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
A48817	The difference between the Church and Court of Rome, considered in some reflections on a dialogue entituled, A conference between two Protestants and a Papist / by the author of the late seasonable discourse.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1674 (1674)	Wing L2677; ESTC R18276	29,803	41

frequent repetition of the Statutes against Provisors in the time of our Ancestors and applied as a competent Security against those Usurpations of the Pope which were said by the seasonable Discourse to tend so much to the impoverishing of this Nation But in the mean time the Author doth not consider that the frequency of those Statutes sheweth as much their insufficiency as the making them argues the good will of the Legislators nor is it probable that any Remedy can be sufficient when the Supremacy of the Pope is acknowledged and where the whole belief of the Professors is concluded in that one rule of believing as the Church believes For the Pope being supposed to be the Head of the Church what Interpreters of the Churches Faith can they meet with equal to the Head of it Not to speak of those who believe in the infallibility lodged in the Pope General Councils are not every day assembled nor is it probable the Pope will permit them if likely to contradict or lessen his Authority In their absence what is there which can be put in ballance with the Reverence given to St. Peters Chair amongst the Professors of that Religion Shall the opinion of one or two Priests stand in competition with the Pope Can any man believe this plausible Doctrine of the power of Kings and contempt of the Pope's in comparison of theirs can have any other aim or effect than to procure a connivance or admittance of that Religion which whatever the opinion of some few Professors may be and what their sincerity is may be another question when it recovers its strength must turn like the Countrey-man's snake to sting those who with so much charity and kindness shall cherish and favour it To make this whole matter obvious to a common understanding let us suppose some loyal person stumbling at the irregular claims of the Pope and confusion and miseries brought into the world by that exorbitance and upon the conviction of that one Point which for its plainness he best understands and for its influence and effect upon his secular Interests he most studiously minds holding fast the loyal Principles of the Church of England since no other batteries can shake him comes Father N. and tells him he is in a great mistake to think that the great exaltation of the Pope's Authority is so necessary a Doctrine that for his own part he doth not believe it Well that stumbling-block being removed there is a Convert made to the Romish Church perhaps eminent enough to lead many others by his Example at least it is highly probable he wants not influence upon his Wife and Children if not others of his Relations and Acquaintance to pervert them also probably without conditioning so severely for their loyalty But what will become even of that capitulation when after perhaps some years of confirmation in all the Romish Opinions and particularly that of submission to the Churches Authority death or the censure of the Pope may have removed or a preferment have converted F. N. or such loyal Casuist For why may he not change his Opinion as Father Cressy did his in that very particular who in the first Edition of his Exomologesis made a Protestation of his Duty and Obedience which is corrected in the second And in any of these cases our Proselyte shall find himself entangled with the new Doctrines of his Confessor who in a season when Factions of State or other Circumstances prepare men for such dangerous Doctrines as they are too subtle to avow them or at least press them unseasonably shall urge the submission to the Churches opinion and then the quotations of so many Doctors which are now by our Author rejected and sleighted in comparison of one or two plausible opinions shall sound loud in concurrance with the Head of the Church who besides the credit of his own determination has the prescription of so many Ages the actual deposition of Princes in all parts of Europe from time to time and the decrees of Universal Councils to justifie his claim In vain shall the Penitent alledge to his Confessor that Father N. was of that opinion The Reply will be easie that Father N. was a good yea and a learned man in things where he agrees with the Church but still he was a man and subject to error and therefore not to be credited when he disagreed with the Church of which the Pope Colledge of Cardinals General Councils and so many Doctors who have wrote before and after Father N. are better and more credible Expositors than he It will be hard for any body to disentangle himself from this Argument if he have once surrendered his Faith implicitely to that of the Roman Church or as we have shewed under the usual Obligations been engaged in its Communion And if a person of so remarkable loyalty as we in this Instance suppose our Proselyte to be cannot be able to withstand and secure himself what shall we suppose of those his Relations and Acquaintance whom his Authority and Example turned to the Church of Rome perhaps with less Circumspection I have many Reasons to believe F. N. to be a very honest man as I know him to be ingenuous and learned and therefore stand amaz'd to see him offer to the World a Proposal so unreasonable as this is If he be in earnest as I must suppose him to be his Address to one of our Church whom he would bring over to his Part will run in this or such like Form Those only belong to the Fold of Christ who are under the conduct of the Universal Pastor his Holiness the Pope and they alone are sound in the Faith and consequently capable of Salvation who believe the Doctrine received by the Catholick that is the Roman Church It is therefore necessary for you as you tender the eternal welfare of your Soul religiously to obey this Pastor and believe all the Proposals of this Church But notwithstanding though this Pastor and as I shall presently demonstrate this Church have solemnly declared that Princes may be Excommunicated and then deprived of their Dominions by his Holiness you must by no means believe that damnable Doctrine and though you are sure to be excommunicated for your stubbornness therein as F. N. at this day is for this only crime you must endure it rather than comply with those false and rebellious Tenets that subvert the Laws destroy the Peace and endanger the Sacred Persons of Soveraign Princes In short upon pain of damnation you must be in Communion with the Roman Church and yet under the same penalty you must be content to be excommunicated you must believe as the Church believes and yet you must not believe so Before I leave this Point I must beg leave to add one Observation which may be useful to the determining how far it will consist with Prudence to hearken to the Proposition made for the encouraging by the relaxation of Penalties those

