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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	apostle_n	church_n	word_n	1,664	5	4.2322	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A07344	An antidote against popery confected out of scriptures, fathers, councels, and histories. Wherein dialogue-wise are shewed, the points, grounds, and antiquitie of the Protestant religion; and the first springing vp of the points of popery: together with the Antichristianisme thereof. Being alone sufficient to inable any Protestant of meane capacitie, to vnderstand and yeeld a reason of his religion, and to incounter with and foyle the aduersary. By Iohn Mayer, B.D. and pastor of the Church of little Wratting in Suffolke.	Mayer, John, 1583-1664.	1625 (1625)	STC 17729; ESTC S102861	69,172	94

So that we may most truely affirme that there is no one tenent of our Church but we haue a plaine place of Scripture for it but it may truly be retorted vpon you that you haue not one plaine place for any one of your tenents or practices so that ye are faine miserably to wrest and straine any text hence alledged and when that will not doe to fly to Apochryphall bookes traditions and ridiculous fables Elym Are all these sayings in your Bible if they bee it is more then I know but sure I am that there are sentences plainly teaching the same that we doe For what else is that saying of our Sauiour This is my body and my flesh is meat indeed and blood drinke indeed and vpon this rocke will I build my Church and to thee will I giue the Keyes of the Kingdome of heauen and againe Peter feed my sheepe And touching the Church Math. 18.17 1 Tim 3.15 If he heareth not the Church let him be to thee as an Ethnicke and the Church is the ground and pillar of truth Touching other points we need none other Scripture seeing to the Church it is promised Ioh. 16.13 When he is come which is the spirit of truth he will lead you into all truth Wherefore the Church cannot erre and whatsoeuer is by her propounded as matter of faith or practice must needs then be right But bee it knowne vnto you that wee want not plaine places for particular points Touching iustification Iam. 2.24 A man is not iustified by faith onely but by workes Touching prayer for the dead There is a sinne vnto death I say not that yee should pray for it 1 Ioh. 5.16 Iam. 5.14 Luke 7.47 Math. 25. Touching extreame vnction They shall pray for him and anoint him in the name of the Lord. Touching the merit of workes Many sinnes are forgiuen her because shee hath loued much and Come ye blessed c. for I was hungry and yee fed me c. For time would faile me if I should go on to alleage all the places that plainly make for vs. Paul You doe well so to slieglit our euidences brought out of the holy Scriptures because they are so plaine that they cannot bee answered neither indeed doe your sect much acquaint your selues with the Bible for there are some students in Diuinity of many yeares that neuer read the Bible To your places therefore How doth the speech of our Sauiour make for Transubstantiation without altering or adding It is meat indeed we confesse but he saith not is meat for the body nor yet in explaining himself afterwards hath he one word intimating a bodily substance that he would giue to be fed vpon but the clean contrary for he saith Ioh. 6.63 the flesh profiteth nothing my words are spirit and life Againe for those sayings vnto Peter there is nothing plaine for Peters supremacy for his bearing vp all as a foundation and much lesse for his pretended successours the Bishops of Rome For plainly to teach these things had beene to haue said vpon thee and thy successours will I build my Church and to thee and to him that shall succeed thee in thy Bishopricke at Rome I will giue authority ouer all others But so far is the Lord from this that when there was iust occasion offered vpon the motion of the mother of Zebedees children to declare the supreme when they contended about it amongst themselues hee speaketh no word to settle the supremacy vpon any one but altogether to stop the mouth of any from once challenging it But I haue spoken sufficiently of this before so that I shall not need to adde any thing about his commission to feed his sheepe It is maruaile that when all chiefe points of faith are so plainely expressed that this which is so much stood vpon as inferiour to none should be so obscurely passed ouer Touching the Church there is nothing plainely spoken that it shall be alwayes visible but onely it may be implyed that as long as there are Christians to doe those mutuall offices of reproouing one another for sinne there shall be a discipline exercised in the Church how corrupt soeuer for the chastisement of such as are complained of as manifest transgressors of the Law the iust proceedings whereof notwithstanding the corruptions are of force to the terror of malefactors For that saying tell the Church at that time had reference to a most corrupt Church of Scribes and Pharisees whose authority was yet by the Lord established saying Math. 23.1 whatsoeuer they bid you obserue that obserue and doe So that from hence nothing more can be rightly taught no not by inference but that there shall alwayes be some visible Church good or bad which we also acknowledge But in case that there bee two such Churches together who doubteth forsaking that which is corrupt to goe to the best and soundest Touching error from which you seeke to exempt your Church because the Church is called the gound and pillar of truth what is this to the present Church of Rome the sinke of most grosse errors and superstitions The true Church indeed such as it was in those dayes founded vpon the Prophets and Apostles Christ himselfe being the chiefe corner slone Ephes 2.20 was the ground of truth because therein the truth was preserued and vpheld and wheresoeuer it is so at this day that Church is likewise the ground and pillar of truth But it doth not necessarily follow that wheresoeuer the Church is whether sound or corrupt