Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	father_n	ghost_n	holy_a	5,369	5	5.6194	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59903	A vindication of the Brief discourse concerning the notes of the church in answer to a late pamphlet entituled, The use and great moment of the notes of the church, as delivered by Cardinal Bellarmin, De notis ecclesiae, justified ...; De notis ecclesiae	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1687 (1687)	Wing S3374; ESTC R18869	41,299	72

justifie as any one would guess by his way of justifying him let but the Romanists quit this Plea that our Faith must be resolved into the Authority of the Church and I shall not despair to see our other Disputes fairly ended For the Conclusion of the whole I observed That it is a most senseless thing to resolve all our Faith into the authority of the Church Whereas it is demonstrable that we must know and believe most of the Articles of the Christian Faith before we can know whether there be any Church or not The order observed in the Apostles Creed is a plain evidence of this for all those Articles which are before the Holy Catholick Church must in order of nature be known before it This he grants that in order of Nature all these Articles of the Creed concerning Father Son and Holy Ghost must be known before we can know a Church but to us the Church is most known Which is plain and down-right non-sense if by most known he means first known which is the present dispute for whatever by the order of nature must be known first must be first known without any distinction For we speak now not of the Methods of Learning but of resolving our Faith into its first Principles and that surely must follow the order of nature If the belief of the Churches Authority be not in order of nature before the belief of Father Son and Holy Ghost it is a senseless thing to resolve our Faith into that which though we should grant were the first cause of knowing these yet is not the first principle in order of nature into which Faith must be resolved Children indeed as he observes must receive their Creed upon the Authority of their Parents or of the Church which is more known to them than their Creed as all other Scholars must receive the first Principles of any Art or Science upon the authority of their Masters But will you say that the Latin Tongue is resolved into the authority of the School-master because his Scholars in learning the Latin Tongue rely on his authority which yet is just as good sense as to say that our Faith must be resolved into the authority of the Church because the Church teaches Catechumens their Catechism and they receive it upon the authority of their Parents or Priests And hence indeed he may conclude that a young Catechumen knows his Teachers before he knows his Creed but to conclude that he knows a Church first as that signifies a blessed Society where Salvation is to be had is a little too much for that supposes that he knows the Church before he has learnt Unam Sanctam Ecclesiam that is before he has found the Church in the Creed which is great forwardness indeed If he does not speak of Children but of Men-Catechumens for such there were in the Primitive Church and such he seems to speak of when he says It is plain that the Catechumen knew there was a Church a blessed Society where Salvation was to be had before he would enter himself to be Catechised in the Faith. I do not doubt but such men did know the Church before they submitted to the instructions of it but they knew Christ too and believed in him before they knew the Church For they first believed in Christ and then joyned themselves to that Society which professed the Christian Faith that they might be the better instructed in the Doctrines of Christianity that they might learn from the Church what the Christian Faith is and the reasons of it not that they would wholly resolve their Faith into Church-authority But I find by our Author that the Creed was made only for Catechumens For he says The first person used at the beginning of the Creed I believe signifies I who desire to be made a member of the Church by the Holy Sacrament of Initiation do believe what hath been proposed to me first and then comprehended in that Fundamental Breviate What he designs by this I cannot guess for still the Catechumen professes to believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost before he believes the Holy Catholick Church But pray what does I signifie when a Bishop or Priest or the Pope himself repeats the Creed If as he concludes We must believe Father Son and Holy Ghost before we can compleatly determine the Church and its definition he should have said before we can know whether there be a Church or not much less believe upon its authority then indeed as he says the Creed must begin with I believe in God. But if our Faith must be resolved into the authority of the Church as the Church of Rome teaches and as these laborious endeavours of finding out a Church by extra-essential Notes supposes then the Creed as I said ought to begin with I believe in the Holy Catholick Church and upon the authority of this Church I believe in God the Father Almighty and in Iesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost Thus I have with invincible patience particularly answered one of the most senseless Pamphlets that ever I read and I hope it will not be wholly useless for sometimes it is as necessary to expose non-sense as to answer the most plausible Arguments though notwithstanding the mirth of it I do not desire to be often so employed FINIS The Use and great Moment of Notes p. 1. Pag. 2. Pag. 4. Pag. 5. Disc. p. 1. Ephes. 4. 1 2 3. 1 Cor. 12. 12 13 c. Disc. P. 5. Pag. 6. Disc. p. 9. Disc. p. 9. Disc. p. 10. Disc. p. 13. Disc. p. 14. Disc. p. 15. Joan. Laun. Epist. Vol. 8. ep 13. Nicol. Gatinaeo Disc. p. 17. Disc. p. 19. Disc. p. 22.

