Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	believe_v	church_n	infallibility_n	5,773	5	11.7611	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33458	Notes upon Mr. Dryden's poems in four letters / by M. Clifford .... ; to which are annexed some Reflections upon the Hind and panther, by another hand.	Clifford, M. (Martin), d. 1677.; Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704. Reflections on the Hind and panther.	1687 (1687)	Wing C4706; ESTC R1883	19,057	36

there was no Post nor Pillar in the Town exempt from the pasting up of the Titles of his Plays Insomuch that the Foot-boys for want of skill in Reading do now as we hear often bring away by mistake the Title of a new Book against the Church of England instead of taking down the Play for the Afternoon yet if he did it well or handsomly he might deserve some Pardon but alas how ridiculously doth he appear in Print for any Religion who hath made it his business to laugh at all How can he stand up for any mode of Worship who hath been accustomed to bite and spit his Venom against the very Name thereof Wherefore I cannot but wish our Adversaries Joy in their New-converted Hero Mr. Bayes whose Principle it is to fight single with whole Armies and this one quality he prefers before all the moral Vertues put together The Roman Catholicks may talk what they will of their Bellarmin and Perrone their Hector and Achilles and I know not who but I desire them all to shew one such Champion for the Cause as this Drawcansir For he is the Man that kills whole Nations at once who as he never wrote any thing that any one can imagin has ever been the practise of the World so in his late endeavours to pen Controversie you shall hardly find one word to the purpose He is that accomplished Person who loves Reasoning so much in Verse and hath got a knack of writing it smoothly The Subject he treats of in this Poem did in his Opinion require more than ordinary Spirit and Flame therefore he supposed it to be too great for Prose for he is too proud to creep servilly after sense so that in his Verse he soares high above the reach of it to do this there is no need of Brain 't is but scanning right the labour is in the Finger not in the Head However if Mr. Bayes would be pleased to abate a little of the exuberancy of his Fancy and Wit to dispense with his Ornaments and Superfluencies of Invention and Satyr a Man might consider whether he should submit to his Argument but take away the Railing and no Argument remains so that one may beat the Bush a whole day and after so much labour only spring a Butterfly or start an Hedg-hog For all this is it not great pity to see a Man in the flower of his Romantick Conceptions in the full vigour of his Studies on Love and Honour to fall into such a distraction as to walk through the Thorns and Briars of Controversie unless his Confessor hath commanded it as a Penance for some past sins that a Man who hath read Don Quixot for the greatest part of his Life should pretend to interpret the Bible or trace the Footsteps of Tradition even in the darkest Ages But hold we have a Battel just coming in and now Mr. Bayes speaks as big as if Ten Thousand Men were really engaged at the same time he sings in his Verse and puts himself into a Warlike posture so that our Ears are at once entertained with Musick and good Language and our Eye is also surprised with the Garb and Accoutrements of a Controversial War Notwithstanding methinks this blustring Wight is hardly strong and wise enough to demonstrate two such untoward Points as Transubstantiation and Infallibility I fancy he is as able to Square the Circle His Brains indeed have been a long time used to Chimera's the Raptures and Visions of Poetry gaudy Scenes unaccountable flights of Non-sense and big Absurdities consequently he may have a good head for the believing of Legends But let us see how he proves his several Positions which for brevity and distinction sake I must denominate after this manner and in this order 1. Transubstantiation 2. Reformation 3. Infallibility 4. Novelty and Schism 5. The passive Church First Transubstantiation he says we must admit Because Man is to believe Beyond what Sense and Reason can conceive Thus Mr. Bayes hath subdued his Understanding and laying aside his Sense and Reason is become a zealous Bigot for the Roman Faith But God Almighty is pleased to deal with us as Rational Creatures therefore no Doctrine that comes from him is contrary to our Reason neither are our Faculties to be renounced for the sake of it without the use whereof we should not be able to know any thing that relates to the Worship of God or our own Duty Nay in the very planting of the Christian Faith by Miracles Appeals are always made to the Reason and Sense of the Standers by We may therefore very well suspect that some Cheat is to be put upon us when they would have us receive a Doctrine of the Council of Trent without Sense and Reason Thus to subdue the Understanding to the Belief of Fictions is to suppose that God doth not expect that we should make use of the Soul which he hath given us in all its Adorations to pay him a Rational Service But Mr. Bayes hath not yet left off to expose Religion for to feign monstrous Opinions and then fly to Omnipotence to make them out is the most unjustifiable Attempt and the highest Blasphemy that can be thought on But our Poet is the same Mr. Bayes still as He was when he served the Stage He did ever scorn to imitate Nature and was altogether given to elevate and surprize so now he would banish Sense and Reason out of Religion to which he was never a Friend but above all his way of managing Controversies is peculiar 't is indeed Elevating Charming Rhiming and every thing but Thinking and Sense as for Instance p. 15. The Smith Divine as with a careless Beat Struck out the mute Creation at a Heat There 's a Rant for you That 's a Flight of Fancy at its full Range without any Check and Controul of Sense and Reason Hence it is that he hath been always wont to shew such hideous monstrous things in his Plays that every Man of Wit began to nauseate his swelling Stuff so now he labours to do the same thing in Divinity insomuch that his new Church will find it necessary to spue him out Secondly Reformation he rallies at as the Brat of an old obscene and furious Lyon that is Henry the 8th's Lust This is indeed a blustring Verse and a bold Stroke at the Memory of That King for thus our Hero will snub even Kings baffle Armies and do what He will without any regard to good Manners or Justice Nay he shall win you above a Dozen Battles by this sort of Impudence one after another But now among Friends was there ever any thing spoken so falsly so maliciously so ignorantly He has Face enough to say or unsay any thing and 't is his Priviledge what the School-Divines deny to be even within the Power of the Almighty To make Contradictions true that an honest necessary and well-grounded Reformation from gross Errors imposed as matters of Faith should be