Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
cause_n authority_n church_n faith_n 2,630 5 5.8125 4 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A27370 A letter written by a minister for the satisfaction of a person doubting in religion shewn to be unsatisfactory. P. I., Minister.; T. B.; J. W. 1686 (1686) Wing B185; ESTC R10043 13,702 41

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

will see what a heedless Quoter of Scripture you are though it be your best or rather onely Talent You alledge against us 1 John 1. v. 1. where the first words are Quod audivimus That which we have heard as if we forbid you to use your Hearing by which Faith comes For it is evident beyond all need of Proof that as the Church heard Christ so if every succeeding Age had follow'd what they heard from the former Christian Faith must have continu'd till now the self-same the Apostles heard from Christ and as long as this Method call'd by us Tradition is follow'd it must ever continue still the self-same to the Worlds End Now we are so far from bidding you not follow the Advertisements of your Senses that our onely Quarrel to you is that you relinquisht the most certain Sense the Hearing your Lawful Pastors in the Church you left and fell to scan Mysteries of Faith by the less-certain ones employed about Objects not within their cognizance and which is as absurd Glossing Scripture-Texts without any Rule to guide you but your own aukward Fancies Next follow in your Papers the Doctrines taught with Proofs which properly and directly belong onely to the first Article viz. That the True Body of Christ is contained in the Sacrament But such as your self will never he able todisprove viz. the Scripture interpreted by the Church the Testimonies of Fathers witnessing the Tradition of the Church in their time and the Condemnation of the contrary Opinions denying the Real Presence and Transubstantiation as Heretical What should move you thus to shew the weakness of your own Cause which has no other Rule of your Faith but Scripture interpreted by every man's Private Spirit or Reason and can bear no proportion with that of the publick Interpretation of the Church attested by the Authority of the most Eminent Fathers of the Primitive Times and strengthned by the Condemnation of the contrary Heresies I cannot easily imagine but finding them too strong to be combated by so weak a Champion you fairly take leave of them and betake your self to shew in the next place after your fashion that is blindly how hard it will be to believe this Doctrine by asking us Questions And I must confess 't is most insuparably hard if Senses must be admitted to Judge of the hidden and most abstruse Mysteries of Faith which is your darling Method though any wise man would think this would turn Faith into Experimental Knowledge and so rather destroy all the Faith in the world But my Task is set and I must attend to your Questions To the first then I answer That the words This is my Body are to be taken Literally and yet the End of receiving is meant Spiritually And I farther say That this Spiritual Nourishment consisting in raising in us devout Affections is incomparably advanc'd by the Real Presence of Christ's Body and Bloud So that these two are so far from being inconsistant as you would hint that the taking the words Literally does exceedingly conduce to the Spiritual feeding on Christ even as far as the believing him really present is more apt to stir up Devotion in us than the not believing it or the receiving his Real Body is above the receiving a piece of Bread signifying it which is beyond all proportion To the second Question I answer affirmatively If we regard the point of the Real Presence precisely For we grant that 't is sufficient to believe the Body of Christ is really truly present even the same Body but not in the same manner 'T is the very Doctrine of the Council of Trent it self Sess 13. cap. 1. That the Body of Christ is in Heaven juxta modum existendi naturalem according to its natural manner of existing and yet that 't is in other places Sacrament aliter praesens present Sacramentally But I much fear you are not in earnest here when you seem to yield 't is really truly present but that this Kindness of yours will grow cold when it comes to the trial and that these hearty expressions will dwindle away into Christ's Body being here onely in a Sign which is to say the Sign is there and his Body absent Hollow words are but wind and 't is hard to grasp Air. To the Third asking whether the Second and Third Article you put be of equal Truth and Certainty with the First I answer That I was never taught to believe a thing as a half-Truth or a three-quarter Truth but all to be True for Truth consists in an Indivisible which the Church has expresly declared to be of Faith by a General Council and accordingly whatsoever the Church thus believes and proposes as an Article of Faith I absolutely believe and embrace as Truths delivered by Christ and his Apostles To the Fourth I answer as above That the Proofs you set down belong properly and directly only to the first Article And as for the Second and Third they may also shift well enough for themselves for any Authority or Reason you have brought against either the one or the other But I would gladly know how all your Faith will shift for it self having nothing to keep it from sinking into an inferiour Assent call'd Opinion nay into a mass of senceless Errours as far as it opposes Tradition but your self and other Fallible Interpreters like your self to buoy it up As for your Fifth I know no enforcement that is beyond Cavil in any one place of Scripture which is Dogmatical while the words are left to be tost by Criticisms Grammar-learning Allusions of places to one another and such like little tricks No one word in those Sacred Books can escape being equivocal or double senc't while the word God which of all others should seem incommunicable is Wier-drawn by such shifts to signifie a Creature as we experience in the Arians and Socinians glosses upon those Texts which concern Christ's Divinity You know well enough already that neither my self nor any Catholic builds our Faith upon any Text of Scripture interpreted by our own private Fancy but onely by the publick Tradition of the Church Your Sixth asks If the Church must be taken in to expound Scripture whether Reason willeth not that the Church in the Apostles time should be principally heard in their Authoritative Interpretation I answer In case you mean the Apostles were of greater Authority than their Successors 't is granted But if your Question relates to the Truth of what the Church delivers 't is the same as to ask whether the Holy Ghost that assists the Church spake truer one time than another Your Seventh Question whether you are truly represented by putting you to say There is nothing else in the Sacrament but a Memory and Sign of Christ's Passion and whether the Fathers that prove there is something more and condemn such as say there is nothing more do prove any thing against you or condemn you I am heartily glad to see some