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A13235 A defence of the Appendix. Or A reply to certaine authorities alleaged in answere to a catalogue of Catholike professors, called, An appendix to the Antitdote VVherein also the booke fondly intituled, The Fisher catched in his owne net, is censured. And the sleights of D. Featly, and D. VVhite in shifting off the catalogue of their owne professors, which they vndertooke to shew, are plainly discouered. By L.D. To the Rt. VVorshipfull Syr Humphry Lynde. L. D., fl. 1624.; Sweet, John, 1570-1632, attributed name. 1624 (1624) STC 23528; ESTC S120948 43,888 74

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of the Appendix shewing the continuall Visibility of the Catholike Church YOur owne Doctors in your owne house professed as you know The true Church must be able to name Professors in all Ages made it the very groūd of their Argument in that Dispute Wherefore in all reason before you went about to answere the Booke which you receaued of the Catalogue of our Professors you should haue giuen another or referred vs to some booke of an other of yours And that so much the more because hitherto such a Catalogue on your side hath byn held impossible to be found made or produced And hauing beene euermore demaunded and required for a hundred yeares togeather could neuer as yet be seene nor obtayned Certainly those your Champions which were chosen by your selfe and with great expectation vndertooke to doe it when they came to the Tryall performed nothing and all that they did was but cunningly to auoyde the Question giuen in these expresse termes Whether the Protestant Church was in all Ages visible especially in the Ages before Luther and whether the Names of such visible Protestants in all Ages can be shewed and proued out of good Authors Wherein euery man may see there was nothing els demaunded but a playne Catalogue or Table of the Names of your Professors in all Ages proued by good Authors According wherunto they receaued also another paper before the meeting which there was publickly read that ech partie should produce their Catalogues out of good Authors and then interchangably by termes defend them But this Table or Catalogue of the names of our Professors seemed a Lyon in the way of your Doctors which therefore they durst not come neere nor behold but sought by diuers straines to eschew it and to turne the eyes and eares of the audience from their expectation of it As first they sought to make two Questions of the Question propounded and flying the latter part insteed of shewing the visibility of their Church they would haue proued it à Priori as they tearmed it without shewing their visible Pastors which was the poynt demaunded Secondly they deride their Aduersaries for demaunding the Names of their Professors as if they had impertinently called for a Buttry Booke of the Names of those that euer were admitted into the Church of Christ irregiously comparing the Histories of the Church wherein the Names of her Bishops Martyrs and other holy Men were carefully recorded to Buttry Bookes of Names And for the same cause calling their Aduersaries Nominalls they boasted themselues to be Realls as if their Aduersaries had demaunded no Men but only Names of Men or as if the Professors of the true Faith like Knights Errants or those of the round Table had been no reall Men at all but only names which is asmuch to say as that the Hystories of the Church were meere fables Thirdly they sought to flinch by propounding sūdry tymes diuers other Questions to be disputed Which was as it were to put vp many Hares before the Hoūds thereby to conceale the Kennell of that Fox which was then hunted Fourthly they endeauoured to diuert the Question from prouing themselues the true Church by naming the visible Professors therof in all Ages which was the thing demaunded to proue the same by assuming they held the truth that is to say in euery particular Controuersie as for Example in denying of Transubstantiation Merits of Works and the like Which was as plaine a Transition as if in case the Question had byn about Transubstantiation their Aduersaries should haue gone about to proue it by prouing themselues to be the true Church that held it For both these kinde of proofes by a remote Medium do euidently transferre the Question the one from a generall to a particular point which was your Doctors fault the other from a particuler to a generall as in the other Example Fiftly being called vpon by the Hearers and especially by the Protestants themselues which were ten to one and confided much in their owne cause to giue the Names of their Professors in all Ages they named only Christ and his Apostles with others one or two more of the first Age alone Which according to the question vndertaken they should haue proued to be Protetestāts by naming Protestants that succeeded them in all Ages following but seeking euermore to auoyde that Rocke they would haue stayed there and before they went any further vrged to proue the Professors of the first Age to be Protestants not by naming their Successors but by examining their Doctrine Which againe had been to diuerte from the matter and to runne from the generall point then in Question to all particular Controuersies Sixtly Therefore when none of these deuises could satisfy the expectation of the Hearers fearing as it seemed least according to the words of the Question and playne intention of that meeting they should haue byn vrged againe by the Hearers to set downe a full Catalogue of all Ages as once before they were importuned to doe they suddenly brake off and so departed Seauenthly My