Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	church_n	true_a	unity_n	1,784	5	9.4467	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29779	The late converts exposed, or, The reasons of Mr. Bays's changing his religion considered in a dialogue : part the second : with reflections on the life of St. Xavier, Don Sebastian King of Portugal, as also the fable of the bat and the birds.	Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5061; ESTC R13424	82,114	78

such a sort of Water but only differ in the making it you pour in some Salt and then exorcise the Devil out of both the Creatures before he was ever in them and afterwards ascribe the Lord knows what efficacy to this rare composition but for all that I believe Athenaeus's Holy Water if a man would try it is as good as yours to all intents and purposes and confers a much Grace to such as discreetly use it Durandus and the Doway-Catechism give several Pious Reasons for the Sacerdotal Tonsure Now Herodetus tells us the very same custom was used by the AEgyptian Priests but they as we are informed by him did it not upon the score of Religion but only to keep themselves from being Lousy and no question on 't shaving in that hot Climate where you see the fashion first began was very commendable and as I take it requisite for the Laity as well as the Clergy and this reason I look upon to be ten times more satisfactory and solid than what your Divines give for the Tonsure for it 's the easiest thing in the World to turn that into a Religious Observation which at first was only a Civil Custom and then to give abundance of fine plausible Reasons for the doing of it A man might easily trace the rest of your superstitious practices and tell you whence you had them but that Mr. Bays would require too much time and therefore I shall on purpose pass them by That which vexes me most is to see that the people of your Communion are not content to do these foolish ridiculous things but they must offer such reasons for them as if they were of Divine Institution Let him kiss me with the kiss of his Mouth therefore the Priest must kiss the Altar Thou shalt see my back parts therefore the Priest must turn his back to the people Wash me again therefore the Priest must wash his hands twice Put off thy Shooes for this place is holy Therefore the Bishop at Mass must change his Shooes and Stockings Christ is the Rock and therefore the Altar must be of Stone and therefore say I if such Reasons as these will hold Water two Priests may play a Game at Cards upon the Altar and do no harm at all but edify the Congregation for the Ace may put them in mind of the Unity and the Tray of the Trinity and the Knave of Iudas and so on till they have run through the whole History of the Christian Religion And thus likewise they may play at Sword and Buckler to signifie the perpetual scuffle between the Flesh and the Spirit and what a fine Buckler Faith is and thus instead of Incense they may smoak a Pipe of Tobacco which by the by is less chargeable than Incense and will serve much better to fright the Devil out of Church to denote that sinful man is Dust and Ashes and to represent the Conflagration to them Thus they may play at Blind-mans Buff to show how blind the Sons of Adam are in their Natural State and and thus they may do ten thousand such freaks as these and yet not want very good reasons to support the practice of them because there is nothing in the World too fulsom and gross for superstition to swallow and for ignorance and interest to justifie And now Mr. Bays we have run over all the objections you made against the Church of England and endeavoured to answer them Now if you please to perform the second part of your promise and give us your reasons why you settled in the Romish Communion you 'll extreamly oblige us But first Boy fill us a Dish of Tea apiece Bays Well Gentlemen I shall give you my Reasons tho I must tell you beforehand I expect no other answers to them but Banter and Drollery from persons of your complexion But as I have already been a Confessor for my Religion so if my Destinies require it I am ready to be a Martyr for it as my Brother Poet Prudentius was before me Crites Oh I understand your meaning you have lost your Laureats and Historiographers place whether you abdicated or forfeited it is not now the question Here Boy give Mr. Bays a Dish of Tea and now dear Confessor prithee begin Bays To make short work of it then being well satisfy'd of the truth of the Christian Religion but Crites And was 't thou so little Bays But how can a man believe thee Come if the truth were known I am sure thou hast the Alcoran in the belly of thee nay don't despair dear Confessor Louis le Grand will set the great Turk upon his Leggs again one of these days Bays Nay Sir if you are at that sport I have done Eugen. Why prethee Mr. Bays I took thee for a man of more Philosophy and all that than to be thus disturb'd for so small a matter I thought you had been of Socrates's opinion that all creatures could not affront you Bays I am indeed Sir and thank you heartily for reminding me of him so now I 'll proceed Being as I told you very well satisfied of the truth of the Christian Religion but not so well satisfied that the Church of England was the true Church I cast my eyes round about me and discover'd in the Church of Rome several particulars which no other Communion of Christians in the World cou'd pretend to as Infallibility Unity Uiversality Antiquity and Clemency and therefore here I settled After some conversation and experience I found here to be a Church of so severe a Discipline so examplary a Devotion so admirable an Unity so majestic a Grandeur that I believe I may be pardon'd the expression if I say she has been so far from debauching and corrupting that she has even improv'd the Christian Religion Crites Nay I 'll say that for your Church Mr. Bays she has as good a hand at improving of hints as ever any Church in the World had As for example the Rhetorical Apostrophes and Flourishes of the first Fathers to the Saints she has improved into a solemn Invocation of them Eugen. The idle conjectures of some melancholly persons about a middle place in the fourth Century she has improv'd into a real Purgatory peopled it with inhabitants and by certain refrigerium's so corrected the unwholesomness of the air that it wou'd be now nothing nigh so great a punishment to pass a winter there as any where under the Line Crites The Virgin Mary's salutation she has improved into a Prayer the Real Presence into a Corporal one the civil respect that was formerly given to the Relicks of Martyrs into a Religious Veneration of them Eugen. Primitive Institution left us only two Sacraments which she has since improv'd into seven The first Missionaries of our Religion bequeath'd but twelve Articles to be believ'd by us and she has lately improved them into the jolly number of aff's Buckram-men twenty four Crites St. Paul tells us of one

