Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
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B02310
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An answer, to a little book call'd Protestancy to be embrac'd or, A new and infallible method to reduce Romanists from popery to Protestancy
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Con, Alexander.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing C5682; ESTC R171481
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80,364
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170
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are That every one may see clearly whither or no what I hold as a Tenet of Religion is not found among them but is a meer superstruction Will you refuse to a considerable Person who thinks certainly he has seen in the Law Book a Law which justifies the Action for which he is condemn'd to Die Will you I say refuse him a publick sight of that Book to justifie your Sentence against him but notwithstanding the murmur of the People upon your refusal of his demand suspecting him Innocent savagely cast him If not do not condemn us who hold for certainty Transubstantiation to be so Fundamental that no Christian of the first three Ages would have deny'd it A Subsect Other Proofs that we agree in Faith with those of the first three Ages I Ask our Adversary did those Christians living then believe as a Fundamental point that they were the true Church planted by CHRIST and continued from the Apostles or not If not then they could not say in their Creed I believe in the Holy Catholick Church If they did believe it I ask again upon what ground was truth warranted to them for three hundred Years and not to the Church till the end of the World Was not Gods promise of Infallibility to his Church made to it as well to the end of the World as for the first three hundred Years Isaiah 59. v. 21. This is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit which is upon thee to wit the Church and my Words which I have put in thy Mouth shall not depart out of thy Mouth nor out of the Mouth of thy Seed nor out of the Mouth of thy Seeds Seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever And to the Ephes 4. cap. v. 11 12 13 14. And he gave some Apostles some Prophets and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints c. till we all come in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God c. That we henceforth be no more Children tost too and fro and carried about with every Wind of Doctrine by the slight of Men. If he avow the Church fail'd not in Fundamental Truths I wonder how he can allow Luther and Calvin's Reforming the Church with so much Fire Sword and Confusion for a matter that did not impede Salvation If they Reform'd Her in Fundamentals then She perish'd which is against the Infallible promise of CHRIST If you say they did not Reform it as it lay pure in the Souls of some chosen tho' unknown to others but in the publick Pastors and Teachers who were reprehensible for their grievous Deviations then say I where was the visible Church to which Men should have recourse for the hearing of the Word and receiving of the Sacraments Isaiah cap. 2. v. 3. A second Proof and Reason is drawn from that it seems morally impossible that in the begining of the fourth Age if he will have the fall of Religion then the Pastors should propose a number of new Tenets to be believ'd and perswade the People that they had heard them from their Fathers of the third Age not one individual Person in the mean time remembring that he heard them from his Is it credible that not only one Parish or Nation but all Countries who liv'd afore in the Union of the Catholick Church should of a sudden have permitted themselves to be cheated into this perswasion or rather bewitch'd since not one was found for many Ages to have gainsaid it or reclaimed against it Since this then is Morally impossible conclude that these Tenets of R. Catholicks which our adversary calls novelties were the old tenets of the three first Centuries A third reason 't is remark'd that God never permitted any notable Error to rise up in his Church but alwayes stirred up at the same time some man or men to speak and write against it and mov'd the whole Church to joyn with them to destroy it So Athanasius rose up against Arius Cyrillus Alexandrinus against Nestorius Augustin against Pelagius All back'd by the whole Church for the total overthrowing of those Errors Now if the Mass be an Error it is a most damnable one an Idolatry insupportable to give Divine Worship to the Host if it be only a piece of Bread Yet after this Error was broach'd in Gregory the Great 's time in the sixth or seventh Age as Protestants imagin what University or private Man spoke against it then or three hundred Years after It s true about four hundred Years after Berengarius inveighed against it but being better inform'd and by a torrent of Arguments for its Truth overwhelm'd he Recanted and Dyed Penitent Consult then Reason and not Passion and you will see that R. Catholicks have made no superstructurs on the Faith of the first three Ages SECT II. Formal Protestants are Hereticks I Advance to his assertion in which he affirms that we cannot say without Ignorance Calumny and Injustice that a Protestant is an Heretick First I agree with him that an Heretick is he who denyes viz. pertinaciously an Article of Faith or a revealed Verity Next I ask him by what principle he proves that a Protestant does not deny an Article of Faith or a reveal'd Truth I suppose he will Answer because a Protestant believes the CREED and the Holy Scripture I ask him further if a Preacher now of their Congregation should vent a Doctrine not Orthodox and should pertinaciously maintain it against his Brethren as a Truth according to his best Judgment reveal'd in Scripture By what principle will he convince him to be an Heretick He 'l tell you he believes the three Creeds and the whole Scripture and therefore he believes this his dogme because the thinks he finds it in Scripture Is he an Heretick because he will not submit his Judgement to his particular Brethren He is known to be as Learn'd as they and of as good a Life as they If you say this Man can't be proven to be an Heretick that is against the Scripture Tit. 3. v. 10. bidding us to shun an Heretick and consequently he may be proven to be one If you say he is an Heretick because he will not submit his Judgement not only to particulars but neither to the whole Congregation or the Church of which he was a Member and therefore is justly condemn'd by Her according to Isai 54. v. 17. Every Tongue that rises up against thee in Iudgment thou shall condemn this is the Inheritance of the Lords Servants I conclude without Ignorance Calumny or Injustice that the Protestant Luther the Protestant Calvin c. were Hereticks because they would not submit their Judgment to the whole Church of which they were Members afore they were Excommunicated for their self Opinions Again this proposition a Protestant is not an Heretick either is an Act of Faith or Science or Opinion If you say it is an Act of Faith 〈◊〉 then say I 't is false
