Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	article_n	church_n	creed_n	2,425	5	10.1630	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61535	A defence of the discourse concerning the idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in answer to a book entituled, Catholicks no idolators / by Ed. Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1676 (1676)	Wing S5571; ESTC R14728	413,642	908

my works may be directed and disposed according to thine and thy Sons Will. Amen I confess intercession is here mentioned but withal it is plain that is not the only thing relyed upon for her merits are immediately added and whatever ground it be upon it seems it is not only lawful but a devout thing to commit Soul and Body to her trust and custody both in Life and death What could have been said more to the Eternal Son of God than is contained in this Commendation to the Blessed Virgin in all the expressions of it In another prayer to her which is not only in the Manual but in the Primer or Office of the Blessed Virgin and is too long to repeat we have this beginning I beseech thee O holy Lady Mary Mother of God most full of pity the daughter of the Highest King Mother most glorious Mother of Orphans the Consolation of the Desolate the way of them that go astray the safety of all that trust in thee a Virgin before Child-bearing a Virgin in Child-bearing and a Virgin after Child-bearing the fountain of mercy the fountain of health and Grace the fountain of consolation and pardon the fountain of piety and gladness the fountain of life and forgiveness I am now got from Lilly's Grammar to Aristotles Threshold and I desire to know of T. G. whether these expressions are true or false Is the Blessed Virgin all these things or not If they be not true they are horrible blasphemies if they be true to what purpose is it to talk of praying to her to pray for us for why may not I go directly to the Fountain of Mercy Grace and Pardon what needless trouble were it to pray her to pray for that which is in her on hands to bestow In another prayer following that are these expressions to the Blessed Virgin Bow down thine ears O Mother of pity and mercy unto my poor prayers and be to me wretched sinner a pitious helper in all things And presently after to our Lady and S. Iohn together O ye two Heavenly Gemms Mary and John O two divine Lamps ever shining before God! drive away with your blessed beams the dark clouds of my sins To you I most wretched sinner commend this day my Body and Soul that in every hour and moment inwardly and outwardly ye would vouchsafe to be my sure keepers and pitiful Intercessors to God for me Here we have intercession again but that is not all nor the main thing for Custody is more than intercession and that is first begged and then intercession So that if ever any prayers were made to creatures for those things which God alone can give these were and so as to imply our dependence on them for the obtaining of them These may suffice for a taste of their present and allowed devotions among them here at home in Books of daily use And now I beseech T. G. to tell me what there is in the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which makes it necessary for me to put so forced a sense upon all these expressions that they do mean no more than praying to the Blessed Virgin to pray for them As Lilly's Grammar will not explain the sense so no Rhetorick I ever saw will make me understand the Figure How often have we been railed at for understanding words in a figurative sense which cannot be literally understood without overthrowing the plainest evidence of sense and reason and which by the customary modes of speaking among all Nations attributing the thing signified to the sign and by other places of Scripture and Fathers we prove ought to be no otherwise understood But here is a strange figure invented against the plain and natural sense of the words for by praying to bestow must be understood only praying to pray and that when those titles are at the same time given which suppose it in their power to give and when there is no imaginable necessity from any doctrine of their Church to put this sense upon those words For what article of their Creed what decree of their Church what doctrine of their Divines doth it contradict for any man to pray directly to the Virgin Mary for the destruction of heresies support under troubles Grace to withstand temptations and reception to Glory And what can we beg for more from God himself Yet I challenge T. G. to shew which of all these such prayers are repugnant to and if to none of them why should not the words be understood as they properly signifie nay it were easie to shew that such prayers are very agreeable not only to the doctrine of the Council of Trent but of their most eminent Divines both before and after it But this were to go beyond the bounds of this general Discourse which is designed only to state the Nature of Divine Worship between us and them Yet I cannot but take notice of the way T. G. saith the people are instructed by to make this to be the sense of praying to give i. e. praying to pray 1. He saith the common doctrine of Christianity by which they are taught that God alone is the giver of all good things and doth not the same common doctrine of Christianity teach men to pray to him alone for what he only can give and not to use such bold and absurd figures in prayer whose plain sense is contrary to this common doctrine of Christianity But I wonder that T. G. should think this an effectual way to make them understand the prayers in this sense when himself hath shewed them the way to reconcile this common doctrine to their practice and the form of the words For may not giving be distinguished as well as worship It is true God alone is the Original Giver of all good things and this is a Soveraign way of giving peculiar to God but there is an inferiour and subordinate way of giving by a power derived from God and this is all say they we attribute to the Saints and how now doth the common doctrine of Christianity teach people more effectually that God alone is the Giver of all things than that God alone is to be worshipped I am sure the Scripture saith one as often and in as plain terms as it can do the other But 2. He saith their Sermons Catechisms and Explications both by word and writing do it suppose some persons do it I ask by what Authority their Church having never declared against an inferiour way of giving in the Saints and having expresly owned the making recourse to them for their help and assistance as well as their prayers I desire T. G. in good earnest to tell me what makes him so concerned to have all the prayers understood in that sense of praying to the Saints to pray for them against the express sense of the words Is there any harm in the other sense or not if there be no harm why may they not be so understood without so much

