Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	hear_v	heathen_a	publican_n	4,379	5	11.4435	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76258	Certamen religiosum or, a conference between His late Majestie Charles King of England, and Henry late Marquess and Earl of Worcester, concerning religion; at His Majesties being at Raglan Castle, 1646. Wherein the maine differences (now in controversie) between the Papists and the Protestants is no lesse briefly then accuratly discusss'd and bandied. Now published for the worlds satisfaction of His Majesties constant affection to the Protestant religion. By Tho: Baylie Doctor in Divinity and Sub-Deane of Wels.	Bayly, Thomas, d. 1657?; Charles I, King of England, 1600-1649.; Worcester, Henry Somerset, Marquis of, 1577-1646.	1649 (1649)	Wing B1506; Thomason E1355_1; ESTC R209153	85,962	251

non una exors quaedam iminens detur potestas tot efficerentur in Ecclesia schismata quot Sacerdotes Wherefore I would faine find out that which the Scripture bids me hear audi Ecclesiam I would faine referre my self to that to which the Scripture commands me to appeale and tells me that if I do not I shall be a heathen and a Publican dic Ecclesiae which Church Saint Paul in his first Epistle calls the pillar and foundation of Truth of which the Propbet Ezekiel saith I will place my Sanctification in the midst of her for ever and the Prophet Esay that the Lord would never forsake her in whose light the people shall walke and Kings in the brightness of her Orient Against which our Saviour saith The gates of Hell shall not pervaile with whom our Saviour saith he would be alwayes unto the end of the world And from whom the Spirit of Truth should never depart For although the Psalmist tells us that the word of the Lord is clear inlightning the eyes yet the same Prophet said to God Enlighten mine eyes that I may see the marveils of thy Law And Saint John tells us that the book of God had seven Seales and it was not every one that was thought worthy to open it onely the lambe The Disciples had been ignorant if Jesus had not opened the Scriptures unto them The Eunuch could not understood them without an Interpreter and Saint Peter tels us that the Scripture is not of private Interpretation and that in his brother Pauls epistles there are many things hard to be understood which ignorant and light-headed-men wrest to their own perdition Wherefore though as Saint Chrysostom saith Omnia clara sunt plana exscripturis divinis quaecunque necessaria sunt manifesta sunt yet no man ever hath yet defined what are necessary and what not What points are fundamentall and what are not fundamentall Necessary to Salvation is one thing and necessary for knowledge as an improvement of our faith is an other thing for the first if a man keeps the Commandments and believes all the Articles of the Creed he may be saved though he never read a word of Scripture but much more assuredly if he meditates upon Gods word with the Psalmist day and night But if he meanes to walk by the rule of Gods word and to search the Scriptures he must lay hold upon the means that God hath ordained whereby he may attain unto the true understanding of them for as Saint Paul saith God hath placed in the Church Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors to the end we should be no more little children blowen about with every wind of Doctrine therefore it is not for babes in understanding to take upon them to understand those things wherein so great a Prophet as the Prophet David confessed the darkness of his own ignorance And though it be true the Scripture is a river through which a lambe may wade and an Elephant may swim yet it is to be supposed and understood that the lambe must wade but onely through where the river is foordable It doth not suppose the river to be all alike in depth for such a river was never heard of but there may be places in the river where the lambe may swim as well as the Elephant otherwise it is impossible that an Elephant should swim in the same depth where a lambe may wade though in the same river he may neither is it the meaning of that place that the child of God may wade through the Scripture without directions help or Judges but that the meanest capacitie qualified with a harmeless innocence and desirous to wade through that river of living waters to eternal life may find so much of Comfort and heavenly knowledge there easily to be obtained that he may easily wade through to his eternal Salvation and that there are also places in the same river wherein the highest speculations may plunge themselves in the deep misteries of God Wherefore with pardon crav'd for my presumption in holding Your Majestie in so tedious a discourse as also for my boldness in obtruding my opinion which is except as incomparable Hooker in his Ecclesiasticall pollicy hath well observed the Churches Authority be required herein as necessary hereunto we shall be so far from agreeing upon the true meaning of the Scripture that the outward letter sealed with the inward witness of the Spirit being all hereticks have quoted Scripture and pretended Spirit will not be a warrant sufficient enough for any private man to judge so much as the Scripture to be Scripture or the Gospel it self to be the Gospel of Christ This Church being found out and her Authority allowed of all controversies would be soon decided and although we allow the Scripture to be the lock upon the