are the goodly Machines which are recommended to batter down the Protestant Cause and which we see every day propos'd with such confidence as if they had really some force or value in them and where these Stratagems succeed lest the fraud and folly of them should be detected great pains is taken to perswade the unhappy Proselyte immediately to discard all Heretical Books especially the Bible and the conversation of Hereticks especially Divines But because in this Noon-day Light of Christian Knowledge the Generality of Protestants is not apt to be perswaded to quit their Faith on these slight terms the next dexterity will be which is the Head we are now immediately concern'd in to make them believe that they are much mistaken if they measure Popery from Prejudice and common Fame or the Expressions of the School-men or peevish Writers of Controversie The Church speaks in the Canons of her Councils and if they be soberly considered 't will appear there is not so vast a distance between both parties as is vulgarly imagin'd This is at large inculcated as by our Country-men Sancta Clara Hugh Cressy Tilden and others so with great vouge and ostentation by the Bishop of Condom in his celebrated Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church concerning matters in Controversie which he has transformed and molded to render it more soft and plausible several times over So that we are so far from learning of him the Doctrine of his Church that we cannot discern what is his own every Edition altering the Scheme and way of Proposal I may not omit to add upon this Head the mention of my Author who spends whole pages of his little Dialogue in shewing the Moderation of the Church of England in difference to other Reformations and the easiness by good handling to procure a Reconcilement But all these Pacifick Men are so artificial as to conceal what ill Treatment the Authors of such Discourses have ever had where they were in earnest and there was no collusion in the case For instance Erasmus Cassander Modrevius The Interimists F. Barnes c. And what is more material the Bull of Pius the IV. who made the Trent Creed and confirm'd the Dictates of that Assembly which forbids that any Person of whatsoever Order or Dignity in the Church his Holiness onely excepted do explicate the Decrees of the Council in any manner or upon any pretence withal he nulls and makes void all such Explications So that be we Protestants never so much disposed to a composure there is no Concession to be look'd for on the Papists part who are not only accountable for the Heterodoxy of their Interpretations but for the very offer at interpreting And therefore however the Heretick may be born in hand before his Reconcilement to the Church of Rome of great Indulgence to Dissenters in Speculative Points so soon as he is made a Proselyte the case is alter'd and he must believe as the Church believes or 't were as good to believe nothing at all I had thought here to have instanc'd in Mr. Hugh Cressy's Improvements in the Catholick Faith after his first Conversion Whereby all his kind Remembrances of the Church of England and offer of giving Security to the State mentioned in the First Edition of his Exomologesis are forgotten in the Second with several other Remarkable Varieties and Additional Periods and Sections in the place of those that were expung'd with which when the aforesaid Mr. Cressy was charged as gross and scandalous falsifications he had no better excuse to make than by protesting solemnly That he knew nothing of the Alterations they being put in by his Superiours to whose diseretions he had entirely left his Book and it seems his own Honesty and Honour But I find my self prevented in this particular by the late honourable Animadverter on that inconstant man and therefore unto him I remit the Reader George Cassander who labour'd in the Affair of Reconcilement as much and understood it as well as any man lays it down as a fundamental Maxime That the Church can never have the desired peace unless they lead the way to it who have given the cause to the distraction that is unless those who are in place of Ecclesiastical Government will remit of their immoderate Rigour and yield somewhat to the peace of the Church and hearkening to the Admonitions of pious men will set themselves to correct manifest Abuses according to the Rule of Divine Scripture and of the Primitive Church from which they have swerved Now can any one be so fond to think that his Holiness will tamely strip himself of the Regalia Petri and be reduced to the Neighbour-like Terms of the old Regulae Patrum Will he part with his Universal Monarchy and be satisfied with a primacy of Order his Suburbicarian Region and a little Diocess in a part of Italy Will he leave off to have his feet upon the necks of Kings and his hands in theirs and their subjects pockets and be in earnest servus servorum I need not ask whether the Cardinals will come off from their Pontifical Sloth and Luxury and quitting their Pensions and Commendams remember they were poor Parish Priests and Deacons But will the meanest Father or Curé perswade himself to disown his power of making God and disposing of him at his pleasure in the language of Pere Cotton loose the omnipotence of having his God in his hand and Prince at his feet and in pure self-denial quit the power of the Keyes in the grinful pretences of being able by the vertue of the Sacrament of Penance and some grains of Attrition added to it to remit all sins how horrid soever and sneak into a Ministerial Stewardship of a Clave non errante Or farther shall the bartering for Masses whose whole merit is said to be applied by the intention of the Priests and the Lay-mans payment for them though neither understand a word of the whole Office and the later do not so much as hear it read and can have no concern therein unless perchance his share in the idolatrous Worship of the elevated Wafer upon which work alone so many thousand lazy Friers are constantly maintained be laid aside for the reasonable service instituted by our Saviour and the entire perception of the holy Eucharist according to that his Institution of it I know men are apt to believe that which they vehemently wish and very wise and sober men were induced to think heretofore a closure with the Church of Rome no impossible matter but the case is quite altered since the time of the Council of Trent which has establisht every thing that ought to be remov'd and shew'd the world how vain their hopes were from Synods and universal Councils how formidable the very approaches to Reformation were to those Fathers abundantly appears from that History of Padre Paolo and this is acknowledged abundantly by my Author And now let us suppose