Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	heathen_a	let_v	publican_n	2,742	5	10.9981	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62014	The XXXVI questions propounded for resolution of unlearned Protestants in matter of religion to the doctors of the prelaticall pretended reformed-Church of England, retorted for resolution on unlearned papists in matter of religion, to V.H. and V.N. doctors of the pretended Catholick Church of Rome / by T. Svvadlin ...	Swadlin, Thomas, 1600-1670.	1659 (1659)	Wing S6228; ESTC R38289	40,246	62

was one of those blind Guides which whosoever blindly followes is threatned by our Saviour that both he and his Guide shall fall into the Duch Th●● I hope you will grant it was not Pride but Conscience that moved me so to do for as it is a wise humiliation to obey those whom God hath set over me so it is a sinfull Credulity to follow every man or every Church that without warrant will take upon them to be my Guides Shew then some good and evident title which the Church of Rome hath to this office produce but one reason for it which upon triall will not finally be resolved and vanish into uncertainties and if I yield not unto it say if you please I am as proud as Lucifer In the meane time give me leave to think it strange and not far from a Prodigie that the Doctrine of the Roman Church being the Guide of Faith if it be true Doctrine should either not be known to the four Evangelists or if it were known to them being wise and good men they should either be so envious of the Churches happiness or so forgetfull of the work they took in hand which was to write the whole Gospell of Christ ●s not so much as one of them should mention so much as once this so necessary a part of the Gospell without the belief whereof there is no Salvation and with the belief whereof unless men be snatcht away by suddain death there is hardly any Damnation It is evident they do all of them with one consent speak very plainly of many things of no importance in comparison hereof and is it credible or indeed possible that with one Torrent or rather conspiracy they should be so deeply silent concerning this Unum necessarium You may believe it if you can for my part I cannot unless I see demonstration for it For if you say they send us to the Church and consequently to ●he Church of Rome this is to suppose that which can never be proved viz. That the Church of Rome is the onely Church and without this supposition upon the division of the Church I am as far to seek for a guide of my faith as ever as for Example In that great division of the Church when the whole world wondred saith St. Hierome that it was become Arrian when Liberius Bishop of Rome as St. Athanasius St. Hierome and St. Hillary testifie subscribed their Heresie and joyned in Communion with them or in the division of the Greek and the Roman Church about the Procession of the Holy Ghost when either side was the Church unto it self and each part heretical or schismatical to the other what direction could I then an ignorant man have found from that Text of Scripture Unless he hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen or a Publicane or upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Again give me leave to wonder that neither St. Paul writing to the Romans should so much as intimate this their priviledge of Infallibility but rather the contrary put them in fear in the 11. Chapter because they as well as the Jews were in danger of falling away That St. Peter your pretended Bishop of Rome writing two Catholick Epistles mentioning his departure should not once acquaint the Christians whom he writes to what guide they should follow after he was taken from them That the Writers of the New Testament should so frequently forewarn men of Hereticks false Christs false Prophets and not once arme them against them with letting them know this onely meanes of avoyding their danger That so great a part of the New Testament should be employed against Antichrist and so little indeed none at all about the Vicar of Christ and the Guide of the Faithfull That our Saviour should leave this onely means for the ending of Controversie and speak so obscurely and ambiguously that now our Judge is the greatest controversie and the greatest hindrance of ending them That there should be better evidence in the Scripture to entitle the King to this Office who disclaims it than the Pope who pretends it That St. Peter should never exercise over the Apostles any one Act of Jurisdiction nor they ever give him any one title of Authority over them That if the Apostles did know that St. Peter was made head of them when our Saviour said Thou art Peter they should still contend who should be the first and that our Saviour should not tell them that Peter was the man That St. Paul should say He was in nothing inferior to the very chief Apostles That the Catechumeni in the primitive Church should never be taught this foundation of their faith That the Fathers Tertullian St. Jerome and Optatus when they flew highest in commendation of the Roman Church should attribute no more to her than to all other Apostolical Churches That in the controversie about Easter the Bishops and Churches of Asia should be so ill catechiz'd as not to know this principle of Religion The necessity of conformity with the Church of Rome That they should never be pressed with any such conformity in all things but onely with the particular Tradition of the Western Churches in that point That Fryverus and many other Bishops notwithstanding Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam should not yet think that a necessary nor a sufficient ground of Excommunication which the Church of Rome thought to be so That St. Cyprian and the Bishops of Africk should be so ill instructed in their Faith as not to know this Foundation of it That they likewise were never urged with any such necessity of Conformity with the Church of Rome nor charged with Heresie or Error for denying it That when Liberius joyned in Communion with the Arrians and subscribed their Heresie the Arrians then should not be the Church and Guide of Faith That never any Hereticks for five Ages after Christ were pressed with this Argument of the Infallibility of the present Church of Rome or charged with the deniall of it as a detestable Heresie for that Aeneas Silvius should have cause to say Ante tempora Concilii Nicaeni quisque sibi vivebat parvus respectus habebatur ad Ecclesiam Romanam That the Ecclesiasticall story of those times mention no Acts of Authority of the Church of Rome over other Churches as if there should be a Monarchy and Kings for some Ages together and should exercise no Acts of Jurisdiction in it That to supply this defect the Decretall Epistles should be so impudently forged which in a manner speaks nothing but Reges Monarchas I mean The Popes making Lawes for and exercising Authority over all other Churches That the Africane Churches in St. Austins time should be ignorant that the Pope was Head of the Church and Judge of Appeales jure divino and that there was a Necessity of Conformity with the Church of Rome in

