Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A28581
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A brief account of the first rise of the name Protestant and what Protestantism is ... / by a professed enemy to persecution.
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Bold, S. (Samuel), 1649-1737.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing B3477; ESTC R16825
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36,552
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49
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if the ordinary sort of People be well vers'd in the Holy Scriptures it will not be easie to impose upon them Why cannot Men that would be Teachers now a days be as open and plain as the Prophets and as Christ and as his Apostles were These came not to vent any counterfeit false Wares and therefore they were wiling the People should examine and try what they taught them They were for the People's reading and searching of the Scriptures and judging of the Doctrines which were taught them by those Holy Scriptures which had been delivered unto them They came to deliver people out of Darkness not to keep them in or lead them unto Darkness And those who are their true Successors and Followers will do the like If Men have no Notions to scatter about and perswade People to swallow and submit to but what are sound and true and good and which are authorised by Jesus Christ they will have no occasion to be ashamed or afraid that People should examine them by the Scripture None flee from the Light but those whose Doctrines or Practices will not bear the Light. Christ's Doctrines did accord very well with those Divine Revelations those Jews had amongst them But the Unscriptural Traditions they had got amongst them and our Saviour's Doctrines could not stand together To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this Word it is because there is no Light in them Isaiah 8. 20. Secondly Those who profess themselves Protestants ought to take care that they be well fixed and settled in the Protestant Religion The Apostles often require their Followers and Disciples and those they write unto to Stand fast in the Faith 1 Cor. 16. 13. And to Contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints Jude 3. And to Strive together for the Faith of the Gospel Phil. 1. 27. Now by these and the like Expressions which you meet with in the Apostolick Writing they plainly first warn them of the danger there is of Peoples Apostarizing from the True Faith and Religion of Jesus Christ after that they have made a Profession of the same And secondly excite and stir those up who make a Profession of the True Faith to take care that their Minds and Hearts may be throughly fixed and settled in the Faith least they should yield and waver and decline when Storms and Tryals shall arise and their constancy shall be assaulted And if there be but too much ground to fear that many who make a Profession of the Truth will Apostatize and forsake it when they shall be called to bear witness to it in some Instances which are ungrateful to Flesh and Blood. It highly concerns all who at present profess True Christianity to look well to it that they be so established and confirmed in what they profess that if a day of Tryal should come they may not loose their Crown destroy their Souls or betray the Truth First Those who do profess the True Religion may afterwards Apostatize from and relinquish it And there is too great occasion to fear that many however forward they appear in Profession will do so should they be tryed in any difficult and beloved Instances I do not mean that People who have long habituated themselves to profess the Christian Religion will easily be brought to an open and avowed renouncing of the Name of Christianity as though none could be justly charged with Apostacy from the Truth but those who can vye with Julian for impudence in contemning and trampling under foot the very Name and Profession of the Son of God. The estate of those who proceed so far is beyond measure dreadful Heb. 6. 4 5 6. But there are two things which the Scriptures more especially insist on as imported by People's Apostatizing from the True Faith and which People are generally too prone unto and both which are very displeasing unto and greatly provoking of God. 1. Departing from the Purity and Simplicity of the Faith of the Gospel espousing and imbracing together with those Doctrines and Practices which Christ hath authorized in his Holy Scriptures other Opinions and Practices which are destructive of the Truth and power of Religion Christianity is as really impaired and injured by evil mixtures as by open professed opposition The Apostacy the Apostles spake of which was to accompany or rather constitute that great Antichristian State they foretel would have such a vast and large and durable Empire in the Christian World seems plainly to be of this kind The great Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity should be retained in outward Profession but yet other Doctrines should be introduced and be so vehemently imposed and insisted on that thereby the main Essential of Religion should be slighted oppressed and become in a great measure useless And way has been made for these Innovations by first forging some gross Impostures and counterfeiting some strange things to which they have given the Name of Miracles and so unwary ignorant People have been prevailed with to entertain no better than Diabolical Delusions as Divine Instructions and Commands very agreeable to what the Apostle foretells of Antichrist's coming After the working of Sathan with all Power and Signs and lying Wonders 2 Thes 2. 