross intention so that all mens hopes of another state shall depend on the Priests good disposition to them by which every man must know how necessary it is to purchase their favour at any rate If likewise they pretend to an Immunity from the Secular Judge and do all enter into Oaths which center in him whom they acknowledge their Common Head whose authority they have advanced above all the powers on Earth so that he can depose Princes and give away his Dominions to others It must be confessed that all these have such Characters of Interest and Ambition on them and are so little like the true Spirit of Christianity or indeed the Common Principles of Nat●ral Reason and Religion that a man is very partial who does not think it reasonable to suspect such proceedings and a Church that holds such Doctrines 3. It is likewise reasonable to suspect any Church that holds many opinions that tend much to a vast encrease of their Wealth and to bring the greatest Treasures of the World into their hands The power of redeeming Souls out of Purgatory has brought more Wealth into the Church of Rome than the discovery of the Indies has done to the Crown of Spain Such also was the power of Pardoning and of exchanging Penances for Money by which the World knew the price of Sins and the rates at which they were to be compounded for The Popes power of granting Indulgences the vertue of Pilgrimages the communication of the merits of Orders to such as put on their Habits and in a word the whole authority that the C●●r● of Rome has assumed in these latter ages that tend so much to the encrease of their Revenue are all such evident Indications of particular ends and private designs that he must be very much wedded to his first impressions that does not upon this suspect that matters have not been so fairly carried among them that nothing ought to be doubted which is defined by them 4. It is a very just cause of suspecting every thing that is managed by a company of Priests if they have for several Ages carried on their designs by the foulest methods of Forgery and Imposture of which they themselves are now both convinced and ashamed When the Popes authority was built on a pretended Collection of the Letters which the Popes of the first ages after Christ were said to have writ and their assumed Jurisdiction was justified by those precedents which are now by themselves acknowledged to be forgeries When the Popes Temporal Dominion was grounded on the Donations of Constantine of Charles the Great and his Son Lewis the Good which appear now to be notorious forgeries When an infinite number of Saints of Miracles Visions and other wonderful things were not only read and preached to the people but likewise were put into the Collects and Hymns used on their Festivals which wrought much on the simplicity and superstition of the vulgar many of which are now proved to be such gross impostures that they are forced to dash them out of their Offices and others against which there lyes not such positive proof yet depend on the credit only of some Legend writ by some Monks When many Books past over the World as the Writings of the most Ancient Fathers which were but lately writ and many of their genuine Writings were grossly vitiated When all those things are become so evident that the most Learned Writers amongst themselves particularly in the Gallican Church have not only yielded to the proofs brought by Protestant Writers in many of these particulars but have with a very Commendable Zeal and Sincerity made discoveries themselves in several particulars into which the others had not such advantages to penetrate There is upon all these grounds good cause given to mistrust them in other things and it is very reasonable to examine the assertions of that Church with the severest rigour since an Imposture once discovered ought to bring a suspicion on all concerned in it even as to all other things 5. There is likewise great reason to suspect all that are extream fierce and violent that cannot endure the least contradiction but endeavour the ruine of all that oppose them Truth makes men both confident of its force and merciful towards such as do not yet receive it Whereas Errour is Jealous and Cruel If then a Church has decreed that all Hereticks that is such as do not submit to all her decisions are to be extirpated if she has bound all her Bishops by Oath at their Ordinations to Persecute them to the utmost of their power If Princes that do not extirpate them are first to be excommunicated by their Bishops and after a years Contumacy are to be deposed by the Popes and their Kingdomes to be given away If all Hereticks upon Obstinacy or Relapse are to be burnt and if they endeavour in all places as much as they can to erect Courts of Inquisition with an absolute authority in which Church-men forgetting their Character have vied in Inventions of Torture and Cruelty with the bloodiest Tyrants that have ever been Then it must be confessed that all these set together present the Church that authorizes and practises them with so dreadful an aspect so contrary to those bowels and tendernesses that are in the nature of man Not to mention the merciful Idea's of God and the wonderful meekness of the Author of our Holy Religion that we must conclude that under what form soever of Religion such things are set on foot in the World such a Doctrine is so far from improving and exalting the nature of man that really it makes him worse than he would otherwise be if he were left to the softness of his own nature And certainly it were better there were no revealed Religion in the World than that mankind should become worse more cruel and more barbarous by its means than it would be if it were governed by Nature or a little Philosophy Upon all these grounds laid together it is no unreasonable thing to conclude that a Church liable to such imputations ought justly to be suspected and that every one in it ought to examine well on what grounds he continues in the Communion of a society of men against which such strong prejudices lie so fairly without the least straining or aggravating matters too much I proceed now to the second part of my undertaking which is to shew that the grounds upon which that Church builds are certainly weak if not false And 1. They boast much of a Constant Succession as the only infallible mark to judge of a Church and