of Judgement So a drunken Man Dying tho' he is not Damned for what proceeds from Drunkeness for a Blasphemy uttered in that time yet he may be damned for the Sin which brought him to this distemper of his Reason Neither flatter your self with an invincible Error proceeding from knowledge there is no such an Error of Judgement is an Ignorance of Truth and therefore that Error proceeds from Ignorance and not from knowledge A Fool upholding his Opinion against a number of Wise Men thinks this his Opinion proceeds from his knowledge which others have not and that he speaks with a great deal of sense In the mean while the Wise Men present pitty him seeing all he sayes is but non-sense and that all this Discourse in which he runs out proceeds from his Ignorance So that what he esteems in himself to be Light is truely Darkness CHAP. III. Our Adversary's Negative Proofs for the Salvation of Protestants Refuted SECT I. Formal Protestants are Schismaticks AFter our Adversary had endeavoured tho' as I hope you have sufficiently seen in vain to prove positively that Protestants may be sav'd in his second Sect. pag. 43. His aim is here to prove the same negatively i.e. that in their Religion there is no hinderance of Salvation Two things only as he Imagins may hinder from Salvation Schism and Heresie But Protestants are free from both then they have no hinderance of Salvation as he concluds Schism saies he is a separation from the true Church and the true Church is that of primative Christians We grant all this But Protestants do not differ from the primative Christians this we deny And this which he should have chiefly proven and one which lyes the whole force of debate between him and us he passes over and slips away saying it has been proven by others This way of proving is indeed a new method but not infallible For why shall I believe him that others have done that which he with all their Light given him and his own dar'd not undertake to do himself Since he then could not prove that Protestants do not differ from the primative Christians I will not content my self to say that others have proven that they do differ but I will prove it to him I suppose that Christians in the third age I go no farther then the bounds he allows me did not differ from the second nor the second from the first in their rule of Faith and this supposed I say Protestants now have not the same Rule of Faith which Christians had in the first three Ages then they differ from them The Rule of Faith among those primative Christians was the Holy Scripture as interpreted by Christ the Apostles and their Successors not the Scripture as interpreted by every private Mans best understanding which is the Rule now among Protestants refusing to submit to any Counsel or Synods interpretation of a passage of Scripture if their Judgment stand against it The Disciples of Christ englightn'd as they were did not understand the Scriptures before Christ opened 'em to them and St. Peter Vicar of Christ in that function explaining the Scripture to those of his time told them it did not belong to any private Man to Interpret it 2 Petr. 1 v. 20 and Instanced that many had wrested or miss-Interpreted St. Pauls Words to their own Destruction 2 Petr. 3. v. 16. CHRIST said to Peter feed my Sheep not with Bread but with Doctrine As I cannot Feed that Child who willfully refuses to open his Mouth to receive the Food I offer him no more could Peter Feed those Christians with Doctrine had they refused to open their Ears and to bear it with submission Those Christians then wisely submited to Peter and their followers to his Sucessors being of an equal power to Instruct them for Christ promising to be with his Apostles to the end of the World did not mean with their Persons only who were not to exceed a hundred Years but also with those of their Lawful Successors And so the perpetual Custome of the Church hath been to have recourse in Controversies of Religion to the Sea of Rome it being necessary as St. Ireneus said in the 2. Age for all Churches to have their recourse to her Next to prove to me that the Protestants do not differ from the Primative Christians you must not only say but show me that your whole Church not only some private men takes the Scripture in the same sense their whole Church or leading Church took it in Show me some General Counsel of yours or a Body of Pastors to which you all unanimously submit and then I will understand what your Church holds otherwayes not And because you will not submit to any such Body I can never understand how you agree with the Christians of primative times Neither send me to your professions of Faith â—oâ— first in these all Protestants do not agree We agree say you in Fundamentals I ask what are the Fundamentals in which you agree with all other Protestant Churches Here you are at a stand And I also For if you don't assign me them how shall I know that in them precisely you all agree Beside most of the Articles of those Professions are meer Negatives of Catholick Articles unknown as you say not I to the primitive Christians and I say if they did not know those our Articles neither had they a knowledge of the Negations of them which is posterior to the knowledge of the things of which they are Negations And so not knowing those your Articles they did not in them agree with you But Romanists say you cannot say that they agree with the Christians who liv'd in the first three Ages because they have brought in many Novelties unheard of to them As the Invocations of Saints Adoration of the Holy Host Veneration of Pictures and the Popes power in order to teach us what we ought to believe for if you mean of the deposing power you know tho' some Catholicks hold it none is bound to believe it since the Church hath not defin'd it Ans You say we have brought in Novelties but you don't prove it But I say if those our Tenets you call novelties were not heard of in the first three ages neither were the denyals of them for the denyal is alwayes posterior to the knowledge of the thing deny'd these then denyals brought iâ— by you and believed by you with Divine Faith are Novelties brought in by you and consequently by them you differ from the primitive Christians Do not you believe for Example as an Article of Faith that there is no Transubstantiation If not then we Catholicks who believe Transubstantiation believe nothing contrary to Divine Faith And so of all the rest And by this means you will be found Guilty of Schism for leaving us You say its certain that standing to the Fundamentals we are Guilty of a Superstruction I ask once again what these Fundamentals of Christianity