Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	apostle_n	faith_n	tradition_n	2,505	5	8.9778	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64030	The measures and offices of friendship with rules of conducting it : to which are added, two letters written to persons newly changed in their religion / by Jer. Taylor, D.D.; Discourse of the nature, offices and measures of friendship	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1657 (1657)	Wing T350; ESTC R41495	50,636	214

the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and I know no warrant for any other religion and if you will expect I should shew any society of men who professed all the doctrines which are now expressed in the confession of the Church of England I shall tell you it is unreasonable because some of our truths are now brought into our publick confessions that they might be oppos'd against your errors before the occasion of which there was no need of any such confessions till you made many things necessary to be professed which are not lawfull to be believed For if we believe your superinduc'd follies we shall do unreasonably unconscionably and wickedly but the questions themselves are so uselesse abstracting from the accidental necessity which your follies have brought upon us that it had been happy if we had never heard of them more then the Saints and Martyrs did in the first ages of the Church but because your Clergy have invaded the liberty of the Church and multiplyed the dangers of damnation and pretend new necessities and have introduc'd new articles and affright the simple upon new pretensions and slight the very institution and the Commands of Christ and of the Apostles and invent new Sacramentals constituting Ceremonies of their own head and promise grace along with the use of them as if they were not Ministers but Lords of the Spirit and teach for doctrines the commandments of men and make void the Commandment of God by their tradition and have made a strange body of Divinity therefore it is necessary that we should immure our Faith by the refusal of such vain and superstitious dreams but our faith was completed at first it is no other then that which was delivered to the Saints and can be no more for ever So that it is a foolish demand to require that we should shew before Luther a systeme of Articles declaring our sense in these questions It was long before they were questions at all and when they were made questions they remained so a long time and when by their severall pieces they were determined this part of the Church was oppressed with a violent power and when God gave opportunity then the yoke was broken and this is the whole progresse of this affair But if you will still insist upon it then let the matter be put into equall ballances and let them shew any Church whose confession of Faith was such as was obtruded upon you at Trent and if your Religion be Pius Quartus his Creed at Trent then we also have a question to ask and that is Where was your Religion before Trent The Councel of Trent determined that the souls departed before the day of Judgment enjoy the Beatificall Vision It is certain this Article could not be shewn in the Confession of any of the ancient Churches for most of the Fathers were of another opinion But that which is the greatest offence of Christendome is not only that these doctrines which we say are false were yet affirmed but that those things which the Church of God did alwayes reject or held as Uncertain should be made Articles of Faith and so become parts of your religion and of these it is that I again ask the question which none of your side shall ever be able to answer for you Where was your Religion before Trent I could instance in many particulars but I shall name one to you which because the thing of it self is of no great consequence it will appear the more unreasonable and intolerable that your Church should adopt it into the things of necessary belief especially since it was onely a matter of fact and they took the false part too For in the 21. Sess Chap. 4. it is affirmed That although the holy Fathers did give the Sacrament of the Eucharist to Infants yet they did it without any necessity of salvation that is they did not believe it necessary to their salvation which is notoriously false and the contrary is marked out with the black-lead of every man almost that reads their Works and yet your Councel sayes this is sine controversiâ credendum to be believed without all controversie and all Christians forbidden to believe or teach otherwise So that here it is made an Article of Faith amongst you that a man shall neither believe his reason nor his eyes and who can shew any confession of Faith in which all the Trent doctrine was professed and enjoyned under pain of damnation De potest Eccles cons 12. and before the Councel of Constance the doctrine touching the Popes power was so new so decried that as Gerson sayes he hardly should have escaped the note of Heresie that would have said so much as was there defined so that in that Article which now makes a great part of your belief where was your Religion before the Councel of Constance and it is notorious that your Councel of Constance determined the doctrine of the half communion with a Non obstante to Christs institution that is with a defiance to it or a noted observed neglect of it and with a profession it was otherwise in the Primitive Church Where then was your Religion before John Hus and Hierom of Pragues time against whom that Councel was convened But by this instance it appears most certainly that your Church cannot shew her confessions immediately after Christ and therefore if we could not shew ours immediately before Luther it were not halfe so much for since you receded from Christs Doctrine we might well recede from yours and it matters not who or how many or how long they professed your doctrine if neither Christ nor his Apostles did teach it so that if these Articles constitute your Church your Church was invisible at the first and if ours was invisible afterwards it matters not For yours was invisible in the dayes of light and ours was invisible in the dayes of darknesse For our Church was alwayes visible in the reflections of Scripture and he that had his eyes of faith and reason might easily have seen these truths all the way which constitute our Church But I adde yet farther that our Church before Luther was there where your Church was in the same place and in the same persons for divers of the errors which have been amongst us reformed were not the constituent Articles of your Church before Luthers time for before the last Councels of your Church a man might have been of your Communion upon easier terms and Indulgences were indeed a practice but no Article of Faith before your men made it so and that very lately and so were many other things besides So that although your men cozen the credulous and the simple by calling yours The old Religion yet the difference is vast between Truth and their affirmative even as much as between old Errors and new Articles For although Ignorance and Superstition had prepared the oare yet the Councels of Constance and Basil and Trent especially