Selected quad for the lemma: end_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	catholic_n	church_n	communion_n	1,263	5	9.4239	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62581	The rule of faith, or, An answer to the treatises of Mr. I.S. entituled Sure-footing &c. by John Tillotson ... ; to which is adjoined A reply to Mr. I.S. his 3d appendix &c. by Edw. Stillingfleet.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Reply to Mr. I.S. his 3d appendix.	1676 (1676)	Wing T1218; ESTC R32807	182,586	472

of the true and pure Doctrine c. viz. My self and many others again my self and as many Christians as are thoroughly of the right perswasion Secondly Who deny the Millennium Many Christians saith Justin but what Christians Of a right perswasion That saith he I have signified before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For I have shewed thee of them who are called Christians but are indeed Atheists and impious Hereticks that they teach blasphemous and atheistical and absurd things And true it is he did shew before that those who deny'd the Millennium were many in number and were called Christians c. but were Teachers of blasphemous and atheistical things c. and known to be Atheists and Impious c. But he shewed it of none other besides these So that if this Doctrine were likewise denied by many Christians of the pure and pious perswasion than Justin Martyr had foulely forgot himself But if not then it is plain that the Transcribers have wronged Justin by leaving out a Negative which ought to have been inserted It is worth observing by the way how Mr. White pleases himself with false and frivolous Criticisms upon the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 False they are as Mr. White shall know if he desires to hear any more of them and frivolous they are rendered by my preceding Discourse for which reason I say no more of them But I think he may do well hereafter as Mr. S. warily suggests not to engage himself nor be hook't by others out of his own infallible way but leave it wholly to the Bird-witted Hereticks as Mr. S. calls them to perch upon the specifical natures of Words as he does of Things § 9. Besides these Instances I have given of Doctrines and Practises which Mr. S. cannot deny to have been innovated I might instance likewise in the chief Points of Popery and shew that for all their pretence to Tradition they are really Innovations But because this would engage me in tedious Disputes about particular Points I will only single out one of their most fundamental Doctrines viz. that of Transubstantiation concerning which I shall shew that notwithstanding it is the universal perswasion of the present Roman Church yet they have not nor can have any assurance that it was the Doctrine of Christ and that it is descended to them by an uninterrupted Tradition I shall not at all contend against the word Transubstantiation which is generally acknowledged to be new but only the thing signified by it a substantial change of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. And this I might shew at large not to have been the Doctrine of the ancient Fathers But because Mr. White and Dr. Holden and Mr. Cressy do so frequently and confidently tell us that nothing is to be reputed a Traditionary Doctrine the contrary whereof hath been publickly held by any Catholick who continued afterwards uncensured and in the Communion of the Church Therefore I shall content my self at present with one clear Testimony and that of a very eminent Person in the Church St. Theodoret concerning whom Pope Leo in an Epistle to him at the end of Theodoret's Works gives this Testimony That in the judgment of the Apostolick See he was free from all stain of Heresie The passage I intend is in his Dialogues between a Catholick under the name of Orthodoxus and Eranistes who susteined the person of an Heretick Eranistes maintaining that the Body of Christ was changed into the substance of the Divinity he illustrates it by this similitude As says he the Symbols of the Lords Body and Blood are one thing before the invocation of the Priest but after the invocation are changed and do become another thing So the Body of our Lord after his Ascension is changed into the Divine substance To which Orthodoxus returns this answer Thou art caught in thine own Net Because the mystical Symbols after Consecration do not pass out of their own Nature for they remain in their former substance figure and appearance and may be seen and handled even as before He does not only in express words deny the substance of the Symbols to be changed but the occasion upon which these words are brought in and the scope of them if they be of any force against the Hereticks illustration renders them uncapable of any other sense When Mr. S. hath answered this Testimony I have more for him That which I mainly urge against this Doctrine is the monstrous Absurdities and Contradictions contained in it together with the necessary consequence of them Several of the Absurdities of it are well brought together by Scotus who tells us That to prove the possibility of Christs Body being contained under the species of Bread and Wine many things must be proved which seem to involve a Contradiction as 1. That one quantum or extended Body may be together in the very same place with another 2. That a less quantum may be together in the same place with a greater i. e. a Body of less extension may occupy not only the same but as much room as a Body of greater extension does which is to say no more but this that a Body less than another may be as great as that other even whil'st it is less than it 3. That a greater quantum may be together with every part of a less quantum i. e. a Body that is greater than another may be as little as the least part of that other Body which is less than it 4. That a subject may be without quantity i. e. there may be a Body which hath no kind of Magnitude 5. That a Body may be somewhere where it was not before without changing its place i· e. a Body may be removed to another place whil'st it remains still in the same place 6. That a quantum may be without any quantitative Mode i. e. a Body may be extended without any manner of extension The possibility of all which he saith and I am very much of his mind it would be too tedious a work to prove and therefore he only attempts to prove the two last which in all reason is work enough for one man All these seeming Contradictions as he modestly calls them are by his own acknowledgment involved in this Doctrine To these I might add many more as How a thing can be said to be changed into another thing which did exist before How a Body can be present in a place after the manner of a spirit and yet this they affirm concerning the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament one might as well say that Snow is black but not after the manner of blackness but in the way of whiteness which is to talk non-sense after the manner of sense How the whole Body of Christ can be contained under the least sensible part of the species of Bread as is generally affirmed nay and Scotus

