Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A40089
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A sermon preached before the judges, &c. in the time of the assizes in the Cathedral church at Gloucester on Sunday Aug. 7, 1681 published to put a stop to false and injurious representations / by Edward Fowler.
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Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing F1716; ESTC R10669
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23,348
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42
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the Non-necessity of the Laity's partaking of the Cup in the Lords Supper and their being Rob'd accordingly of their share therein expresly contrary to our Saviours institution and the Practice of the first Ages of the Church and of all other Churches in the world What say you to their well known Doctrine Of the Non-necessity of Repentance before the imminent point of death And to this other that goes beyond that viz. that meer Attrition or sorrow for sin for fear of hell if accompanied with the Sacrament of Penance is sufficient to a sinners justification and acceptance with God This the Council of Trent doth plainly take for granted in the fourth Chapter of their fourteenth Session What say you to the Doctrine of Opus operatum which makes the meer work done in all acts of Devotion sufficient to the Divine Acceptance particularly the bare saying of Prayers without either minding what they say or understanding it And agreeably hereunto the Romish Church enjoyns the saying of them in a Language unknown to the generality of her children notwithstanding the perfectly contrary Doctrine delivered by S. Paul in the 14 th Chap. of the first to the Corinthians What say you to the Doctrine of the Insufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for mens Salvation and her denying them to be a complete Rule of Faith and Practice in things necessary without her Traditions Wherein she gives the Lye to the same great Apostle who tells his son Timothy that the Scriptures are able to make wise to Salvation and that by them the man of God may be perfected and throughly furnished to every good work What say you to her Doctrine of the Gospels obscurity even in things of absolute necessity to be believed and practised devised on purpose to perswade the people to an implicit belief in her self and to receive without examining whatsoever doctrines she shall please to call Articles of Faith This is a wicked Doctrine in it self also as well as upon the account of the Design of it It being most unworthy of God to require all under pain of damnation rightly to understand those Points which are obscurely revealed What say you to her Doctrine of the dangerousness of the vulgars reading the Holy Scriptures and her Practice answerable thereunto of denying them the Bible in their own language What say you to her Doctrine that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks What say you to this Doctrine that the most horrid villanies are then lawful when necessary to the promoting of the interest of the Catholick cause I do not say that this is decreed in any Council or that it is in express terms taught by any of them But however if it be lawful to judge of mens opinions by their constant practices we may without a Calumny call this also a Doctrine of the Church of Rome Particularly the world hath for a long time been well acquainted with her most horrible Cruelties upon the account of Religion To mind you of a few famous instances in the persecution of the Albigenses and Waldenses were miserably murthered no fewer than a thousand thousand In the Massacre of France in the space of three months an hundred thousand In the Low-Countries in a few years were cut off by the hand of the common hangman thirty and six thousand Protestants And by the holy Inquisition as Vergerius witnesseth who was well acquainted therewith were destroyed in less than thirty years space one hundred and fifty thousand with all manner of the most exquisite cruelties I need not mind you what a vast number were Burnt at the stake in our own Country in the Reign of Queen Mary Nor what additions have been made since to Romes Butcheries in Piedmont and Ireland And what a horrible slaughter had there been in England by the Gun powder Treason if it had not been prevented by a Wonderful Providence And also what work the Romanists would have been at here again before this time if God in his infinite mercy had not defeated the Councels of those bloudy Achitophels all who do not wilfully shut their eyes and are not Papists at least in Masquerade should one would think acknowledge themselves satisfyed after so great evidence So that we need no further proof that the Woman hath Rome Christian for her principal Seat upon whose head S. Iohn tells us was a name written Mystery Babylon the great the mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth and whom he saw drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Iesus But we have farther proof that the now mentioned wicked doctrine may truly be charged upon the Church of Rome For her abominable Practices do not only justifie this charge but several of the Doctrines of her darling sons those pretious youths the Iesuits and which as they tell you are much elder than their order viz. That of the lawfulness of Equivocations and Mental Reservations even before Courts of Iudicature at least if they consist of Hereticks of the putting which vile principle into practice we have had of late diverse marvelous and most astonishing instances That of the Popes power of Dispensing with the most Solemn Oaths and of Absolving Subjects from their Allegiance to Heretical Princes That of the Lawfulness nay Meritoriousness of taking Arms against them of Stabbing and Poisoning them And we of this Kingdom too well know that the Romish Church make no bones of practising upon these Principles I might still farther proceed in instancing in her most corrupt and wicked Principles but you have had enough in all Conscience And but that now especially we are obliged to take all opportunities for the exposing of the vileness of the Romish Religion I would e'en be as soon engag'd in stirring Jakes's and raking dunghills as in such work as this God be thanked for that mighty Spirit that hath been stirred up throughout the Nation against Popery Oh that it more generally proceeded from our sense of the hatefulness thereof and the extreme dishonour it brings to Christianity and its infinite injuriousness to the Souls of men as well as from the concern we have for our Temporal interest which is but a mean and pitiful consideration in comparison of those other And the better the Principles of Popery and the Practices of the Papists are understood the greater and more lasting must their zeal against them needs be who have any hearty kindness either for Christianity or for Natural Religion either for Christianity or for good Morality and common honesty or even mere good nature I will not so far imitate the horrible uncharitableness of the Romish Church as to say that 't is impossible to find any sincere Christians in her Communion and much less that no honest or good natur'd people are among them But this we are very certain may safely be said that whosoever is throughly instructed in the Popish Principles and acts accordingly is so much a