in which contradiction they deserve neither Credit nor Esteem It was once twice trice before but an equalizing Answ 28 but it is now once twice thrice four times an incomparably greater Authority and all this is Gratis dictum prove your Authority greater and but greater without incomparably then ours and we yield in the mean time you shall give me leave to send you this Syllogisme for answer to your Question Protestants alleadging Scripture expounded by the Fathers for the first 800. yeares are at least of an equall Authority with the Church and Doctors of Rome alleadging Scripture without the exposition of those Fathers but Protestants so alleadge Scripture and so the Roman Doctors alleadge Scripture Therefore the Protestants are of an equal Authority at least with the Roman Doctors You will be forced to confesse more than my modesty challenges in the mean time I suspect you for an incomparably cholerick proud man contending more for Triumph than Truth and till you have incomparably proved your Authority seek not to Proselitize an unlearned Protestant to captivate his Faith and Religion to Roman Doctors without Faith or Religion I demand farther Quest 29 That if the Authority of all the Doctors of the whole Body of Protestants be so inconsiderable in comparison with those of the Roman Doctors how much less will be the Authority of any one Sect or Party of them and then how minute and scarce perceptible will be the Authority of a Laud a Hammond a Chilling-worth a Ferne a Bramhall a Taylor c. who now obtain so powerful an ascendant upon the hearts of our modern Lay protestants seeing they are in a manner nothing in respect of the Authority of the Roman Doctors Authoritatively supoken of your Roman Doctors Answ 29 and minutely spoken of Protestants but I pray whom do you intend by Laud so you stile him I knew him Mr. William Land Dr. William Laud Lord Bishop William Laud Lord Archbishop William Laud and know not you his Conference with Fisher Mr. Fisher or Dr. Fisher if he attained so high be answered Sir I can tell you of a Gentleman yet living who in Constantinople at one bout heard ten of your Doctors rejoyce much at the Archbishops death because he was the great if not the greatest enemy your Roman Church ever had and this because he laboured for an Unity and Reconciliation of Christendom answer him when you please or can and till then let him enjoy peace in his Grave without your detracting him as not living to give you his own answer By Chillingworth so you Mr. Chillingworth so I is dead too I pray you when will you answer his Letter to Mr. Lewiger a brother of your own and which I have now sent you till you do let him be in peace too Good Master Lewiger THough I am resolved not to be much afflicted for the loss of that which is not in my power to keep yet I cannot deny but the loss of a friend goes very near to my heart and by this name of friend I did presume till of late I might have called you because that perhaps for want of power and opportunity I have done you no good office yet I have been alwaies willing and ready to do you the best service I could And therefore I cannot but admire at the affected strangenesse which in your last letter to me you seemed to take upon you renouncing in a manner all relation to me and tacitly excommunicating me from all interest in you The superscription of your letter to me is to Mr. W. C. and your subscription is John L. as if you either disdained or made conscience of styling me your friend or your self mine If this proceed from reason I pray shew it If it proceed from passion or weakness I pray mend it If you think me one of those to whom St. John forbids you to say God save you then you are to think prove me one of those deceivers which denyed Jesus Christ to be come in the flesh If you think me an Heretick and therefore to be avoided you must prove me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by my own judgement which I know I cannot and therefore you cannot If you say I do not hear the Church and therefore am to be esteemed an Heathen or Publican you are to prove then that by the Church is meant the Church of Rome And yet when you have done so I hope Christians are not forbidden to shew Humanity and Civility even to Pagans For Gods sake Mr. L. free your self from this blind zeal at least for a little space and consider with reason and moderation what strange crime you can charge me with that I should deserve this strange usage especially from you Is it a crime with all my understanding to endeavour to find your Religion true and to make my self a believer of it and not to be able to do so Is it a crime to employ all my reason upon the justification of the infallibility of the Roman Church and to find it impossible to be justified I will call God to witness who knowes my heart better then you do that I have evened the scale of my judgement as much as possibly I could and have not willingly allowed any one graine of worldly motives on either side but have weighed the reasons for your Religion and against it with such indifferencie as if there were nothing in the world but God and my self and is it my fault that the scale goes down which hath the most weight in it that the building falls which hath a false Foundation Have you such power over your understanding that you can believe what you please though you see no reason or that you can suspend your belief when you do see reason If you have I pray for our old friendship sake teach me that trick and until I have learnt it I pray blame me not for going the ordinary way I mean for believing or not believing as I see reason If you can convince me of wilfull opposition against the known truth of negligence in seeking it of unwillingness to find it of preferring temporall respect before it or of any other fault that is in my power to amend It is indeed a fault if I amend it not be as angry with me as you please But to impute unto me unvoluntary Errors or that I do not see what I would see but cannot or that I will not profess what I do not believe certainly this is a far more reasonable Error then any you can justly charge me withall for let me tell you that imputing Socinianisme to me whosoever was the Author of it was a wicked and groundless slander Perhaps you will say for this is the usuall song of your side that Pride is a voluntary fault and with this I am justly chargeable for forsaking the Guide which God hath appointed me to follow but what if I forsook it because I thought I had reason to fear it