Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	miracle_n	prove_v	wrought_v	2,119	5	9.1238	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79784	Fiat lux or, a general conduct to a right understanding in the great combustions and broils about religion here in England. Betwixt Papist and Protestant, Presbyterian & independent to the end that moderation and quietnes may at length hapily ensue after so various tumults in the kingdom. / By Mr. JVC. a friend to men of all religions.	J. V. C. (John Vincent Canes), d. 1672.	1661 (1661)	Wing C429; Thomason E2266_1; ESTC R210152	178,951	376

both and let me once give a freedom to my thoughts I shall as soon question one as the other and if I do reject one proceeding rationally I must cashier the other also Surely the Pope canot but smile to see his book which is the ground and guide of the catholick faith he delivered with it to be made by the Protestant to speak protestantisme presbyterisme by the Presbyterian anabaptisme by the Anabaptist and quakerisme by the Quaker even as doubtles it would be a sport to Virgil if he were alive to see his Arma virumque cano turned epithalamist by one a prophetist by another an evangelist by a third whereas the poem it self intends none of these things but only the travels and wars of Eneas and doubtles our scripture it self might be made by these tricks of wit to speak forth the passions of Queen Dido Without all doubt and controul it is a most high inconsequence so passionately as we do to plaspheme a byshop who is and ever was acknowledged in the world for Pape or Father of Christianity as the most wicked man alive and a grand seducer and yet to hugge a book in our bosomes which we took at first upon his credit as an oracle of truth and then again first to fall out with him and then with one another amongst our selves about the meaning of that book wherein his own catholick beleevers all the while unanimously agree without any end pelting one another with texts and verses unto the utter ruin of charity not understanding for the most part either the uncertainty of our own reasonings or the dangerous consequence of our wayes I will utter a bold word but what I know to be true both by experience and irrefragable reason As the gospel cannot prove any thing being separated from the Church and the living and speaking oracle of him that sent it unto whose judgment both defendant and disputant must submit so neither without the help of that autority can it prove it self either by any argument which it uses none or by vertue of miracle recorded in it sith those signs and wonders there related are now as far from my knowledg as be the truths of any doctrins to be ratified by them so that I shall have as much ado to beleev them as any piece of doctrin they may confirm being all of them equally either motives or objects of beleef as I pleas my self And it is all one to me that am born in these dayes so long after those signs were wrought to beleev the miracles by Gods incarnation or Gods incarnation by the miracles since I may beleev both but can evidently know neither of them to be true so far as that I may use one of them as a medium to demonstrate the other If the gospel laid before me should work of it self any strang wonder in my sight then I might haply have some motive to beleev it but we in England inveigh bitterly against the present miracles that are shown in the catholick Church ascribing them all if they be true unto the operations of Satan so that according to this way I should not know what to think neither if the bible should do som strang thing before me and as little conclude of the past miracles there recorded §. 16. Appeal AS it is impossible to be assured that the bible is the word of God if we condemn him from whom it first came of imposture so is it certain that upon that book wrested out of the hands of catholicks against him and his who first presented it we ground all the several wayes of religion here in England whereof each body and faction does so far presume as to condemn all to death who will not approve them And yet if we did but proceed like rational men we could not but remain all of us in great humility and fear upon these surmises Does not the Pope pretend the spirit of Christ as well as we do not all catholicks so had we not the bible from them do they not ratiocinate out of it and show their religion thence as well as we only they do it uniformly we differently and upon their principles they build up Church and State we pull down all Put case we were all at this instant in our antient state of paganisme and a Priest or two should com to us from Rome to convert us now as then they did to Christianity with the gospel in their hands which they should tell us to be pure truth and Gods word which we never heard before if we should reject and disesteem them as cheating seducers could we rationally accept and beleev the book or would we not therefor cast into the fire that volum of theirs wherein were contained the summe of all their mission and news if we looked upon the men that brought it as impostours Consider seriously and think not to pull the snail out of her shell and then to keep one apart and crush the other without which it cannot liv Church and Gospel were both born together but the Church first at least in a priority of nature and must both liv together Christ the head must be authorised before he could teach and the Church established before any of her children could write a gospel nor can they with authentick autority write any thing but what the mother Church constituted by her espous the sours of all heavenly truths that earth can expect shall set her seal unto So that in any age to deny the Church and to accept of her writings to profess Christ and condemn her that brought us the first news of him is at one and the same time to take her autority and reject it to say she is fals and yet true in the same affairs As she gave testimony to Christ so did Christ unto her The same gospel ratifies both Christ and his Church the same Church both Christ and the gospel the same Christ both gospel and the Church too which himself established So then reason light scripture power of interpretation being equally to be found at least pretended in all anticatholick wayes and the Roman catholick although he have withal a surplusage of true and right autority from the Church and her pastour whom he ever follows yet since he never denied but strongly and effectuoussy maintained that he hath with him as much of true interpretation light and reason as any can pretend and so far more peculiar and excelling as the judgment of the universal Church in all ages from whence he drew that reason and light of his is in matters of religion that are not invented but derived to be preferred before the conceit of any one person who contrary to the very essence and nature of antient Christianity shall go out of the Church wherein he found himself it may most manifestly appear that as the catholick hath all the right and preheminence that any other may pretend for himself and yet a far greater too even that