L. of Warwicke imagining perchāce that this proceeded not so much from lacke of ability as from want of due preparation on their behalfe promised a Catalogue within 2. or 3. dayes which though sought agayne by letter neuer yet appeared Eightly The Answerers themselues repayred the next day to your owne house agayne offering to deliuer their Catalogue with one hand so they might receaue yours with the other Which another stāding by whome they also tooke to be a Protestant Minister affirmed to be very reasonable and indifferent But you answered You knew their minde for that point and that they would neuer doe it before the Names of the first Age were tryed and so of the rest in order Ninthly a printed Catalogue was sent to your selfe in particuler hoping it might serue as an engine to importune and as it were to extort another from you or from your Doctours But all in vayne which maketh many much to feare that this Catalogue of your Professors will neuer be produced and consequently that your Church cannot possible be the true Church of Christ And now no maruell if some of the Hearers when they saw the Booke of The Fisher catched in his owne Net writen as it were in triumph of your victory in that Dispute compared it to those other Puritan Bookes which haue been lately printed of the great victories of the Protestants in their Warres against the Catholiks beyond the Seas whereas in truth not the Catholikes but the Protestants themselues haue beene alwayes notoriously vanquished and ouerthrowne And presuming it came forth from his owne fingers that hath the principall part therin they spare not to say that it better deserued to be called The feates and lyes of Doctor Feat-Lye then the other Title which in falshood well agreeing with the Booke it selfe in that respect alone might iustly seeme a fit lace or facing for it For besides the sundry shifts
putidius Whereas they produce the testimony of Ignatius I say nothing is more rotten or corrupted with Papistry then those trifling Epistles that go vnder his name If nothing be more rotten that is more Papisticall and contrary vnto Protestants then the Doctrine of the writings we haue of S. Ignatius the Apostles Disciple then is he asmuch for vs as S. Ignatius of Loyolae And the same M. Caluin in his Booke de participatione Christi in Coena whereas Westphalus the Lutheran alleadgeth the testimony of Ignatius cited by Theodoret in his 3. Dialogue out of his Epistle ad Smir●enses where he chargeth the Menandrian Heretikes with his Caluinian hereticall Doctrine Non confitentur Eucharistiam esse carnem Saluatoris nostri Iesu Christi they do not belieue the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Sauiour Iesus Christ Caluin I say not without disdayne frameth this answere What ingenuity is this to cite the Epistle of Ignatius which euen an ordinary Friar or Monke would hardly acknowledge as his owne They know that haue read those toyes that they contayne nothing but tales of Lent of Chrisme of Tapers of Fasting and festiuall dayes which through superstition and ignorāce crept into the Church after Ignatius his dayes Thus Caluin speakes of the Epistle cited by Theodoret by Eusebius by S. Hierome for the Epistle of Ignatius So that as I sayd if the Religion of S. Ignatius the Disciple of S. Iohn be tryed by his writings which all antiquity acknowledge as his he is found euen by the confession of Protestants as very a Papist as was S. Ignatius of Loyola to wit more then any ordinary Friar or Monke What desperation then was it of Doctour Featly to what a Non-plus was he brought when he was forced to giue vnto Ignatius and his writings the first place after the Apostles in the Catalogue of Caluinian Professors For this Author can no more be coupled togeather with Caluin in the same Religion and Church then light can agree with darknes Christ with Beliall Which besides what hath beene sayd may appeare in the Preface of his Epistle to the Romans by the great Encomium he maketh of that Church Quae praesidet in Regione Romanorum which presidence must needs be vnderstood of the Church of Rome aboue other Churches Thirdly to draw to an end of this point Tertullian seemeth to proue that our Sauiour gaue his true body because he professed That with a desire he desired to eate the Pasche as his owne for that it had beene vnseemely that God should haue longed after the flesh of the Iewish Lambe or quid alienum or after any thing els that was anothers But if he had desired to eate bread with his Apostles he had not desired to eate his owne but that of another and it had beene no lesse vnseemely that God should haue longed to eate the bread of another with his Apostles then to eate flesh of another with the Iewes Lastly if this sentence of Tertullian be obscure it must be expounded by the other place before alleadged where he sayth without any ambiguity that our flesh is fed with the body and bloud of Christ For it were agaynst all reason that the plaine words thereof should be expounded by this other place which seemeth to contayne two contrary senses and therefore is often alleadged by vs agaynst our Aduersaries and by our Aduersaries against vs. As concerning Gelasius cont Eutichem the last Author that you alleage I wil be content that Chemnitius a learned Lutheran and as great an Enemy of Transubstantiation as your selfe be iudge betweene vs whether that place doth fauour it or doth sound any way for it his words are these Examen part 2. pag. 88. Gelasius sayth that the Wine and the Bread of the Eucharist by the work of the holy Ghost doe passe or conuert into the diuine Substance of the Body and Bloud of Christ and verily