Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A43805
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The necessity of heresies asserted and explained in a sermon and clerum / by the author of the Catholic balance and published as a consolatory to the Church of England in the days of her controversie ...
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Hill, Samuel, 1648-1716.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing H2010; ESTC R32969
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19,436
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34
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the Sacred Oracles through all the Prophecies and Mysteries interspersed both in the Old and New Testament and by a Canonical Interpretation from the concurrent harmony of them to deduce a firm Catena of all the Catholick Principles of Christian Piety and to chase away into shame and confusion every Imposture that exalts it self against the healing Truth and Wisdom of God. Thus as soon as Hereticks were crept into the Church St. Jude gave all diligence to write to them of the common Salvation and to exhort them to contend earnestly for the Faith that was once delivered unto the Saints viz. by discussing the Scriptures which are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus Thus Catechism makes us Babes in Christ but even Heresie it self makes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Approved and Faithful perfectly mature in the Wisdom that is of God by which he hath and will destroy the wisdom of the Wise and bring to nought the understanding of the Prudent Heresie therefore which Celsus and other Enemies of Christianity deride as the blemish of our Religion proves the goodness of it in the Original and the glory of it in the End. For it was a sagacious hint of Origen That all different Heresies in all Wisdom secular or sacred spring from some good and noble Original Which while it can be preserved virgin and inviolate suffers no reproach from the lascivient follies of vain and imprudent Sciolists And as to the Majestick glory of our Religion it sits in the Firmament of Heaven on high clothed with the Sun and the beams of Essential Light which all the filthy Exhalations of Spiritual Wizards and Impostors will never be able to darken or vilify Since Christianity ever improved by oppositions emerged above Heresies and lives the more strongly by continual Persecutions and by its immovable perpetuity against all possible force and fraud becomes a Symbol and a Pledge of that Eternity which it promiseth and to which it leads us Thirdly Having thus discovered both the natural and moral Necessity of Heresies in the World Let us in the last place consider what seasonable Uses besides those which are already touched on Humane Prudence under the conduct of the Divine Wisdom will suggest unto us Upon which being to speak to an Auditory of a double Character it is fit I should offer some Considerations proper to each Order And here indeed were there time to expatiate lies a large Plain before me relating to the Discipline Doctrine and Sanctity of the Priesthood and the Sincerity Humility and Morals of the People But a regard to your uneasiness the narrowness of the time and the Laws of Modesty must and shall confine me First then The Administration of Discipline being in the hands of my Superior requires from him a Lesson of Prudence and Wisdom to me and to us all and consequently enjoins me silence in this particular And perhaps the present State and Circumstances of the Church require no such accurate enforcements of it in this juncture The Counsel of St. Austin being seasonable Nos vero ad sanam Doctrinam pertinere arbitramur ut canes in Ecclesiae propter pacem Ecclesiae toleremus Canibus vero sanctum ubi pax Ecclesiae tuta est non demus So that I am immediately to pass to the consideration of that Doctrine which we ought to support for the prevention diminution or extirpation of Heresies And here my Brethren you need a Draught from the Judgment of a Superior And if our Reverend Ordinary had thought good instead of making proof of me to have filled up this place of Sacred Oratory himself he would have given us an excellent Copy from the Authority of the Scriptures and the Prudence of the Primitive Fathers In opposition to the Follies and Fables of Heresie he would have admonished us in all our Doctrine to shew uncorruptness gravity and sincerity sound speech that cannot be condemned that they of the contrary part may be ashamed To study to shew our selves approved unto God Workmen that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth In opposition to the disputatious vanity of Hereticks he would have forbidden us to doat about questions strifes about words whereof cometh envy strife railings evil surmisings and perverse disputing with men of corrupt minds remembring the magnificent sense of Clemens Alexandrinus in this particular Not to strive for empty victory for that with us quietness is the designed end of Conferences For the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach patient In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil Thus Ignatius to the Ephesians In opposition to their anger be you gentle to their boasting be you lowly to their blasphemies oppose you your Prayers against their Errors stand you firm in the Faith against their rage be you always mild not aiming to imitate them but being emulous of the Lord. In contrariety to heretical Innovations he would have bid us keep close to the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints To magnify the excellency and improve the use of Catechetical Doctrines To hold fast the Tradition of Faith the form of sound words which we have received from the Apostles and by the Holy Ghost that dwelleth in us to keep that good thing which was committed to us For they indeed pursue a vain glory by daring enquiries into Riddles that tend to the subversion of the Hearers but St. Gregory Nazianzen gives us sounder direction Not to despise the trite and common Principles not to hunt out for novelties to gain a reputation with the multitude In all our methods of Instruction he would have enjoined us to preach not our selves or our own Conceptions or meer Humane and novel Traditions but Jesus Christ and him crucified and the power of his Resurrection and such noble Mysteries of Salvation from the sole Authority of the Divine Oracles Whence the Priest's lips are to preserve knowledg and the People are to seek the law at his mouth And you know the High-Priest gave no Oracular Responses to the People from the Holy of Holies but what the Excellent Glory that dwelt between the Cherubims had written with rays of purest light upon the Pectoral In all our Doctoral Offices he would have required of us an unwearied diligence in season and out of season not to neglect but to stir up the gift of God which is in us by the imposition of the hands of our Fathers and the Presbytery watching in all things enduring afflictions doing the work of Evangelists making full proof of our Ministry that being faithful unto death God may give us a Crown of Life The last thing relating to our Order and the great Envy of Hereticks