to Scripture or Reason or the sense of the Primitive or our own Church it might have prevented my writing by changing my opinion for I was no stranger to his Writings or his Arguments But he that can think the Israelites believed the Golden Calf delivered their people out of Egypt before it was made may easily believe that Mr. Thorndikes Book of 1662. was a confutation of mine long before it was written and upon equal reason at least I may hope that this Answer will be a Prophetical Confutation of all that T. G. will ever be able to say upon this Subject CHAP. IV. An Answer to T. G's charge of Contradictions Paradoxes Reproach of the second Council of Nice School disputes and to his parallel Instances UNder these Heads I shall comprehend all that remains scattered in the several parts of his Book which seem to require any farther Answer The first thing I begin with is the Head of Contradictions for he makes in another Book the charge of Idolatry to be inconsistent with my own assertion Because I had said that Church doth not look on our negative articles against the Church of Rome as articles of Faith but as infriour Truths from whence he saith it follows that their Church doth not err against any article of Faith but Idolatry is an errour against the most Fundamental point of Faith and therefore for me to charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry must according to my own principles be the most groundless unreasonable and contradictory proceeding in the World Upon my word a very heavy charge And I must clear my self as I can from it Had not a man need to have a mighty care of dropping any kind words towards them who will be sure to make all possible advantages from them to overthrow the force of whatever can be said afterwards against them Thus have they dealt with me because I allowed the Church of Rome to be a true Church as holding all the essential points of Christian Faith therefore all the arguments I have used to prove them Idolaters are presently turned off with this That herein I contradict my self Thus I was served by that feat man at Controversie I. W. who thought it worth his while to write two Books such as they are chiefly upon this argument and he makes me to pile Contradictions on Contradictions as Children do Cards one upon another and then he comes and cunningly steals away one of the supporters and down all the rest fall in great disorder and confusion And herein he is much applauded for an excellent Artist by that mighty man at Ecclesiastical Fencing E. W. the renowned Champion of our Lady of Loreto and the miraculous translation of her Chappel about which he hath published a Defiance to the World and offers to prove it against all Comers but especially my inconsiderable self to be an undeniable Verity I must have great leisure and little care of my self if I ever more come near the Clutches of such a Giant who seems to write with a Beetle instead of a Pen and I desire him to set his heart at rest and not to trouble himself about the waies of my attacking him for he may lie quietly in his shades and snore on to Dooms-day for me unless I see farther reason of disturbing his repose than at present I do But this charge being resumed by so considerable an Adversary as T. G. is in comparison with the rest I shall for his sake endeavour more fully to clear this whole matter When I. W. had objected the same thing in effect against me the substance of the Answer I made him was this 1. That it was a disingenuous way of proceeding to oppose a judgement of charity concerning their Church to a judgement of Reason concerning the nature of actions without at all examining the force of those Reasons which are produced for it This was the case of I. W. but ingenuity is a thing my Adversaries are very little acquainted with and therefore I said 2. There was no contradiction in it For the notion of Idolatry as applied to the Church of Rome is consistent with its owning the general principles of Faith as to the True God and Iesus Christ and giving Soveraign Worship to them when therefore we say that the Church of Rome doth not err in any Fundamental point of the Christian Faith I there at large shew the meaning to have been only this that in all those which are looked on by us as necessary Articles of Faith we have the Testimony and approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self but the Church of Rome looks upon all her Doctrines which we reject as necessary Articles of Faith so that the force of the Argument comes only to this that no Church which doth own the ancient Creeds can be guilty of Idolatry And I farther add that when we enquire into the essentials of a Church we think it not necessary to go any farther than the doctrinal points of Faith because Baptism admits men into the Church upon the profession of the true Faith in the Father Son and Holy Ghost but if beyond the essentials we enquire into the moral integrity and soundness of a Church then we are bound to go farther than the bare profession of the essential points of Faith and if it be found that the same Church may debauch those very principles of Faith by damnable errours and corrupt the worship of God by vertue of them then the same Church which doth hold the Fundamentals of Faith may notwithstanding lead men to Idolatry without the shadow of a contradiction But T. G. saith That Idolatry is an Errour against the most Fundamental point of Faith What doth T. G. mean by this I suppose it is that Idolatry doth imply Polytheism or the belief of more Gods than one to whom Soveraign worship is due then I deny this to be the proper Definition of Idolatry for although where ever this is it hath in it the nature of that we call Idolatry yet himself confesses the true notion of it to be The giving the worship due to God to a Creature so that if I have proved that the worship of Images in the Roman Church is the giving the worship due only to God to a Creature then although the Church of Rome may hold all the essentials of Faith and be a true Church it may be guilty of Idolatry without contradiction But it may be I. W. in his Reply saith something more to purpose at least it will be thought so if I do not answer him I must therefore consider what he saith that is material if any thing be found so However he saith that if the Roman Church doth hold any kind of Idolatry to be lawful she must needs hold an Errour destructive to a Fundamental and essential point of Faith and by consequence a Fundamental errour