these words do seeme to sound very strongly for the establishing of Transubstantiation For that which passeth into another substance and that by the working of the holy Ghost certainely doth seeme not to remaine in his former Substance If you had seene this place or if passion had not blinded you had it beene possible you should haue cited Gelasius against Transubstantiation which by the iudgmēt of such a professed Enemy thereof doth make so strongly for it Section XIII The Conclusion of this Treatise THus much concerning the Authories of the Fathers alleaged by you partly false cited which may be pardoned partly falsified which seemeth to touch your Honour and all of them eyther wholy peruerted or far from the matter which cōming from a Knight sheweth an excusable ignorance in this kind of learning But against the substance of the booke you receaued as I haue shewed in the 4. first Sections of this Treatise you haue answered nothing Now therefore good Syr if according to your Degree you will doe your owne selfe Knights seruice indeed set to your shoulders and vnderprop your Church as Atlas was faigned to support the heauens for as you haue heard and seene in the former Sections it is so mainely battered with fower such peeces of great Ordinance that vnlesse it be mightly sustained the sound of thē alone is sufficiēt to shake it downe and ouerthow it 1. Their visible Succession in all Ages 2. Their Conuersions of Nations in all Ages 3. Myracles in confirmation of their Doctrine in all Ages 4. Censures of Fathers and Councells for the condemnation of yours in all Ages For 1. your Doctors did but beg the Question when they made clayme to Christ and his Apostles and began at the wrong end making that their Argument which should haue beene their conclusion was to be proued by nominating Protestants to succeed them in all Ages and especially in the Ages before Luther according to the words of the Question which they vndertooke to answere What foule shame and extreme confusion is it to your Cause when being vrged to name or bring forth but one Protestant in 500. or 1000. yeares before Luther you are eyther constrained to answere it is not necessary or els supposing the ignorance of those that heare you yow are inforced to cloth your nakednesse with the raggs of Wyckliffe Waldo and other such accursed Heretikes all of them holding some points with your Aduersaries against you and being for other grosse heresies noe lesse detested by them then condemned by you Rather let the bowells of Oxford Librarie be ripped vp and ransacked from end to end Or els neuer leaue digging vntill you haue wrought your selues into those caues where Protestants liued for so many hundred yeares to find some Volumes some Commētaries or some Records of the Actes and Gestes of your Auncestors If nothing can be found in Europe recommend the matter to the East Indian Cōpany or to the Westerne Voyagers to seeke and search among furthest Nations for Protestants lineally descended from Christ his Apostles
which being discouered were better found then Mynes of gold For vnlesse by some such meanes the Professors of your Ghospels may be brought to light your Church cannot long continue aboue ground but the former Question alone will suffice to coniure it downe againe into her auncient darkenes 2. What can be more vnworthy thē whē Priests Iesuites other Religious men execute the cōmādemēt cōmissiō of our Sauiour in carrying his Ghospel to the ends of the Earth as their Auncestors haue done in all Ages before them thereby prouing themselues their true Successors whome our B. Sauiour according to his promise Matt. 28. hath euer assisted and will alwaies accōpany Teaching and baptizing all Nations Omnibus diebus vsque ad consūmationem saeculi all dayes or euery day vnto the end of the world that your wiued Ministers in the meane tyme fatned with their benefices should only execute their owne malice in rayling vpon those laborious men and deprauing their Christian endeauours thereby shewing themselues to be that peruerse and bastard generatiō which insteed of cōuerting Infidells doth labour only to subuert belieuers insteed of planting the faith of Christ only indeauor to extirpate that Faith which they found to be already planted insteed of sowing the first corne only scatter cockle and darnell vpon that corne which was first sowed by others Rather set forth whole fleets of Ministers with their numerous families both for the East and for the West to bring those miserable Nations vnto the liberty and light of the Ghospell that haue layne so long captiue vnder the foule bondage and execrable Tiranny of the Prince of darknes Then it would be quikly tryed whether in those parts the diuells would submit themselues and fly before them or Whether like the strōger party Luc. 11.18 as hitherto in Virginia they haue shewed thēselues they would be able to keepe in peace the soules and vessells which they haue there soe long possessed vntill there come others stronger thē your Ministers that may be able to bind them 3. What can be more impious then whereas your Aduersaries like true Christiās confirme their doctrine in all Ages by those signes myraculous operations which were promised to follow the true belieuers Marc. 16.17 you on the other side should haue nothing to answere but only like Iewes and Pagans to laugh at them and at the holy Fathers themselues that were so simple as eyther to testify or to belieue them Rather ioyne your harts and your hands togeather that once in your tyme you may see a Generall Councell from all Protestant Prouinces meete togeather where out of so many Religions sprūg vp amongst you hauing