it cannot be proved that any thing else is to be understood by the word Church in that place A third difficulty may be also raised upon the extent of the word Prevail whether a total overthrow or any single advantage is to be understood by it or whether this prevailing is to be restrained only to the fundamentals of Christianity or is to be extended to all sorts of truth or whether it is to be understood of corrupting the Doctrine or of vitiating the Morals of Christians Thus it is apparent how many difficulties may be started concerning the meaning of those words So that at best the sense of them is doubtful and therefore it will be a strange and rash adventure to determine any thing in matters of great moment upon the authority of such a figurative expression 3. Though the Roman Church had been corrupted that will not infer that the Gates of Hell had prevailed against the Church for that being but the Center of the Union of some of the Western Nations a corruption in it does not prove that the whole Church was corrupted for there were many other Churches in other parts of the World besides those of that Communion The Tenth Method IS that of the Bishop of Meaux lately of Condom in his Book entituled The exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church In which he does in every Article distinguish between that which is precisely of Faith and that which is not so and shews that there is nothing in our belief that may give distast to a reasonable Spirit unless they will look on the abuses of some particular persons which we condemn as our belief or impute Errours to us falsely or charge us with the explications of some Doctors that are neither received nor authorized by the Church This method is taken from S. Hilary in his Book of Synods Let us says he altogether condemn false Interpretations but let us not destroy the certainty of the Faith The Word Consubstantial may be ill understood but let it be established in a sense in which it may be well understood The right state of the Faith may be established among us so as we may neither reverse that which has been well establishedpunc nor cut off those things that have been ill understood Remarks SOmewhat was said in the Preface with relation to this which shall not be here repeated It is not to be denied but in the management of Controversies the heat of Dispute has carried many too far and some have studied to raise many Imaginary Controversies which subsist only upon some misunderstood terms and expressions of the contrary party And things have been on all hands aggravated in many particulars out of measure So that they have deserved well of the Church that have brought matters as near a Reconciliation as may be But after all this it were a strange imposition on this and the preceding age to persuade the World that notwithstanding all the differences of Religion and the unhappy effects that have followed upon them that they really were all the while of the same mind but were not so happy as to find it out till that excellent Prelate helpt them to it by letting them see how near the concessions of both sides are to one another so that a little conversation and dexterity i● putting the softest construction that may be on the contrary persuasion might bring them to be of the same mind But if in order to this the sense of both sides is so far stretched that neither party can own it for a true account of their sentiments then this must be concluded to be only the Ingenious Essay of a very witty man who would take advantage of some expressions to perswade people that they have opinions which really they have not I shall not enter into a particular disquisition of those things which have been already so fully examined but refer the Reader to the Answers that have been given to that famous Book 2. The received and authorized Offices of the Church of Rome and the Language in which they do daily make their Addresses to Heaven is that on whi●h the most unanswerable and the strongest part of our Plea for our Separation is founded and it is not an ingenuous way of writing to affix some forced senses to those plain expressions because they being so gross as they are all wise or learned men are ashamed to defend them and yet know not how to get them to be reformed or thrown out Therefore it is that they set their Wits on work to put some better construction on them But this is a clear violence to the plain sense of those Offices extorted by the evidence and force of Truth and gives us this advantage that it is plain those that so qualifie them are convinced that their Church is in the wrong and yet for other ends or perhaps from a mistaken notion of Unity and Peace they think fit to continue in it 3. It is to be hoped that those who have cited this passage out of S. Hilary will consider those other passages cited out of him against Persecution though a great Errour made in the Translation of this citation makes me fear that they who rendred it had read him very cursorily The Eleventh Method IS drawn from those General Arguments which Divines call the Motives of Credibility It is that made use of by Tertullian in his Book of Prescriptions and by S. Austin who reckons up the Motives that held him in the Catholick Church Remarks 1. AS for the Case of Tertullian and S. Austin a great deal was said formerly to shew the difference between the Age they lived in and the grounds they went on and the present state of the Western Church 2. When it is considered that a course of many Ages which by the Confession of all were times of Ignorance and Superstition has made a great change in the World that the gross Scandals and wonderful Ignorance of those that have governed the See of Rome that the Dissolution of all the Rules of Ecclesiastical Order and Discipline both among Clergy and Laity that the Interest the Priests particularly the Popes and the begging Orders that depended on them had to promote those was so great and undisput●d that it is notorious all the worst methods of forgeries both of Writings to authorize them and of Miracles and Legends to support them were made use of When I say all these things are so plain to every one that has lookt a little into the History of former ages it is no wonder if the Church of Rome is so much changed from what it was formerly That the motives made use of by Tertullian and S. Austin do not at all belong to the present state of the Churches of that Communion But on the contrary instead of motives to perswade one to continue in it there appear upon a general view a great many just and well-grounded prejudices to dispose a