Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	believe_v	divine_a	revelation_n	3,649	5	9.8192	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26588	A discourse of wit by David Abercromby ...	Abercromby, David, d. 1701 or 2.	1686 (1686)	Wing A82; ESTC R32691	73,733	250

possibility thereof by what I see daily in Nature in the grafting of one Tree upon another so that two Natures become now but one by union and one almost individual Principle of their Common Productions The resurrection of our Bodies or that after so many Changes and different Shapes of Worms Serpents Birds Fishes or whatever may feed upon us we shall be at length our numerical selves again is a thing that I incline to believe upon experience when I observe some Liquors or Waters perfectly corrupted to recover themselves though neither this nor the foregoing Motives could ever make me a Christian without the Authority of Divine Revelation which I neither take from the Romish English nor Greek but from the Catholick and Universal Church conceiv'd by the Unbyass'd and Understanding sort to be compounded of all such and the like particular true Christian Assemblies Thus what all true Christians grant and never debated this and no other I take to be an article of Divine Faith necessary to Salvation if sufficiently proposed I look upon the rest as Supernumerary or at the utmost as probable opinions that may be disputed to and fro amongst Schoolmen but ought not to be impos'd upon Christians as Articles of Divine Faith without the belief of which their Names are rased out of the Book of Life I believe then not only that there is a Catholick Church Credo Ecclesiam Catholicam but likewise Credo Ecclesiae Catholicae I believe whatever it unamiously decides for Audi Ecclesiam hearken to the Church is a true obligation but the Romanist is extreamly prejudic'd when he means always the Romish Church as if it were as it now stands truly universal whereas 't is but a Member and a very unsound one too of that great Body we must all submit to I have observed another common mistake of the less discerning Sort of Romanists which is this They pretend to a considerable advantage over Protestants from Antiquity but reflect not that their Church is no otherwise distinguish'd from the reformed part of the World than by meer Novelties and Mysteries unheard of in the first three Centuries For I know no other material difference between a Protestant and a Romanist but that the former adheres closely to the Doctrine of the Primitive times whereas the latter takes for an articie of Divine Faith not only what the universal Church held from all times but whatever the particular Church of Rome hath declar'd since to be reveal'd Yet because I was ever of opinion that every man must stand or fall by the verdict of his own Conscience I think it neither fit nor a good use of Wit to quarrel with any man upon the account of his Religion 3. I shall therefore do better perhaps to clear in this point those of my own Profession I mean the Phisitians from a foul and too general aspersion of the vulgar sort alledging that they are not much concern'd with what we call Religion For 't is commonly to our great scandal said Ex tribus medicis duo Athei that of three Physitians there are but two Atheists I am without Prejudice of a quite contrary opinion and think it no Paradox to say that none are so Religious as Physitians or at least that none have greater opportunities to raise their Souls to the highest Degree of Perfection Which if I prove to conviction nothing more can rationally be required for the taking away this general scandal of our Profession What I shall say of Physitians must needs be understood of their near Relations the natural Philosophers who likewise if we credit the bigotted part of Mankind are no great Patrons of either Virtue or Religion Would one think that two contrary Causes could have the same Influence or the same effect yet nothing more conformable to Truth Thus I hold that as ignorance is commonly the Mother of Devotion in most men I mean in the duller sort of Mankind so Knowledge the opposite extream begets undoubtedly Piety and Religion in such as have eyes to discover God in the Works of his Power But who has a greater conveniency for making of such useful Discoveries than Physitians whether we consider the Object of their Art or the Subject thereof The former I take to be whatever is contained in the three Kingdoms as they speak in the Animal Vegetative and Mineral where they cannot but admire that Soveraign being Fatherly Providence over Mankind in the production of whatever may prove instrumental to the conservation of our Health and Life The latter I apprehend to be no other than that wonderful Engine of our Body whose wonderful Structure may furnish them with higher Sentiments of God than that of the Universe it self Thus a Phisitian considering this most ingenious Fabrick cannot but raise his thoughts towards the Maker thereof For no man in his Wits will take the Coition or rather Cohalition of all the parts of our Body into such a comely and proportionable texture to be meer fortuitous and not the real effect of Art and Wisdom I know not then whereon is grounded the general prejudice against this noble and necessary Science which the Divines themselves especially those of the Romish perswasion seem to be more concerned in than Physitians For he was not perhaps guilty of a very flat untruth who inverting thus the common word said Ex tribus Theologici duo Athei That of three Divines its odds but two are Atheists or in my less severe judgment perhaps meer Deists because pretending sometimes to circumscribe our Mysteries within the Circumference of their narrow Understandings they often fall from believing what by their Weak Reason they cannot reach and so turning Christianism into Deism they cease to be in their Hearts what for interest sake they make an outward Profession of The Romish Divines to the great Scandal of the World busie themselves in their Schools in laying open the Arguments that humane acuteness may frame against the possibility of Christ's Incarnation as if their answers grounded upon these obscure principles of Faith could prove evident confutations of such Objections as seem to us to rely upon Evidence I know no shorter way than this to Deism and thence by degrees to Atheism when they teach that the most illuminate Angel could not by the meer light of Nature fall into the least suspicion of the possibility of an Hypostatical Union do they not give occasion to the weaker sort to think that this Mystery is not only above but against reason Yet I was scandaliz'd at nothing more than neither to hear nor propose any demonstration of the existency of God which they pretend not to confute with a show of probability as if Atheism were a probable opinion which seems to be the consequence of their Doctrine for though each one claims to a demonstration of Gods being actually in nature yet no two do ever agree upon the same what the one affirms the other denies with equal grounds as