them but the more miserable if they did not believe so truly they would not tremble as they do The Devils also believe and tremble Iames 2.19 In short we are not more assured from the Holy Scriptures that God made the Heavens and the Earth than we are of the truth of this Proposition that the most sound belief will not do us the least service while it is accompanied with a naughty life That the most Orthodox Sentiments will nothing avail us while joyned with an Heretical Conversation Thirdly We proceed to shew that mens making shipwrack concerning the Faith is occasioned by their having first put away a good Conscience Which good Conscience some having put away concerning Faith have made shipwrack The Apostle speaking of some that resisted the truth calls them men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the Faith 2 Tim. 3.8 Thereby intimating that their being reprobate concerning the Faith proceeded from the corruption of their minds or naughtiness of their hearts and the prevalence of evil and corrupt Affections And the same Apostle speaking of certain Hereticks attributes their erring from the Faith to their gratifying particularly that last of Covetousness 1 Tim. 6.10 The love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the Faith And S. Peter speaking of wicked Seducers saith that they had eyes full of Adultery and hearts exercised with covetous practices And intimateth that this is the cause of their forsaking the right way and their beguiling unstable Souls 2 Ep. 2.14 15. Now would we be satisfied how this putting away a good Conscience occasioneth mens making shipwrack of the Faith It is evident that it doth thus these three ways First As mens addicting themselves to the satisfying of some lust or other puts them upon devising shifts and tricks to still the disquieting clamours of their Consciences The wrath of God being revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men 't is no easie thing for any one willingly to transgress the Rules of Righteousness without being frequently tormented with fearful expectations and the Horrors of an Accusing and condemning Conscience Now the most effectual way to be rid of these next to sincere Repentance and Reformation is either for a wicked man to perswade himself if he be able that there is no God or nothing after this Life and consequently that the Bible is a cheat and all its threatnings mere scare-crows Or if this he cannot do in regard of the abundant evidence of the Being of a God and the Authority of the Holy Scriptures the course must be so to wrest and pervert the Scriptures as to make them give liberty to certain evil practices or to promise forgiveness of sin to certain performances that are short of forsaking it Thus those Hereticks in the Primitive times wrestâ—d the places wherein the Gospel is called the Law of Liberty and wherein we are said to be delivered from the Law so as to take off the Obligation of the Moral as well as the Ceremonial Law and to give liberty to sin and to oppose Faith to Obedience in the business of Justification and acceptance with God Many other instances may be given both of Ancient and Modern Hereticks perverting of passages of Scripture so as to make them great encouragements to sin and discouragements to a Holy life perfectly contrary to the whole strain and tenor of the Gospel But I must not enlarge farther upon this Argument because the main thing I intended in the choice of this Subject is yet behind Secondly The putting away of a good Conscience occasions making shipwrack of the Faith through the just judgment of God The former particular gave us an account of wicked mens being strongly enclined to make shiwrack of the Faith and of their endeavouring it this of their putting their inclinations into practice and succeeding in their endeavours Men that are wedded to any lust are very forward for their own ease to endeavour either the embraceing of Atheistical Principles or so to abuse the Scriptures as to take encouragement from them to live in sin but they could hardly so extinguish the light of their own minds as to succeed in their endeavours were it not for the judgment of God upon them in giving them up into the Deceivers hands To this purpose observe what the Apostle saith 2 Thess. 2.10 11. Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved or they did not so receive it as to suffer it to have any good effect upon their hearts and lives for this cause God shall send them strong delusions or give them up to be deluded by the tricks of the Devil the signs and lying wonders before mentioned that they should believe a lye that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness Thirdly The putting away of a good Conscience occasions making shipwrack of the Faith as wicked Professors of Christianity do find it a most successful course to promote their corrupt and naughty designs by foisting into the Christian Religion such Doctrines and Practices as favour and encourage such designs I have shewed that those who corrupt the Christian Religion with such Doctrines or Practices as contradict the Design of it do truly make shipwrack of the Faith and whereas there may be given too many instances of such Hypocrites as have so done I shall make it the whole business of what remains of the Doctrinal part of this Discourse to shew that the Church of Rome as she is now Constituted is most shamefully guilty in this particular It is to be acknowledged that she retains the Profession of all the Fundamental and Essential Articles of the Christian Faith a summary of which is that Creed which we call the Apostles and she professeth a Reverence for the whole New Testament If she in express terms rejected any Doctrine that is of the Essence and a vital part of Christianity her members may not be called Christians in any sense and we then do very ill to say the Church of Rome We do not stick at calling them a Church though a most corrupt and degenerate Church as to use the similitude of Bishop Hall a thief is truly a man though not a true man A woman may retain the name of a wife till she 's formally divorced though she be an adulteress The Church of Rome may as truly be called a Church as the Iewish Nation the People of God after their foul Revolt from him and Lapse into Idolatry and other wicked and impious practices But this hath been abundantly made good against this Church that though she holds the Foundation yet she builds Wood Hay and Stubble upon the Foundation that is she mixeth many impure Doctrines of her own with the most holy and undefiled Doctrines of the Gospel Of which I will present you with some instances but must be very brief upon most of them What say