door which is Christ yet we must allow the Church to be the Key that must open it as Saint Ambrose in his 38. Sermon calls the agreement of the Apostles in the Articles of our beliefe Clavis Scripturae one of whose Articles is I believe the holy Catholick Church As the Lion wants neither strength nor courage nor power nor weapons to seize upon his prey yet he wants a nose to find it out wherefore by naturall instinct he takes to his assistants the little Jack-call a quick sented beast who runs before the Lion and having found out the prey in his language gives the Lion notice of it who soberly untill such time as he fixes his eyes upon the bootie makes his advance but once comming within view of it with a more speed then the swiftest running can make hast he jumps upon it and seizes it Now to apply this to our purpose Christ crucified is the main substance of the Gospel according to the Apostles saying I desire to know nothing but Jesus and him crucified This crucified Christ is the nourishment of our soules according to our Saviours own words Vbi Cadaver ibi aquilae Thereby drawing his Disciples from the curious speculation of his body glorified to the profitable meditation of his body crucified It is the prey of the Elect the dead Carkes feedeth the Eagles Christ crucified nourisheth his Saints according to Saint Johns saying except we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud we have no life in us him we must mastigate and chew by faith traject and convey him into our hearts as nutriment by meditation and digest him by Coalition whereby we grow one with Christ and Christ becomes one with us according to that saying of Tertullian auditu devorandus est intellectu ruminandus fide digerendus Now for the true understanding of the Scriptures which is no other thing then the finding out of Jesus and him crucified who is the very life of the Scriptures which body of Divinitie is nourished with no other food and all its vaines fil'd with no other bloud though this heavenly food the Scripture have neither force nor

you deny it we say his body is there you say there is nothing but bare bread we have Scripture for it Mat. 20. 26. Take eat this is my body so Luke 22. 19. This is my body which is given for you You say that the bread which we must eat in the Sacrament is but dead bread Christ saith that that bread is living bread you say how can this man give us his flesh to eat we say that that was the objection of Jewes and Infidels 1 John 6. 25. not of Christians and believers you say it was spoken figuratively we say it was spoken really revera or as we translate it indeed John 6. 55. But as the Jewes did so do ye first murmur that Christ should be bread John 6. 41. Secondly that that bread should be flesh John 6. 52. And thirdly that that flesh should be meat indeed John 6. 55. untill at last you cry out with the unbelievers this is a hard saying who can hear it John 6. 60. had this been but a figure certainly Christ would have removed the doubt when he saw them so offended at the reallity Joh. 6. 61. He would not have confirmed his saying in terminis with promise of a greater wonder John 6. 62. you may as well deny his incarnation his ascention and ask ●ow could the man come down from heaven and go up again if incomprehensibility should be sufficient to occasion such scruples in your breasts and that which is worse then naught you have made our Saviours conclusion an argument against the premises for where our Saviour tels them thus to argue according unto flesh and bloud in these words the flesh profiteth nothing and that if they will be enlivened in their understanding they must have faith to believe it in these words it is the Spirit that quickneth John 6. 63. They pervert our Saviours meaning into a contrary sense of their own imagination viz. the flesh profiteth nothing that is to say Christs body is not in the Sacrament but it the Spirit that quickneth that is to say we must onely believe that Christ dyed for us but not that his body is there as if there were any need of so many inculcations pressures offences mis-believings of and in a thing that were no more but a bare memoriall of a thing being a thing nothing more usuall with the Israelites as the twelve stones which were errected as a sign of the children of Israels passing over Jordan That when your children shall ask their Fathers what is meant thereby then ye shall answer them c. Josh 4. there would not have been so much difficulty in the belief if there had not been more in the mystery there would not have been so much offence taken at a memorandum nor so much stumbling at a figure The Fathers are of this opinion Saint Ignat. in Ep ad Smir. Saint Justin Apol 2. ad Antonium Saint Cyprian Ser. 4. de lapsis Saint Ambr. lib. 4. de Sacram. Saint Remigius c. affirm the flesh of Christ to be in the Sacrament and the same flesh which the word of God took in the Virgins wombe Secondly We hold tbat there is in the Church an infallible rule for understanding of Scripture besides the Scripture it self this you deny this we have Scripture for as Rom. 12 16. we must prophesie according to the rule of faith we are bid to walke according to this rule Gal. 6. 16. we must encrease our faith and preach the Gospel according to this rule 1 Cor. 10. 15 this rule of faith the holy Scriptures call a form of doctrine Romans 6. 17. a thing made ready to our hands 2. Cor. 10. 16. that we may not measure our selves by our selves 2 Cor. 10. 