9. 2. Altering the nature and use of many things which were Innovated by the pious Antients without any Divine Authority and purely by the conduct of a warm Zeal and a devout Intention Had no further progress been made in those Instances than those Antients made little prejudice would thence have happened to Religion But God is so jealous of his own Honour that usually when People manifest they have an Opinion that God hath not carefully enough provided for his own Cause and therefore they will guard and sence and provide more effectually for it He blasts all those Devices and suffers such Humane Inventions to be occasions of more than ordinary trouble and sometimes to be prosecuted so far as to make a formal and mortal Opposition to the Vitals of Religion 3. Depressing the Offices and Devotional Duties of Religion with unreasonable heaps of outward Formalities and Ritual Observations that so the Senses might be superfluously carest and by accomodating the Matters of Religion too much to the Rules of Carnal Policy By this means inward Seriousness and the Spirituality of Religion have been dispenc't with and Peoples Minds have been rendred lax and vain aiery and garish And having been thus inured for some time to these meer Externals which they have taken upon trust they have at last been so easie as to content themselves with an Implicite Faith and have rather chose to swallow any thing that should be offered them whole than put themselves to the trouble to enquire into its Nature Rise and Grounds 4. Finding out ways to reconcile what they stile Religion to Men's Carnal Lusts and Natural Tempers and Constitutions devising easier ways as they pretend to Heaven than any of the Saints in
And have you such numerous examples and presidents take heart then and go on as they did joyfully in the strengrh of you God. How many have ventured all and sustained all both in former Ages and in this present Age in a neighbouring Countrey with astonishing Joy for this self same Religion But Oh! what will you loose and what must you suffer if you wickedly depart from your God and renounce his Truth Would you be in Judas his despair or sustain the horrour Spira was filled with for Worldly Favour and Preferment Would you be willing for ease and pleasure here to be the object of God's heaviest displeasure for ever To be shut out of Heaven to be continually followed with God's Curse To be a perpetual Companion of Devils and the worst Sinners To lie roaring and howling to all Eternity in unquenable flames In a word consider how the Faith you profess is the Faith which God Almighty hath taught and appointed which the Lord Jesus hath born witness unto and sealed with his Blood which the Apostles preached to the World and suffered for the Faith which has been justified and confirmed by multitudes of most real and undeniable Miracles a Faith that is pure and peaceable and tends most intirely to propagate and increase all that is truely excellent and praise-worthy amongst Men a Faith which God hath taken care of in all Ages of the Christian World and which assures its sincere Professors of things incomprehensibly great and glorious hereafter and fills them with unspeakable peace and comfort at present amidst all the Suffering they can be exposed to on its account a Faith God hath wonderfully freed from the Corruptions which were formerly mixed with it in these Nations and for which He hath often and even miraculously appeared in discovering and blasting the projects the designs and the attempts of its most subtle and unreconcileable Enemies a Faith your Ancestors after mature consideration priz'd above all their worldly Interests and Lives a Faith they took a great deal of care and pains to have transmitted to you pure and undefiled a Faith which brought with it multitudes of outward Blessings and which occasioned these Nations to be eas'd of a Yoke which all the Inhabitants who had ingenious sense complained often of and groaned under a Faith you cannot part with but in all probability you will again involve your selves in Calamities and Miseries like to those out of which your Predecessors strove with all their might to extricate themselves Have you an ambition now to expose your selves and your Posterity to all the mischief and evil which people of the adverse perswasion have been known industrious and unwearied to bring upon those they look upon as Hereticks Are you resolved to pull down with your own hands upon your selves all the sad and direful Plagues which are reserved to be inflicted in the next World on them who perfidiously betray the Faith of the Gospel and wickedly