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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64296	A discourse touching choyce of religion By Sr. Richard Tempest Baronet.	Tempest, Richard, Sir, 1619 or 20-1662.	1660 (1660)	Wing T624A; ESTC R222145	32,156	173

is from him and to him but how much more noble thought have they of the Deity who conceive him to deale with man as endowed with free operations then with us as with stockes and stones that are meerly patient It is the meere grace of God that gives good works their force and value yet no such necessity that any thing is done whether man will or no Apolig Epist For who could either prayse or discommend that who can imagine such actions to be rewarded or punished or that soule to be immortall and performe Religion which should want free and reasonable actions the arguments and pledges of immortality but we are to admire the wisedome of Gods Church which agreeth the aeternall prescience of God with the temporall co-operation of man that it leaves the first infallible and yet proveth the temporall action appetite and delight or consent to any thing to be voluntary free and in the power of man to be effected or omitted rewarded and punished Of the use and Veneration of Pictures and Images Upon this is waged a perpetuall warre Hic illius arma hic currus fuit The Reformists generally take it for Idolatry and what ever is spoken against Idolatry in Scripture they presse and urge upon the use of Pictures But before they tax our Mother with so odious a crime they might please to consider the nature of the objection and how farre the extent of it is and withall they might consult the opinion of ancient devout Fathers who would rather have lost a thousand lives then have committed Idolatry touching it and withall they might have considered the use of them before they should be frighted from their Mothers bosome a place of protection into wandrings and errors where are layd the snares of the enemy Church story informes us That the ancient Christians would fall downe before the Statues of the Emperors which was then the manner and posture used to doe reverence as sometime to be bare before the Cloath of State doth signifie the like though they would rather dye then salute so the Images of the false gods But for the like postures to be forbid to be used to the Pictures of Saints or of our blessed Saviour none can shew a prohibition for those outward signes of honour signified by gesture are indeed common towards God Grotius Angels and Men no perticular one being set a part or commanded to be peculiarly used to signifie onely Divine Worship when we frame a thought of that good Shepheard in our minds if we would deliver it in writing why might we not write it in Hyreogliphies as well as Letters which are not so ancient no other thing is so worthy as the mind of Man but if the Image of our Saviour Crucified be there drawne and viewed by the understanding why may not our corporall Eye behold it drawn on Paper or other materiall since they doe but serve to recall and revive those former Ideas in the mind which other objects might distract or steale away And by severall Persons the severall Attributes of God may be signified as a King for Royalty c. St. Augustin saith in the Visitation of the sicke There is added upon the Crosse the Image of a Man humbly imbrace this and weekely venerate it The honour done to the Image is refer'd to whose Image it is saith Basil and Chrisostome I know these things are proposed in vain to those who will admit of no other Tribunall then their own breasts who exercise an Arbitrary and Tyrannicall power over the Consciences of their followers whom an imaginary exposition of some dark prophesie of Anti-Christ doth unhinge their minds and judgements from off what they ought to turn on which is obedience to the Church whose sacred Authority ought to binde in the luxuriant and forward imaginations of mens owne braines But I have onely instanced in these few perticulars without using any illaqueation of Arguments or finnesse of discourse Thus are all the Churches Doctrines Practises and Ceremonies advancements and meanes to Salvation and Piety the establishment of its regiment on Earth of Pope Patriarchs Arch-Bishops Bishops Priests Deacons sub-Deacons Exorcists Lectors where the mistery of our Redemption is so esteemed and remembred that no Holy day no part of Divine Service is celebrated but represents to us one benefit or another no Ceremony in the holy Sacrifice no action of the Priest no Ornament or Attire he weareth no Benediction he gives no Signe of the Crosse he makes but hath its religious signification and Preacheth to us and speaks nothing but Christ Crucified therefore though the great worke of our redemption may be thought not to be hindred by opposing things of an inferiour nature yet it is no small matter the opposing the Authority of the Church tending to the dissolving that power Richworths dialogue by which the greatest things are maintained Common-wealths punish with death a small stealth because it s an offence against the nature of Government Heretofore men proved Doctrines to be true from the authority of holy Church and now they would annull her authority from her Tenents and from her Articles would throw durt in her Face as if she had lost her being for being the faithfull Keeper of what was committed to her and had forfeited her breasts the Scriptures for feeding us with their milke CAP. IIII. The falling away from the Church under the Notion of Reformation the cause of troubles of State and from the same grounds they build their opinions on arises the grounds of the disturbance of Governments THe Church being Divinely Founded as it hath survived all the malices and practises of the greatest Tyrants its enemies so have those who breaking of that Ecclesiasticall league which kept them in the limits of the practice and beleefe of the same things mist of that inlargement and lastingnesse of commands which they expected by altering the sight and mark they took their ayme by they have straide the most from what they chiefly took their ayme at whilst they sought a perticular prosperity seperated from the peace of the Church against which the musterd forces of mens malice and Hells fury became ever weake and impotent The blood of the first Bishops of Rome was the fruitfull compost of the Church their Ashes were Generative all the furious conflagrations sackings and spoylings of the City of Rome by the Goths Huns Visegoths Halaricus were like stormy winds whose Gole and end was onely to dye and expire while Rome triumphed over their spoyles in the continuance of that never fayling Church I will not name Attila nor Limprandus the one retiring from Rome by Saint Leos means the other by Pope Zacharies strangely and miraculously Those barbarous Saracens whose rage was glutted with the conquest of the Eastern Emperor the glory of whose armes and conquest of Candy increased who made Africa feele the effects of the advancement of their Armies and strucke terror into a great part of