12. the depositions committed to the Churches trust 1 Tim. 6. 20. for avoiding of prophane and vain bablings and oppositions of sciences and by this rule of faith is not meant the holy Scriptures for that cannot do it as the Apostle tels us whilst there are unstable men who wrest this way and that way to their own destruction but it is the tradition of the Church and her exposition as it is delivered from hand to hand as most plainly appears 2 Tim. 2. 2. viz. The things which thou hast heard of us not received in writing from me or others among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithfull men who shall be able to teach it to others also Of this opinion are the Fathers Saint Irenaeus 4. chap. 45. Tertull de praescr and Vnicent lir in suo commentario saith It is very needfull in regard of so many errors proceeding from mis-interpretations of Scripture that the line of propheticall and Apostolicall exposition should be directed according to the rule of the Ecclesiasticall and Catholike sense and saith Tertullian praescript advers haeres chap. 11. We do not admit our adversaries to dispute out of Scripture till they can shew who their Ancestors were and from whom they received the Scriptures for the ordinary course of doctrine requires that the first question should be from whom and by whom and to whom the form of Christian Religion was delivered otherwise prescribing against him as a stranger for otherwise if a heathen should come by the Bible as the Eunuch came by the Prophesie of Esay and have no Philip to enterpret it unto him he would find out a Religion rather according to his own fancy then divine verritie In matters of faith Christ bids us to observe and doe whatsoever they bid us who fit in Moses seat Mat. 22. 2. therefore surely there is something more to be observed then only Scripture will you not as well believe what you hear Christ say as what ye hear his Ministers write you hear Christ when you hear them as well as you read Christ when you read his word He that heareth you heareth me Luke 10. 16. We say the Scriptures are not easie to be understood you say they are we have Scripture for it as is before manifested at large the Fathers say as much Saint Irenaeus lib. 2. chap. 47. Origen contr Cels and Saint Ambr. Epist 44. ad Constant calleth the Scripture a Sea and depth of propheticall riddles and Saint Hier. in praefat comment in Ephes and Saint Aug Epist 119. chap 21 saith The things of holy Scripture which I know not are more then those that I know and Saint Denis Bishop of Corinth cited by Eusebius lib. 7. hist. Eccles 20. saith of the Scriptures that the matter thereof was far more profound then his wit could reach We say that this Church cannot erre you say it can we have Scripture for what we say such Scripture that will tell you that fools cannot erre therein Esaiah 35. 8. such Scripture as will tell you if you neglect to hear it you shall be a heathen and a publican Mat. 18. 17. such Scripture as will tell you that this Church shall be unto Christ a glorious Church a Church that shall be

penknife of Apoccrypha Ruffinus challengeth him for so doing and tells him of the gap that he hath opened for wild beasts to enter into this field of the Church and tread down all ill corn Jerom gives his reasons because they were not found in the Originall Copie as if the same spirit which gave to those whom it did inspire the diversities of tongues should it self be tied to one language but withall he acknowledgeth this much of those books which he had thus markt in the forehead Canonici sunt ad informandos mores sed non ad confirmandam fidem how poor a Distinction this is and how pernitious a president this was I leave it to Your Majestie to judge for after him Luther takes the like boldness and at once takes away the three Gospels of Mark Luke and John Others take away the epistle to the Hebrews others the epistle of Saint Jude others the second and third epistles of Saint Peter others the epistle of Saint James others the whole book of the Revelation Wherefore to permit what the Church proposes to be questionable by particular men is to bring down the Church the Scriptures and the Heavens upon our heads there was a Church before there was a Scripture which Scripture as to us had not been the Word of God if the Church had not made it so by teaching us to believe it The preaching of the Gospel was before the writing of the Gospell the Divine Truth that dispersed it self over the face of the whole earth before i'ts Divinitie was comprised within the Cannon of the Scripture was like that Primeva Lux which the world received before the light was gathered into the body of the Sun this body so glorious and comfortable is but the same light which was before we cannot make it an other though it be otherwise and therefore though the Church and the Scripture like the light that is concomitant and precedent to the Sun be distinct in tearms yet they are but one the same no man can see the Sun but by it's own light shut your eyes from this light and you cannot behold the body of the Sun Shut your eyes against one and you are blind in both he never had God to be his Father who had not the Church to be his Mother if you admit Sillogismes a priori you will meet with many paralogismes a posteriori cry down the Churches Authoritie pull out the Scriptures efficacie give but the Church the lie now and then and you shall have enough will