chosen one by Lot to be generally professed beseech him who heareth all those that with a true Fayth doe call vpon him to confirme that chosen doctrine by some ostension in the Sunne or in the Moone or with some such notorious signe from Heauen as might no lesse exceed the former Myracles of the Papistes then the wondrous workes of Moyses confounded the magicall practises of the Egiptian Sages 4. And lastly what can be more voyde of shame and conscience then to clayme those Fathers of the first 500. yeares for yours that haue so impartially censured so many seuerall points of your Doctrine in the Heretikes of their tymes for the which I refer me to the fourth Sectiō of this Treatise as he that considereth them may iustly esteeme the body of your Religion to be almost nothing els but only a confarcination or bundle of old Heresies condemned by them Rather ioyne all in prayer that if your Cause be true as Almighty God vouchsafed in his owne person to iustify Iob against his friends so that our Sauiour would be pleased with a voyce from Heauen to iustify you agaynst the Fathers But ouer Shooes ouer Head and Eares sayth the Prouerbe according whereunto if being once entred into a bad cause it be resolued that still you must needes goe forward ceasing to falsify the words and to peruert the meaning of those holy Fathers least God in his iustice double your punishment as you double your iniquity hold your selues to the Scripture alone and to your owne interpretation of Scripture with M. Luther and M. Caluin and those learned Protestants of your owne Nation for so many yeares togeather not fearing to reiect the Fathers that were but men and directly refuting their errors for in so doing though you should want verity yet God might be pleased at the length to haue mercy vpon you for your sincerity O Mercifull God the Author of all truth If you be in the truth why should you defend it by fraud and falshood And how can it stand with his good will and pleasure that against so many powerfull Arguments and euident demonstrations to the contrary you should any longer thus contentiously hold it And obstinately so continue to professe it Certainly those 4. Considerations before remembred and reported more at large in the 4. first Sections of this Treatise do make it so euidēt vnto me that theirs not yours is the only true visible vniuersall Church ordayned and founded by Christ and his Apostles to teach the world that I wonder in my hart how any learned Protestant can be so blinde as not to see it or so voyd of honesty as not to confesse it Neyther if I were now a Protestant should any thing with-hold me from ioyning my selfe vnto them vnlesse it were only in honor of that Religion wherein I was bred to expect a little Whether the foresayd Catalogue of the Names of your Professors in all Ages and especially in the Ages before Luther might be found and produced The Question is now very happily set on foot I hope it wil be soundly followed and it were to be wished that no other Controuersy might be imbraced before this which is but matter of fact and the key of all the rest be fully cleared If Satisfactiō may be giuen in this poynt you may the better hope to be satisfied in the rest But if not so much as one man can be produced in 500. yeares before Luther that held not some maine points of Popery against you or some other grosse errors condemned by you if when Luther first began not one Protestant can be named that did not first fall from the Religion wherein he was bred or which he had first receaued then certainly it is not to be marueiled if thousands and thousands ere it be long doe renounce abandone with prayer for those to come after thē whom they shall leaue behind them that vpstart Fayth which was new when Luther began and none at all before Luther ALmighty God inspire the hart of his Majesty whom it importeth noe lesse then our selues that whereas the Catholike Recusants were neuer as yet accused of heresy according to forme of Ecclesiasticall iustice much lesse sommoned and called to make their answere or iuridically condēned that their Enemies formerly cēsured by Generall Coūcells according to the Aunciēt Law and receaued custome of the Church haue notwithstanding beene hitherto admitted not only as accusers but also as witnesses and iudges against them whereby the people of the Land being constrained to heare the one party and restrained from hearing the other haue been morally compelled to loue the one and hate the other to magnify the one and detest the other his Maiesty would be pleased to grāt vnto all his louing subiects for the saluation of their poore Soules committed to his charge that now at the lēgth they might be allowed both their eares to heare both sides indifferently to weigh and ponder both causes and well to cōsider of both Religions Left vnder the plausible name of spirituall liberty they be cunningly held in miserable captiuity being flattered with the shew of light they be insnared in dubble darkenes being deluded with presumption of knowlege they be bound and buried in most dredfull ignorance A request soe fauorable both in the sight of God and Man and so agreable to the principles of Protestant Religion as I thinke it can be vngratefull to none who doe wish vnfainedly that only falshood may be suppressed and the truth maintained For the which all those that sincerely desire to serue God vprightly shall be infinitely obliged to pray for his Maiesty not only as for their Gratious King but also as for their deliuerer from the thraldome of conscience wherein he found them and for the Author of their chiefest liberty wherin he should place thē FINIS