both as in such a divided State of Christendom we have great reason to hope he will. But let us hear what our Author says is the Catholick Church 'T is only a Comprehension of all those Churches which keep to the Unity of the Faith and persist in their first undivided Estate in the Bond of Universal Peace By the Unity of the Faith I hope he means that one Faith in which as he tells us Christ and his Apostles planted the Church and then I doubt this will fall hard upon the Church of Rome which rejects all other Churches who do retain this One Apostolick Faith if they disown the new Articles of the Trent Creed and the first undivided Estate of the Church was settled in an Equality and Brotherly Association of Bishops and Churches not in the Empire of one over all the rest and then this is more severe upon the Church of Rome than Protestants desire for she has destroyed this first undivided State by challenging such a Supremacy as enslaves all other Churches to her and therefore is so far from being the One Catholick Church that if this Definition be true she is no part of it And as for the Bond of Universal Peace what Claim she can lay to that let the cruel Persecutions of those innocent Christians whom she calls Hereticks the Excommunication of whole Churches the deposing of Princes and all the Blood that has been shed in Christendom under the Banners of Holy Church witness for her And thus we come to the Notion of a Note or Mark which he says is clear by its Definition page 3. and therefore I hope he will give us such a Definition as is self-evident or which all Mankind agree in for a Definition which the contending Parties do not agree in can clear nothing Let us then hear his Definition That it is a most sensible Appearance in or about the Subject enquired after whereby we are led toward the Knowledg of the present Existence or Essence of the said Subject And from hence he concludes 'T is manifest then that a Note of a Thing must be extra-essential of it self because by it and the Light from thence we arrive to the Knowledg of the Essence And he adds upon which Grounds you see the reasonable Demands of those who challenge first That a distinctive Mark or Note must be more known than the Thing notified Secondly That a Note must be in Conjunction at least in some measure proper not common or indifferent to many singulars much less to contraries Now all that I can pick out of this is 1. That the Existence or Essence of things must be known by Notes 2. That such Notes whereby we discover the Existence or Essence of things must be extra-essential or not belong to the Essence of it And yet 3. That these Notes must not be common but proper to the thing of which it is a Note Which are as pretty Notions as a Man shall ordinarily meet with and therefore I shall briefly examine them First That the Existence or Essence of things must be known by Notes For if the Existence and Essence of things may be known without Notes this Dispute about Notes is to no purpose And yet how many things are there whose Existence and Essence are known without Notes Who desires any Note to know the Sun by to know what Light or Taste or Sounds Pain or Pleasure is The Presence of these Objects and the notice our Senses give us of them that is the things themselves are the onely Notes of themselves The use of Signs or Notes is only to discover the Existence of such things as are absent visible or future but what is present and visible exposed to the notice of Sense or Reason is best known by it self and can be rightly known no other way and therefore since all the dispute is about Marks of the Church he ought to prove that the Church is such a Society as can be known only by Notes and then it must either be absent invisible or future for all other things may be known by themselves without Notes Secondly Especially since he will allow nothing to be a Note but what is extra-essential or does not belong to the essence of the thing which seems to me a very extraordinary way of finding out the Existence or Essence of things by such Notes as do not belong to their Essence and then I think they cannot prove their Existence For how can I find out any thing without knowing in some measure what it is I find or how can I know what the Essence of any thing is by such Notes as are not essential There are but two sorts of Notes or Signs that I know of natural or instituted and they both suppose that we know the thing and the Note and Sign of it before we can find it out by Signs or Notes As for Natural Signs the most certain Signs we have are Causes and Effects but we must know both the Causes and Effects before the one can be a Sign of the other Thus Smoke is a Sign of Fire but it is no Sign of Fire to any Man who does not know what Fire is and that it will cause a Smoak when it seises on combustible Matter and that nothing else can cause a Smoak but Fire Thus in univocal Effects the Effect declares the Nature of the Cause as we know that a Man had a Man to his Father but then we must first know what a Man is and that a Man begets in his own Likeness But this I suppose is not our Author's meaning that the Notes of the Church are Natural Causes and Effects or Natural Concomitants or Adjuncts because the Church is not a Natural but a Mystical Body and therefore can have no Natural Notes Let us then consider instituted Signs and they we grant must be extra-essential but then there never was and never can be an instituted Sign to discover the Essence and Existence of what we did not know before The Use of such Signs is to distinguish Places or Persons by different Names or Habits or Colours c. or to serve instead of Words as the Sound of the Trumpet or the Beat of the Drum or to be for Legal Contracts and Securities and the like but instituted Signs are no Signs till we know the thing of which they are Signs which shews how ridiculous it is to talk of such extra-essential Notes as shall discover the Existence and Essence of things which we knew not before for if we must first know the Church before we can find it out by Notes these extra-essential Notes may be spared To be sure this shews how far this Definition of a Note is from being clear since it does not suit any kind of Notes which Mankind are acquainted with and if the Notes of the Church are a peculiar sort of Notes by themselves he should not have appealed to the common Notion and Definition of Signs and