tell you the Scripture is false here and there they who have set so little by the tradition of the Church have set by halfe the Scriptures and will at last throw all away wherefore in a word as to denie any part of the Scripture were to open a vain so to question any thing which the Church proposes is to teare the seamlesse Coat of Christ and to pierce his body King My Lord I see you are better provided with Arguments then I am with memorie to run through the series of your Discourse satisfie me but in one thing and I shall soone yield to all that you have said and that is concerning this Catholick Church you talke of I know the creed tels us that we must believe it and Christ tells us that we must hear it but neither tell us that that is the Church of Rome Marq. Gratious Sir the creed tells us that it is the Catholick Church and Saint Paul tells us in his epistle to the Romans that their faith was spread abroad through the whole world King That was the Faith which the Romanes then believed which is nothing to the Roman Faith which is now believed Marq. The Romane Faith then and now are the same King I denie that my Lord. Marq. When did they alter their Faith King That requires a librarie neither is it requisite that I tell you the time when if the envious man sowes his tares whilst the husband-man was asleep and afterwards he awakes and sees the tares are they not tares because the hushand-man knowes not when they were sown Marq. And if it please Your Majestie in a thing that is so apparent your similitude holds good but in the differences between us and the protestants are not so without dispute as that it is yet granted by the major part of Christians that they are errours which we believe contrary to Your Tenents and therefore the similitude holds not but I shall humbly intreat Your Majestie to consider the proofes which the learned Cardinal Peroone hath made concerning this particular in his answer to Your Royall Father his Apologie to all Christian Princes where he proves how that all the Tenents which are in controversie now between you and us were practised in the Church of Christ within the first three hundred years wherefore I think it would be no injury to reason to require belief that that which hath been so long continued in the Church and so universaly received and no time can be set down when those Tenents or Ceremonies did arise must needs be Catholick for time and place and Apostolical for institution though we have no warrant from the Scriptures to believe them to be such For the Apostle Saint Paul commanded Timothy to keep fast the things which he had delivered unto him as well by word as by writ Wherefore if we will believe no tradition we may come at last to believe no writings King That was your own fault wherefore I blame your Church for the way to make the Scriptures not believed were to adde unto them new inventions and say they were Scriptures Marq. If the Church of Christ had so mean esteeme then as amongst some she hath now certainly the former books received into her Cannon would have been much prejudiced by the admittance of the latter wherefore if the Church be questionable then all is brought in question King My Lord you have not satisfied me where this Church is and as concerning the Cardinals book I have seen it and have read a part of it but do not remember neither do I believe that he hath prov'd that which you say Marq. It may be the proofes were in that part of the book which Your Majestie did not read and as for my proving the Romane Church to be this Church by which we should be all guided I thus shall do my endeavour That Church whose Doctrine is most Catholick and universall must be the Catholick Church but the Romane Church is such Ergo. King My Lord I denie your Minor the Romane Church is not more universall the Grecian Church is far more spreading and if it were not it were no Argument for the Church of the Mahumetanes is larger then both Marq. First This is no Argument either for an English Man or a Protestant but for a Grecian or Mahumetane not for an English Man because he received his Conversion from Rome and therefore he in Reason should not

wish that all Controversies betwixt you and Us were as well decided I am fully satisfied in this point Doctor May it please Your Majestie A great many Controversies between us and the Papists might be soon decided if the Churches revennues which were every where taken away more or less where differences in Religion in several parts of the world did arise in the Church were not an obstacle of the reunion like the stone which the Crab cast into the Oyster which hindred it from ever shutting it self again like the division which happened between the Greek and Latin Church Photinus intrudes himself into the Patriarch-ship of Constantinople over the head of Ignatius the lawfull Patriarch thereof whom the Pope preserved in his Communion and then the difference of the Procession of the holy Ghost between those two Churches was fomented by the sayd Photinus least the wound should heale to soone and the patient should not be held long enough in cure for the benefit of the Chyrurgion Sacriledge hath brought more divisions then the nature of their causes have required and the universities play with edged tools whilst hungry stomacks run away with their meat wherefore since Your Majestie was pleased to discharge the watch that I had set before the door of my lips I shall make bold to