for it For if St. Ierom's word may be taken all the Apostles except St. Iohn and St. Paul were Married and when the famous Controversie of the Celebration of Easter was so warmly disputed between the Eastern and Western Churches Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus alledges the example of seven of his Progenitors who had successively governed that See to justifie his own practice Were the Primitive Christians then of the first and purest Ages uncapable of living up to that height of self-denyal and Austerity which the worst men recommended and the worst times cou'd practice Or did the Christian Church require as long a time to arrive to the height of Spiritual perfection as it had to ascend to its temporal greatness Were their Appetites more ungovernable in the ten first Centuries or did the succeeding Ages light upon more effectual restringents to subdue ' em Yes certainly Mr. Bays they did For as I take it the sanctifying Miracles of Whip cord were not so Universally acknowledged then as afterwards nor St. Francis's receit for an erection by running into a heap of Snow so generally made use of and then the virtue of a long Pilgrimage the carrying about one this Saints Thumb and that Saints set of Teeth the Praying before such an Image or such an Altar but above all the recommending ones self to the Virgin Marys protection were not things of so universal practice and approbation in the earlier times And perhaps after all the gift of continence was not to be bestow'd upon the Church Militant till the sacrifice of the Mass was born that only an immaculate Priesthood might be concerned with that immaculate Sacrifice or till the Popes had planted Heaven with store enough of Submediators to implore a sufficient stock of Grace for their Friends here upon Earth Indeed Pope Siricius towards the end of the Fourth Century in his Epistle to the Spanish Clergy quotes this sorry place out of Scripture to fright 'em from their Wives Si secundum Carnem vixeritis moriemini to which citation we 'l only oppose another Text of the same Apostle melius est nubere quam uri and so we 'l leave him However by this single passage Mr. Bays you may perceive with what eagerness and fury your infallible Guide snaps at any solitary Text in the Bible which he thinks will countenance any of his innovations or make for his purpose A Puny Courtier never waited with half that impatience for a gracious nod or a merciful wink from a rising Favourite as infallibility it self waited here for one lonely unguarded place in the New-Testament to back his Cause I don't question but the Old Gentleman turned over the whole Book from Genesis to the Revelations with as much concern as ever you did Mr. Bays to find out Nick-names for your Absolon and Achitophel But what advantage has he done his cause by producing this Text Why none at all but the greatest disservice imaginable Si secundum Carnem Vixeritis moriemini Why it destroys Celibacy and Fornication the heir apparent of Celibacy to all intents and purposes and I don 't at all question but that the unerring Intelligencer if he had slept a little and consulted his ●illow wou'd have been of another opinion next Morning but it seems he was fully resolved to shew his infallibility one way or another and he has done it with a witness for he 's most infallibly in the wrong Upon the whole Mr. Bays and I hope you have good nature enough to forgive me this small digression I make this observation that Saint Peters successor can steer his Ecclesiastical Mackarel-boat with a side wind if occasion serve from any part of the Bible whether Canonical or Uncanonical 't is all a case A little Scripture at Rome I dare engage will go farther than Copper mony in Ireland 't is not at present the commodity of the place and I am very well satisfied that a man with a foot or two of Scripture nay rather than fail with an ell of Tobit and the Maccabees for we ought in Conscience to make allowances for Apocryphal ground to purchase a dozen of the best Acres in the Vatican planted with the most Apostolical Traditions And this is a mysterie which I cannot comprehend For if the notion of Infallibility will solve all the Phaenomena's of your Religion why for God's sake do you take sanctuary in the Bible and if the Bible is necessary to support your pretentions why do you so shamefully discard and abandon it when it has done your business This way of proceeding is so very brutal and ungenerous that it puts me in mind of a late Monarch that was brought to his Throne and settled in it by a certain well-meaning Church and when he thought he had no farther occasion for her very decently laid her aside for all her former services As the case stands at present your Savoy-Divines are as glad to be own'd by a Friend in the New-Testament as a needy Courtier is of being own'd by a City security but I profess I don't see the necessity of such a Conduct What other people may think I don't know but I had much rather take the invocation of Saints upon honest Infallibilities word for it than with Bellarmine deduce it from that passage of Iob And he shall pray for thee And a thousand times sooner take the Half-communion upon the same credit than pretend to justifie it as Bishop Fisher has done out of Give us this day our daily bread 'T is the most unaccountable nonsense in my opinion that a man can be capable of to subpoena half a score witnesses to appear for him at Westminster-Hall that when they are examined tell a clean contrary story and so ruine his Cause and this Mr. Bays I take to be the case of your own Polemics they freely upon all occasions as is manifest from their late Pamphlets endeavour to prove all their Tenets out of the Bible yet they manage the matter so indiscreetly that every Tradesman can charge 'em with false inferences and indeed after all their attempts the holy Pen-men will scarce be perswaded to serve an apprenticeship to the modern trade of misrepresenting Now I cou'd acquaint 'em Mr. Bays with a certain method that shall preserve their reputation in all companies let 'em pretend to Miracles among the Indians to Antiquity among the Quakers to Holiness of Life among the Ranters to Unity among the Independants to Loyalty and Good Works among the Presbyterians to Decency of Worship among the Adamites to Learning among the Anabaptists and to the Merits of their Faith among the Socinians Let e'm quote Scripture before Physitians quote the Fathers before Ladies talk of Councils before Souldiers and conjure up the Trinity before those that don't believe Transubstantion Let 'em pretend to Austerity of Living among the Beaux of the Town to Universality among the Muggletonians and what must be carefully observed to Tradition only among the Courtiers for they