THE NECESSITY OF HERESIES ASSERTED and EXPLAINED IN A SERMON AD CLERVM By the Author of the Catholick Balance And published as a Consolatory to the Church of England in the days of her Controversie Exod. 14.13 And Moses said unto the people Fear ye not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which he will shew to you to day For the Aegyptians which ye have seen to day ye shall see them again no more for ever IMPRIMATUR Concio haec cui Titulus The Necessity of Heresies Asserted July 14. 1688. H. MAVRICE LONDON Printed for Robert Clavel at the Peacock in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXVIII 1 COR. II. 9. For there must be also Heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you HE that sedately considers the whole extraction and process of Evil and the more prevalent diffusion of Vice and Lewdness against all the dictates of Vertue and Piety while the lenity of the Divine Providence seems cessant and unprovoked and that discerns the strength and operation of External Temptations unto evil the passive easiness of our Tempers to admit them the prodigious looseness of motion in all our Animal Affections and their delusive influence upon our Understandings and our Wills and that examines what originals gave being to the Malice of the Apostate Legions of Darkness to alienate them from their God and to sollicit our subversion likewise by indiscernible methods of Imposture must necessarily fall into Origen's Resolution That if any Subjects discussible among men be hard to be traced the Generation of Evil must be reckoned as one of them And yet as if the natural difficulties of our understanding herein had not been sufficient even the Scriptures themselves seem to multiply our Perplexities while notwithstanding the fundamental truth of this Religious Principle That God is not the Author of any moral Evil they yet proclaim unto us not only a natural but a moral necessity of Sins and Offences Thus our Saviour preacheth a natural necessity of them It must needs be that offences come but wo be to him by whom the offence cometh And my Text averreth a moral necessity of Heresies and Divisions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For there must be there ought to be there is need that there he Heresies Nay that which more astonisheth is that the very Mediator of our Peace the great Henoticon of the whole World in reconciling all Mankind in one Body unto God of whose days it was prophesied that the Lamb should lie down with the Lyon tells his Apostles at their first mission That he came not to give peace but a sword to set a man at variance against his Father and the Daughter against the Mother c. And when we consider the malevolent nature of those Seeds of Discord in matters of Religion against all Societies either Sacred or Secular and the blessed means of Eternal Life also that these Mischiefs should become necessary and the result of Christianity it self seems a stupifying Riddle and that which fills me with all horror gives colour for the publick allowance of all Heresies and Blasphemies whatsoever Since then I am intangled in a Text so intricate and withal so necessary to be explained I must offer you the Petition that Origen made to his dear Ambrose in his adventure against Celsus That you would give me your Prayers to the Supreme Fountain of Wisdom that he may so invigorate me from above and shed his heavenly Dews upon my present Meditations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the savour of this Discourse may administer grace unto the Hearers and be like the savour of a Field which the Lord hath blessed The weight then of this Text puts us upon a threefold Enquiry I. What Heresie is II. What Necessity there is of Heresies III. What use we are to make of them I. Heresie then literally and generally importing Division in Philosophy among the Greeks signified the separation of Men into different Schools and Parties upon the account of different Doctrines and Opinions without any form of Excommunication Execration or Extermination from common and friendly Society Among the Jews Heresie consists in varying from and neglecting the Traditions of their Rabbins and is by them prosecuted with the severest Curses and Anathemaes whatsoever The Divisions that have appeared in the Christian Profession are by St. Basil the Great in his first Canonical Epistle to Amphilochius distributed into three Classes viz. Parasynagogues Schisms and Heresies The first are Uncanonical Assemblies of men unto voluntary and irregular Exercises of Religion under the pretence of a more active Zeal Schism is a breach of Peace Union and Orderly Government in the Church under the wanton Claims of a greater Liberty Heresie is an insurrection against the Church and her Doctrines derived from the Scriptures and universally received from the beginning under the imputation of falshood or deficiency and the ostentation of a purer and more perfect Knowledg Which being the greatest of all Religious Confusions and by the Apostolick and Canonical Discipline exposed to the strictest Censures of the Church will need some Characteristick Description to the end that we may at present aggravate the doubt how so vile a Monster should become necessary to the Church that so directly intends her dissolution Tertullian chargeth the Hereticks of his Age with many Irregularities against both Discipline and Morals That they made no distinction between Heathens Catechumens or Christians but imparted their Mysteries equally unto all That they reputed Simplicity to be prostration of Discipline That they kept Communion with all Parties against the Church That they were all proud and all pretended knowledg The very Females how pert and daring to assume the very Offices of the Hierarchy That their Ordinations were rash light and unconstant that sometimes they set up Novices sometimes Men engaged to the World sometimes the very Apostates of the Church That they had one Bishop to day and to morrow another That he that was a Deacon to day to morrow sunk to a Reader And he that was to day a Priest to morrow reversed to a Lay-man for that with them the Laity assume the Services of the Priesthood That their whole preaching was not to convert Heathens but pervert true Christians not to build any thing but destroy the Church That they conversed with Magicians Juglers and Sorcerers Thus far Tertullian Nay that which is most remarkable Heresie was at first the issue of Sorcery the Grand-father thereof being Simon Magus who transmitted his Sorcery and Heresie together to his trusty Disciple Menander who in both out-did his Original and thus descended all the various Brood of the Gnosticks and other like Vermin who took their Names from the respective Founders or Principles of their several Impieties They blasphemed the Creator Moses and the Prophets vilified and corrupted the New Testament at their pleasure forged false Gospels and Writings for Canonical and set up