Apostatize from the True Religion If not then take care and look well to your selves and see that you be fixed and confirmed in the Protestant Religion And therefore 1. Be sure you be built upon the true Foundation Take heed you profess not the True Faith meerly because it is owned by any Society of some particular extrinsical denomination any particular Church may fall There is a Body of Men now in the World who assume to themselves a very glorious Title and yet when a just enquiry is made and the largest allowances Charity can prompt to are yielded them that Society can only pass for a very corrupt part of the Christian Church and yet the antient Inhabitants of that place where the Head of this Society hath fixed his See were a people in St. Paul's time so hearty in and true to the Doctrines of Christ their Faith was spoken of throughout all the World. Rom. 1. 8. Where are any tracts and footsteps now of those Churches you read of in the Revelations And yet God never forsaketh any till they first forsake him There has been I fear there is still altogether a fault amongst us that we are immoderately concerned for the credit and outward grandure of particular Parties and Christians are respected not for their being Christians but for their espousing some distinguishing Notions and Characters of Man's devising I am perswaded God will utterly overthrow at least mightily abase Men's affections to and zeal for all Party-making Notions amongst Christians before he will raise his Church to that prosperous flourishing State prophesied of and promised in the Scriptures There must be more Love and Charity and Unanimity amongst Christians Christianity will endure to the End of the World but as for all the Modes and Fashions of Man's devising wherewith any do dress up the Profession of Christianity these may all fall to the Earth as the Inventers of them have fall'n or will fall Mat. 16. 18. Gal. 6. 15. The True Foundation you should be built upon is that of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Corner-Stone Eph. 2. 20. Therefore 2. Embrace nothing as an Article of Faith or part of Religion but what the Holy Scriptures are express or very clear concerning You have in these Scriptures all that is necessary to any Man's Salvation 2 Tim. 3. 16. 17. Joh. 20. 13. Believe no Man nor no Society of Men in these Cases further than the Scriptures do warrant what they teach Act. 17. 11. Isai 8. 20. 3. Be not extreamly hot and zealous about any thing but what the purity of Faith and power of Godliness are really concerned in Good Men and Orthodox Christians may have different apprehensions about Matters of small moment without much prejudice to their own Souls or the common Faith provided these Differences be managed without uncharitableness and unchristian violence But too much heat and violence about things diverts from the weighty matters of God's Laws and Religion soon sensibly decays Phil. 3. 16. Gal. 6. 16. Tit. 3. 9. 4. Expect and prepare for Tryals Christ hath dealt plainly and openly with us In the World ye shall have Troubles See Mat. 16. 24. Learn to resign up your selves and live in expectation of Sufferings Read 1 Pet. 4. 12 13. 5. Be earnest in Prayer that your Hearts and Souls may have an inward real spiritual affectionate sense of the Truth and Importance of the Doctrines of Christianity 1 Cor. 2. 12 13 14. 6. Study the Holy Scriptures diligently and make them your dayly delight Psal 1. 2. Psal 119. 97 98. 7. Make a good Improvement of the plain faithful Ministry of the Word whil'st you can injoy it you know not what Times may come 2 Tim. 4. 3 4. 8. Take heed of Self-confidence and depend wholly on thy Saviour 9. Learn to be expert in using every part of the Christian Armour Eph. 6. 13. c. 10. Watch your selves carefully and your Enemies too 2 Pet. 3. 17. 11. Take a due care that your Faith may effectually influence you to all Holiness of Life and Conversation That Man is in a great preparation to renounce his Faith that hath prostituted his Conscience and is regardless how he lives 1 Tim. 1. 19. Read consider and improve what is offered unto you and the God of all Grace who hath called us to his Eternal Glory by Christ Jesus after that we have suffered a while make you Perfect c. 1 Pet. 5. 10. FINIS Per lustra popinas quotidie sine pudore in aleae lusum ususque turplssuhos potestatem extratendi animas functoâ—um ex igne expiatorio profundebant In Aug. Thuam Hist l. p. 13. vide Mezenrah Ann. 1517. Sleid. Com. lib. 1. An. 15. Qnicunque non innititur doctrinae Romanae Ecclesie ac Romani Pontificis tam quam regulae fidei infallibili aqua etiam sacra Scriptura â—obur trabit authoritatem est Haeriticus Mouns Clauddef of the Reformation part 3d. M. Clauddes of the Reform part 3d. pag 51. c. Vnde Protestantium nomen quod ad omnes postea qui eorum quae perperum in religionem invecta sunt emendationem amplecti se professi sunt obitque ab Ecclesia Romana defecere dimanavit Thuan Hist lib. 1. p. 26. Nomen per contemptum ab adversariis ob protestationem Spirae impositum D. Prideaux Lect. 9. de visibil Eccles Chilling worth 's Safe way to Salvation pag. 375. Catholick Ballance pag. 19.