how old is the Council of Trent which is the true Antiquity of many Popish Articles of Faith. 3dly Perpetual Duration out-lasting all earthly Empires and Kingdoms For it plucks them down as fast as it can 4thly Amplitude being a great Body according to Prophecy But not so big as Paganism yet 5thly Succession Apostolical the very Iews confessing it as they do Transubstantiation How strong invincible clear and undeniable by Gainsayers Then I suppose it has no Gain-sayers if they do not deny it 6thly Primitive consent how great and how manifest to those good Men who enquire Yea how great indeed for no Body can find it but the Vicar of Putney Witness the Multitudes that return to the Catholick Church upon that account Monsieur de Meaux's French Converts I suppose who never heard of the Dragoons 7thly Intimate Union with their Head Christ and with one another But Bellarmin's visible Head of Unity is the Pope not Christ so that this is a new Note and it seems the Churches Union with Christ is extra-essential also or else it could be no Note 8thly Sanctity of Doctrine as revealed by God in whom is Light and no Darkness at all In teaching Men to break Faith with Hereticks to depose Heretical Princes and absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and arm them against their Leige Lord to prefer the Caelibacy of Priests tho the manifest Cause of so many Adulteries and Fornications as a more Holy State than Matrimony and such like Doctrines wherein is Darkness but no Light at all 9thly Efficacy upon Infidels Witness the Spanish Converts in the Golden Indies But why not upon Hereticks as well as Infidels I fear the Conversions in England are so slow that he dares not yet make that a Mark of the Church 10thly The Holiness of the Fathers Whose Lives we wish to be Legends though unquestionably true when we see how far they have out-done us Ay! that makes Hereticks call them Legends 11thly The Glory of Miracles which a Man would be wary of contradicting for fear of Blasphemy and sinning against the Holy Ghost Especially when they are such Miracles as no Body ever saw but the Monk who relates them or Miracles to prove both parts of a Contradiction to be true as for Instance that the Virgin Mary was and was not conceived in Original Sin. But if ever they had suffered poor Ietzer's Fate they would rather hereafter believe than feel such Miracles Still continued and denied by none but Scepticks in dispossession of Devils I suppose he means the Boy of Bilson and curing the Struma the Kings-Evil but this is a Protestant as well as Popish Miracle and is a better proof that the King than that the Pope is the Head of the Church 12. The Gift of Prophecy Witness the Maid of Kent To say nothing concerning the Confession of Adversaries and unhappy Exit of the Churches Enemies Which may very well be spared for there have been Confessions and unhappy Exits on both sides Tho Hen. 8. Queen Elizabeth and King Iames 1. were no Examples of such unhappy Exits These These are the Notes which like a Bill in Parliament deserve a second Reading and then to be thrown out though I hope they will never come in there The way being thus prepared the Court fat and the Jury of Notes empannell'd which I suppose is the reason why he calls but 12 of Bellarmin's 15 the rest being Supernumeraries the Discourser is summoned to make his Appearance Enter Discourser Which I can assure you put him into a fright on the sudden fearing it might be the Inquisition but he recollected himself and thus began his Plea. Is not the Catholick Church visible And if we can see which is the Church what need we guess at it by Marks and Signs and that by such Marks and Signs too as are matter of dispute themselves cannot we distinguish between the Christian Church and a Turkish Mosque and a Iewish Synagogue cannot we without all this adoe distinguish a Christian from a Turk or a Iew or a Pagan And it will be as easy to find out a Christian Church as it will be to find out Christians And what now is the hurt of this Oh! says the Justifier What Spirit is that which envies the Christian the Felicity of finding the true Church and casts an evil Eye upon the Notes conducing to it let any Christian judg A very Evil Spirit doubtless But does the Discourser do this Who says that the Church is visible and may be known without disputable Notes for Notes are only to discover things absent and invisible but what is visible is best known by it self Yes for whereas he pretends 't is visible besides that he flatly denies it after p. 14. Nay say I not among Counterfeits Is it visible at Sea which is the Royal Navy when the Enemy puts up the English Colours First then let us reconcile the Discourser with himself He asks whether the Church be not visible and therein appeals to the Confession of his Adversaries that the Church is visible and wonders what need there is of Notes of disputable Notes to find out a visible Church in Pag. 14. He desires to know How they will prove that there is a Church without the Scripture He answers for them that the Church is visible for we see a Christian Church in the World but says he What is it I see I see a Company of Men who call themselves a Church and this is all that I can see and is this seeing a Church A Church must have a divine Original and Institution and therefore there is no seeing a Church without seeing its Charter and is this to deny the Visibility of the Church because it cannot be seen or known without its Charter when it Charter is as visible as the Society which calls its self the Church And surely that Church is visible enough whose Society and Charter are both visible tho the Church cannot be known without its Charter But now the Answerer will not allow the Church to be visible among Counterfeits and then it has not been visible this hundred Years at least and then what becomes of Bellarmin's Notes which are none if the Church be not visible for they are Notes not of an invisible but of a visible Church But the Comparison whereby he proves this is an eternal Confutation of such extra-essential Notes Is it visible at Sea which is the Royal Navy when the Enemy puts up the English Colours Which shows how fallible Notes are for Colours are Notes of the Royal Navy and these may deceive us but if you go aboard and see the Ships and the Company and their Commissions you cannot be mistaken The Natures of things cannot be counterfeited but Notes may The Discourser says A Christian Church is nothing else but a Society of Christians united under Christian Pastors for the Worship of Christ. This the Justifier thinks a very slight way of