put Your Majestie in mind of houlding my Lord to the demand which Your Majestie once made unto his Lordship concerning the true Church for if once that Question were througly determined all Controversies not onely between Your Majestie his Lordship but also all the Controversies that ever were started would soon be decided at a short race end and without this we take away the meanes of reconciliation For I must confesse ingeniously yet under the highest correction that there is not a thing that I ever understood less then that assertion of the Scriptures being judge of Controversies though in some sence I must and will acknowledge it but not as it is a book consisting of papers words and letters for as we commonly say in matters of civil differences the Law shall be the Judge between us we do not mean that every man shall run unto the Law books or that any Lawyer himself shall search his Law-cases and thereupon possess himself of any thing that is in question between him and another without a legall trial and determination by lawfull Judges constituted to that same purpose In like manner saving knowledge and Divine Truths are the portion that all Gods children layes fast claime unto yet they must not be their own carvers though it is their own meat that is before them whilst they have a mother at the table They must not slight all Orders Constitutions Appeales and Rules of Faith Saving knowledge and Divine Truths are not to be wrested from the Scripture by private hands for then the Scripture were of private interpretation which is against the Apostles Rule neither are those undefiled incorruptible and immaculate inheritances which are reserved for us in heaven to be conveighed unto us by any Privy-seales For there is nothing more absurd to my understanding then to say that the thing contested which is the true meaning of the Scriptures shall be Judge of the Contestation no way inferiour to that absurditie which would follow would be this if we should leave the deciding of the sence of the words of the Law to the preoccupated understanding of one of the Advocates neither is this all the absurditie that doth arise upon this Supposition for if you grant this to one you must grant it to any one and to every one if there were but two how will you reconcile them both If you grant that this judicature must be in many there are many manyes which of the manyes will you have decide but that and you satisfie all For if you make the Scripture the Judge of Controversie you make the reader Judge of the Scripture as a man consists of a soul and body so the Scripture consists of the letter and the sence if I make the dead letter my Judge I am the greatest and simplest idolater in the world it will tell me no more then it told the Indian Emperour Powhaton who asking the Jesuite how he knew all that to be true which he had told him and the Jesuite answering him that Gods word did tell him so The Emperour asked him where it was he shewed him his Bible The Emperour after that he had held it in his hands a prittie while answered It tells me nothing But you will say you can read and so you will find the meaning out of the significant Character and when you have done as you apprehend it so it must be and so the Scripture is nothing else but your meaning wherefore necessitie requires an external Judge for determination of differences besides the Scriptures And we can have no better recourses to any then to such as the Scripture it self calls upon us to hear which is the Church which Church would be found out King Doctor Saint John in his first Epistle tells us that the holy Scripture is that to whose truth the Spirit beareth witness And John the Evangelist tells us that the Scripture is that which gives a greater Testimonie of Christ then John the Baptist Saint Luke tells us that if we believe not the Scripture we would not believe though one were risen from the dead and Christ himself who raised men from death to life tells us they cannot believe his words if they believe not in Moses writings Saint Peter tells us that the holy Scriptures is surer then a voice from heaven Saint Paul tells us that it is lively in operation and whereby the Spirits demonstrates his power and that it is able to make a man wise to salvation able to save our soules and that it is sufficient too to make us believe in Christ to live everlasting John 20. As in every seed there is a Spirit which meeting with earth heat and moisture grows to perfection so the seed of the word wherein Gods holy Spirit being sowen in the heart inlivened by the heat of faith and watered with the teares of repentance soon fructifies without any further Circumstance Doctor It doth so but Your Majestie presupposes all this while husband-men and husbandery barnes and threshing floures winnowing and uniting these severall graines into one loafe before it can become childrens bread All that Your Majestie hath said concerning the Scriptures sufficiencie is true provided that those Scriptures be duly handled for as the Law is sufficient to determine right and keep all in peace and quiteness yet the execution of that sufficiencie cannot be performed without Courts and Judges so when we have granted the Scriptures to be all that the most reverend estimation can attribute unto them yet Religion cannot be exercised nor differences in Religion reconciled without a Judge For as Saint Jerom tells us who was no great friend to Popes or Bishops Si