Church which is the house of God notes upon it thus Of which Damasus then Pope is at this day ruler And againe Primà adversus Ruffinum fidem suam quam vocat camque qua Romana pollet Ecclesia Si Romana respondent ergo Catholici sumus St Augustine of the fifth Age lib. 11. cap. 2. contra Fauns●um Vides in hac re quid Ecclesiae Catholicae vale●t authoritas quae ab ipsis fundatissimis se●ibus Apostolorum usque ad hodiernum diem succedentium sibi met Episcoporum serie populorum consensione firmata St. Jerom of most austere life a profound Schollar and generall Linguist lived unmarried a Monke a Priest said Masse St. Augustine was Bishop of Hippo confessedly a Priest and offered up the body and blood of Christ in Sacrifice for the living and the dead Saint Basil a Monke Priest unmarried did not they all live and dye in the communion of the Church of Rome and did detest Scisme I remember one told me at Venice pleasantly discoursing of the difference which that Republique had with the Pope We would have become saith he any thing to have been ad oppisitum with the Pope Lutherans or Calvenists but that we were satisfied with the truth of all opinions of the Church from our own Records which have been in violated and kept intire and delivered then with as great vigor as now observed for about a thousand years which time that City hath stood never taken or plunderd nor burnt the two great winding sheets of humane things Will not the Laws and constitutions of all ancient governments declare and demonstrate the same even of those places which have revolted from them must all men in so many grave Councels resorting from all parts of the Christian world relating one to another what in the severall places whence they came hath been held and so from time to time an universall establishment of such things as have been found to be the generall Traditions and Doctrines of the Church and yet must all these be thought to have walked in a vaine shadow Rocks Cities Woods must be thought to move while their eyes dwelling too much upon the currant of the times breeds this deception that they are thought to move from the little Boats when it is the Ship boats departing from them Thus it is evident who thrusts the Church of Rome upon them and what hath thrust them from the Church of Rome When parties are once engaged though testimonies be as lowd as Thunder yet the ball must be kept up poore pretences must undergoe the opinion of inevitable necessities all sticks seen in that Water must be crooked Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris They say It must not be obtruded upon them as Catholique it excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World All Christians in all Ages have pronounced that Artikle I beleeve the holy Catholique Church if mens saith should not vary the object must never faile and in all Ages downe from our blessed Saviours time they have most stedfastly pronounced this Artikle in the bosome of the Church of Rome which taken locally is but a Parish Church but in respect of retaining with others that same Doctrine which the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul delivered them whether by writing or by word of mouth in that sence it is called Catholique and so Orbis in Vrbe est When Heresies sprung as there must be Heresies they had recourse still to what was delivered by way of Doctrines to them wherby they did repel all false and erronious opinions as constantly maintain their own Doctrine When diverse parts of Scripture were called in question it was the Churches Authority did pronounce them Divine now the Church was to be deceived in its Sentence or not If it was then infallible why not now and in the interpretation and exposition as well as the Letter when Scripture is not Scripture but rightly Expounded As touching an externe and adventitious condition of the Church it suffers sometime dilatation and inlargement other time persecution and contraction yet still ever the same The Arke that was the type of the Church vvas sometimes on the Waves sometime in the Wildernesse travelling againe in the Temple in peace and glory When the Arrian Heresie had so catchingly surprized the World no doubt but the Catholique Church did exclude them and because it vvill not now let every stinking puddle of Opinion and every infectious currant of Faction run into its Sea or that like the Sea it will not let any dead or corrupt thing lye in its bowels therefore forsooth it must not be obtruded upon any as Catholique it excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World If it should have so much good nature to admit all its Doctrine would not be Catholique that is what was profest at all times the holy Catholique Church is but one Episcopacy is but one saith Saint Cyprian as Streames from the same Fountain Branches from the same Root here is nothing but that fidelity which a Spouse owes to her Betrothed no intertainment of Forraine loves or unlawfull mixtures Those that are called Reformists exclude not one another when they would appear a great body of opponents of the Roman Church they exclude them not from opposing the same Authority though in manner and in their own opinions they oppose and exclude one another like that Image part whereof was Clay part Iron that by cleaving together resembled a body though never incorporated Harmony of Confessions B. Hall of the Churches of Holland and France They are enemies of a good Catholique malice whilst they would unite all the different Formes of Scisme wherein every ones Fancy was their guide and of these would make an angry union to gratifie their humour of opposing their Mother Church and if one should lend a severe aspect into their own Commonwealths and Interests he shall seem to retreave the ancient Chaos each Sect so differing from other and every one dissenting from what themselves were at first When they shak'd hands with the Church of Rome every one departing a severall way according to the concernments and ends of their Leaders or the Genius and nature of the People or the accidents affaires of those times which steared their furies and indignations The Lutherans hold the Calvenists for the Phaetons of Europe and in a late Sinod have condemned them guilty of all the Warres and disasters in these late times Calvin allowes of Episcopacy yet his followers make it ground enough of an immortall quarrell to have them extirpated In every Country that ill Seed that Calvin sowed came up of a different fashion as he well perceived who described their severall humors of Genevizing Anglizing Scotizing What Wars are raysed in the mutuall opposition of each others Doctrine every one of them having some perticuler Opinion wherein they magnifie themselves being their Eurika and sets it as it were in the Van for an Ensigne of the Faction