but this if a Pope and Council should define a new thing and declare they ground themselves on new lights as did their first reformers in England but I shall find he saith no such fopperies in faith-definitions made by the Catholick Church Is this the man who made choice of reason for his weapon could there be a greater calumny cast on our Church than to say her reformers grounded themselves on new lights when our great charge against the Church of Rome is for introducing Novelties and receding from pure and primitive antiquity Whether the charge be true or no yet sure it follows they did not declare they ground themselves on new lights but expresly the contrary Well but Pope and Councils neither define new things nor ground themselves on them but what means the man of reason that they make no new definitions surely not for then what did they meet for and what mean their decrees but he intends that they deliver no new doctrine but how must that be tried or hath Mr. S. gained the opinion of infallibility both from Pope and Councils that we must believe his bare word but we not only say but prove that even their last Council hath defined many things which never were delivered by Christ or his Apostles And it is to no purpose whether they say they ground themselves on new lights or pretend to an infallible assistance for it comes all to the same at last For if the assistance be infallible what matter is it whether the doctrine hath been revealed or no for on this supposition it is impossible that Pope and Council should miscarry Therefore if any Church be guilty of fopperies in faith-definitions it must be that which you miscall the Catholick but is more truly known by the name of the Roman Church There is yet one piece of Mr. S's sagacity to be taken notice of as to this particular which is that I am at an end of my argument because I say the opinion of the Pope and Councils infallibility is the common doctrin maintained in which I confound the Church with the schools or some private opinaters and then carp at those mens tenets And this is the force of all that Paragraph He tells me I want not wit to know that no sober Catholick holds humane deductions the rule of their faith schoolmen definers of it nor the schools the Tribunal whence to propose it authoritatively and obligingly to the generality of the faithful Neither doth Mr. S. want the wit to know that our present enquiry is concerning the sense of their present Church about the rule of faith Since then Mr. S. must confess it necessary to faith to know what the certain rule of it is let me enquire further whether any particular person can know certainly what it is unless he knows what the Church owns for her rule of faith and whether that may be owned as the Churches judgement which is stifly opposed by the most interessed persons in the Roman Church and the most zealous contenders for it Especially when the Pope who is said to be Head of the Church condemns the doctrine asserted and that only by a small number of such who are as much opposed by themselves as by any of us Is it then possible to know the Churches judgement or not if not 't is to no purpose to search for a rule of faith if it be which way can we come to know it either by most voices or the sense of the Governours of the Church either of the ways I dare put it to a fair tryal whether oral tradition or the infallibility of Pope and Councils be the Doctrine most owned in the Church of Rome But Mr. S. still tells us these are only private opinators and schoolmen who assert the contrary doctrine to his But wiill not they much more say on the other side that this way of oral trodition is a novel fancy of some few half-Catholicks in England and tends to subvert the Roman Church But is the present Pope with Mr. S. a private opinator or was the last a meer schoolman I am sure what ever Mr. S. thinks of him he thought not so of himself when he said he was no Divine in the controversie of Jansenius Doth the Court of Rome signifie no more with Mr. S. than a company of scholastick Pedants that know not what the sense of the Church is concerning the rule of faith I meddle not with the Schools but with the authority of the present Church and him whom Mr. S. owns for the head of it and is it consistent with his headship to condemn that doctrine which contains in it the only certain rule of faith Mr. S. may then see they were no such impertinent Topicks which I insisted on and as stout as Mr. S. seems to be I an apt to believe he would not look on the censure of the Inquisition as an impertinent Topick But at last Mr. S. offers at something whereby he would satisfie me of the sense of the Church as to this particular and therefore asks whether I never heard of such a thing as the Council of Trent I must ingenuously confess I have and seen more a great deal of it than I am satisfied with But what of that there he tells me I may find a clear solution of my doubt by the constant procedure of that most grave Synod in its definitions That is I hope to find that oral tradition was acknowledged there as the only self-evident rule of faith If I do this I confess my self satisfied in this enquiry But how much to the contrary is there very obvious in the proceedings of it For in the 4 th Session the Decree is That Scripture and tradition should be embraced with equal piety and reverence and the reason is because the doctrine of faith is contain'd partly in Scripture partly in tradition but what arts must Mr. S. use to infer from hence that oral tradition in contradistinction to Scripture was looked on as the only rule of faith I cannot but say that the ruling men of that Council were men wise enough in their generation and they were too wise wholly to exclude Scripture but because they knew that of it self could not serve their purposes they therefore help it out with tradition and make both together the compleat rule of faith Where I pray in all the proceedings of that Council doth Mr. S. find them define any thing on the account of oral tradition instead of which we find continual bandyings about the sense of Scripture and Fathers which might have been all spared if they had been so wise as to consider they could not but know the sense of the present Church nor that of the precedent and so up to the time of Christ. But they were either so ignorant as not to light on this happy invention or so wise and knowing as to despise it It is true they would not have their doctrines looked