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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	authority_n	church_n	reason_n	1,519	5	4.9993	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46367	The pastoral letters of the incomparable Jurieu directed to the Protestants in France groaning under the Babylonish tyranny, translated : wherein the sophistical arguments and unexpressible cruelties made use of by the papists for the making converts, are laid open and expos'd to just abhorrence : unto which is added, a brief account of the Hungarian persecution.; Lettres pastorales addressées aux fidèles de France qui gémissent sous la captivité de Babylon. English	Jurieu, Pierre, 1637-1713.	1689 (1689)	Wing J1208; ESTC R16862	424,436	670

Church or to speak better that the Church shall never fall into any Error Not at all For if one say to a Prince I will take care that your Enemies shall never prevail upon you that will not necessarily signifie that the Enemy shall never have any Victory upon him or gain any considerable advantage against him Altho this Prince should lose some Villages yea and some Provinces yet if the gross and capital parts of his Empire always subsist notwithstanding he would have the accomplishment of the promise made unto him Provided therefore that the Church subsist in all Ages altho corrupt provided that the Fundamentals of Christianity remain throughout in their integrity the promise the gates of hell shall not prevail against it hath its accomplishment But your Converters will tell you these words signifie not so for they signifie that the Church can never fall into any Error Answer them That is the thing that is in question between you and me But who shall judge for us concerning the sense of these words It must not be you for you are a party and who can better judge than Scripture and Experience Now 't is clear by the Scripture that the sense of these words the gates of hell shall never prevail against the Church is not that the Church shall never suffer any considerable Errors in its Faith. All the Holy Scripture affirms the contrary It complains sometimes that the ancient Church was become idolatrous and had served other gods It foretels in express words that the Christian Church should corrupt it self That grievous wolves should enter into the fold not sparing the flock That there would be perilous times in which there would be an Apostacy from the Faith and seducing Spirits would teach Doctrines of Devils That Antichrist the son of perdition should sit in the Temple and in the Church of God. That the Church should be hid and as in a desart for the space of one thousand two hundred and sixty prophetick days that is one thousand two hundred and sixty years That when the Son of Man shall come he shall not find faith nor love among Men. That false Prophets and false Christs shall arise and deceive many To conclude for one Text by which it may be proved that the Church cannot err we can produce an hundred that do affirm that false Teachers should introduce Errors there-into Let us leave the Scriptures and pass to Experience and see whether the Church hath not actually erred It is proved clearly that she hath erred because she hath established a Worship directly opposite to that pure and simple Worship the Model whereof is found in the New Testament viz. of Images of Saints and Saintesses of a second sort of Mediators of Masses Sacrifices and a hundred other things that have not the least shadow of appointment there Let us return to our Text The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church It is disputed whether this Text doth signifie that the Church can never Err in any wise or whether it signifies that the foundations and fundamental verities of the Church can never be overturned In truth the last sense is that of Jesus Christ And all that can be granted to the Papists is that they are capable of the other But is it not very clear that we ought to chuse the latter seeing the Holy Scripture and experience determines us thereunto by a manner wholly invincible It is true and we see it that by a singular Providence God hath not permitted the Foundations of Christianity to be subverted in any of the Christian Communions all receive the Creeds of the Apostles Nice Constantinople yea even that attributed to St. Athanasius Behold therefore what our Lord would mean thereby But besides this we see that there is no Communion that hath continued pure all have embraced Errors and some of them such as are filthy shameful and mortal Therefore it is not that which our Lord Jesus Christ would say it is not a promise of absolute infallibility that is made to the Christian Church Without doubt he foretold what is come to pass and not that which never happened Behold my Brethren two general methods by which you may be able to rescue your selves from the Sophisms and fallacious Arguments which they call ways of Prescription till we can clear up those difficulties that you your selves cannot resolve about that submission that people ought to have for their Guides to the end that they may walk safely The second medium or argument wherewith all these Gentlemen serve themselves and whereof Monsieur de Meaux serves himself here to prove that they have a succession of Doctrine as well as a succession of Seats is the impossibility of insensible changes If the Invocation of Saints say they the worship of Images Masses without Communicants the taking away of the Cup had been newly introduced the Innovator would have been known and his name would have been branded with infamy as that of Arrius and Nestorius I do not think that ever any thing hath been done more opposite to reason and fidelity than the disputes these Gentlemen have thought fit to raise against insensible changes and alterations I say first it is opposite to fidelity For it is not possible that these Gentlemen can believe what they say when they tell us that we cannot determine the Authors nor the times of the principal Changes whereof we complain seeing on the contrary we observe to them the times the principal Authors and the noise that these Innovations made in the World. Does not every one know that the introduction of Images into the Church the taking away of the Cup and the establishment of the Papal Authority did make a terrible noise suffer great contraditions cause great troubles and even the shedding of much blood in the Church It is therefore notoriously to dispute against honesty and fidelity to deny that we are able to give any account of the most eminent and principal Innovations But is it not to dispute against reason and sound judgment to say as Monsieur de Meaux doth that if there had been any Innovators in the Church the spirit of Truth would have marked them and their names would have been infamous as those of Arrius Nestorius c. How could the names of these Innovators be infamous seeing their Innovations were received and entertained The Authors of Heresies and Superstitions which are rejected are indeed noted with infamy but those that are received are Canonized and adored Therefore those of the fourth Age which introduced the Invocation of Saints had no note of infamy put upon them because the beginnings of that unhappy Superstition were greedily imbraced The reason why those things in those Ages were not treated as Innovations and the Authors of them as Innovators was because they adopted and received them Had they assigned any note of infamy upon them they had condemned the worship which they admitted they had accused it of

a simple Historian in the 208th Page of the second Part of my Colection That this Father knowing what had been his first Employment counselled him to explain that Greek of Aristophanes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is expressed by another Proverb Let not the Shooemaker go beyond his Last Nevertheless Monsieur Soulier fears not to advance by the blackest Calumnie which can be imagined in the 678th Page of his Book That I have exceeded in that which is most gross what all the Protestant Writers have published against him Where is Faith where is Conscience The Father Mesnier which I have transcribed in the Chapter concerning Monsieur Soulier doing him the same favour in a multitude of heads wherein he is accused by this Father Is he a Protestant I could sooner have pardoned him if he had only dissembled that the Father Mesnier is the Author of the Evil which I have done him Dogs bite the Staff wherewithal we strike them But that he makes me the Eccho of the Protestants in the contempt which they put upon him when I plaid the good Husband in what concerned his Reputation by treating him less ill than those of our Religion which know him better than I this is that which cannot be endured I do nevertheless affirm Monsieur that I find my self all at once disarmed when I think that there is nothing of Merit or Honour to be gotten by such an Adversary He boasts at this day that he hath studied the business of Edicts thirty Years and in his Work of 1681 he confesses as Father Mesnier reproaches to him that he had never seen those that Henry the Fourth had granted to the Cities of the League whereof nevertheless he was willing to make use against the Syndicks and the Censors of the Diocess of the Kingdom Who will not despise an Adversary which proves that I have not the least knowledge of the Affairs of those of the Protestant Reformed Religion because I have quoted a National Synod held at Loudun And to maintain this false Accusation he says Page the 681 of his Book That if I had only read the first leaf of the Ecclesiastical Discipline of those of the Reformed Religion I should have found in the Table of the National Synods of those of that Religion that there war never any held at Loudun For if there were never any held at Loudun why did he write in the 63 Page of his New Bernard this which follows in express terms The twelfth Article of the National Synod held at Loudun the 5th of April 1596 c This was pitty but there is more in the case This Doctor in point of Tables of Books this man conversant in the matter of Edicts for these thirty Years knows not that in the Year 1659 there was a National Synod of those of the Reformed Protestant Religion held at Loudun by the permission of his Majesty A man is therefore Ignorant according to this unlearned Author because he knows that which is arid is not ignorant of it or because he doth not fain himself ignorant thereof as he doth After this is he to be believed when he says I have transcribed or copied him My Work contains 800 Pages and he accuses me to have Abridged the biggest and the most considerable of his Books in the fifteen first Never was falshood published with so little colour I make the Publick Judge thereof and if I have any thing wherewith to reproach myself it will be that I was not willing to see the faults of his Works that I might not be obliged to reprove them I have said for example in the twelfth Page of my Work that Peter Mengin was burnt at Meaux with thirteen of his Companions by a Decree of the Parliament of Paris he says in the ninth Page of his History of Edicts of Pacification that he was burnt with fourteen of his Companions which is contrary to the Decree which takes notice of no more but thirteen and those mentioned by their Names and Sirnames I could produce a hundred faults of like nature but to what good purpose would It be An Author like him who fears not to give the Lie to the Clergy of France and to some of its illustrious Members bears so visible a Character of Malice in the opinion of all honest men that if they would pray for him it is that the Clergy might double his Pension to put him to sitlence Behold the proof of what I affirm Authors of the Reformed Protestant Religion having maintained in their Works that the Edict of Nantes was granted to their Fathers as an acknowledgment of the Service they had done for the State Monsieur Soulier in his History of Calvinism says That it was the strangest Paradox that ever was published it being not true that they had obtained this Edict by their Services Nevertheless the General Assembly of France held at Paris in the Years 1655 and 1656 in a Session where Cardinal Mazarine sat President did acknowledge that King Henry the Fourth coming out of the bosom of Heresie * * Page 152 of the Verbal Process of this Assembly and being willing to acknowledge the Services which had been done him by those of that Party granted them the Edict of Nantes And the late Monsieur de Perefixe † † History of Henry the Great p. 223. of the Paris Edition in 1662. Archbishop of Paris speaks of him in these words Henry the Fourth with all his Prudence had scarce enough to govern himself in such manner that the Catholicks and the Pope might be content with his Conduct and that the Hugenots might have no cause of Fear or Division his Duty and Conscience inclined him to the assistance of the former but Reason of State and the great Obligations he had to the latter would not permit him to make them desperate Therefore to keep a necessary temperament he granted them an Edict larger than those which went before which is called the Edict of Nantes After this Monsieur will you not think me dispensed withal for answering more at large to the Dreams and Dotages of Monsieur Soulier 'T was six Years since that Father Mesnier reproacht to him That he understood not Latine and that he had scarce wit enough to Write and Read He ought at least to have applied himself thereto sine that time but he hath neglected to do it and labours himself to revive the old French Proverb 'T is a brave thing for a Priest to know how to Read and Write Behold some proofs thereof He writes in Page the 632 of his last Book Je plaidè ces affaires it ought to have been written Je plaidai at the 678 J ' y âjoutè j'en donnè instead of saying J ' y ajoutai j'en donnai the same place he hath written Plagieres instead of Plagiaires you will find a hundred of this kind But behold enough to justifie me against so feeble an Enemy Let him write till Dooms-day