it is the ground of truth for so much as the truth held and eleaued vnto in all things maketh the Church the pillar and ground of truth and not the Church that to be true whatsoeuer she shall think good to propound For otherwise Christ the Prophets Apostles with their dictates institutions and writings should not bee a ground vnto men succeeding and inferiour to them but these men should bee a ground vnto them which were absurd And the same I answer to that promise of the spirit it was peculiar to the Apostles and special instruments stirred vp for those times to be so guided into all truth as not to erre because what came from them was to bee a ground to the faithfull in all succeeding ages and it is most palpably wrested to your Church now And if your fundamentall places be thus impertinently alledged the rest will fall without any labour at the least most worthy Sergius you may be able to iudge hereof by that which hath beene already spoken in laying open the faith of the reformed Church Serg. Paul When these places were first alledged by Elymas I thought it impossible to answer them and therefore did begin to incline to thinke better of the Roman Church then you had perswaded me but now I see that they are but the painting and colouring of a deformed face being without all true beauty And for the places omitted I haue them

Anno 600 saith because we are redcemed wee haue this benefit that when we are taken away from the habitation of our flesh wee are presently earied to beauenly rewards Tertul. de Cor. mil. And the same Tertullian was the first that spake of praying for the dead who also consesseth that if you require Scripture for it you shall find nonc but tradition shall be pretended as the increaser custome the confirmer and faith the obseruer of it Yet it is to bee acknowledged that euen the most approued of the ancient haue prayed for the dead as Augustine for his Mother Monica and Ambrose for Theodosius but doubtingly because without ground in the Word Elymas Then I hope you will yeeld this to be more ancient then your not praying for the dead and your vtter denying of Purgatory as an inuention deriued from the H●●●hen Paul Their praying for the dead was not the same vvith yours but either for the augmentation of their glory who were in Heauen as Ambrose hauing said that Theodesius remained in the light and gloried in the company of the Saints yet he prayeth giue perfect rest to thy seruant Theodosius Confes l. 9. c. 13. or to expresse their affection as Augustine who saith of his mother Monica I beleeus that thou hast done what I desire but accept of the voluntaries of my mouth Or if they thought them damned they prayed for a mitigation of their paines or holding that they might all bee kept in one common place till the day of iudgement as La●tantius sheweth de diuin Draem lib. 7. cap. 21. Iren. lib. 5. Th●y prayed for the hastening of their Deliuerance They prayed not for soules in Purgatoric neither did they which held Purgatory beleeue that veniall sinnes were there done away and temporall punishments satisfied for till after Anno 1000 as your Church now teacheth and therefore euen these points as you hold them are new and vnthought of by antiquity And seeing no such custome is grounded vpon the Word of God as Tertullian hath confessed our denying thus to pray is more Apostolicall and so more ancient then either yours or theirs Serg. Paul But thus you will make the Church in the time of these holy Fathers to haue beene no true Church and them no true members whom we all yet haue in high esteeme Paul It doth not follow because they erred in one thing in practice through too much affection that they were no Church for it is not any errour that ouerturncth the Church but errours razing the foundation as hath beene before declared Elymas But these holy Fathers vsed the same things about the seruice of God that wee doe as holy Water and Chrisme both to the sicke and to the baptized and Exorcizing and Crossing and honoured the Saints departed with going to visit their Reliques and praying vnto them and commended a Monasticall life and confession to a Priest and workes of penance wherein the very life of our Religion consisteth And therefore if we be no true Church they were no true Church neither Paul Although there were some tincture of these superstitions in the Church in the dayes of the holy Fathers yet there was great difference betwixt them and you herein They vsed the Crosse not for any confidence they had in it but as a signe of their profession as a Aruobius testifieth saying We doe neither worship nor wish crosses And Ambrose speaking of Helena who found the Crosse of Christ faith Arnob. l. 8. Shee found the title and worshipped the King but not the wood Ambros de Obit Theo●os For this were a Gentile errour and a venity of the wicked They anointed the sicke at the beginning of their sicknesse in the part grieued to ease them as Gregory Turoneusis saith Hist Franc. l. 6. c. 7. But you to conferre grace at the end of sicknesse when there is no more hope of life They did not pray to the Saints departed as able to heare them but in their soliloquies by way of consabulation through a Prosopopeia For they held that the Saints departed could not heare them witnesse Saint Augustine who to proue that they know not what is done ox said here bringeth in that place of Esai L. de Cura pr● mont c. 13. 63. Abraham knoweth vs not and 2 King 22. I will gather thee to thy Fathers that thy eyes may not see the ewill to come And they did commonly hold then that all the faithfull departed remained in some secret place out of heauen where they had not the sight of God as Iren. l. 5. Iust Martyr qu. 60. 76. Orig. Hom. 7. in Leuit. Chrys Hom. 38. in 1 Cor. c. And for worship they gaue them none neither Doulia nor Latria For so saith the same Augustine They are to be honoured for imitation not bee worshipped for Religion Aug. de vera relig c. 55. And he vseth the very word expressing Doulia Wee honour the Saints with charitis not with seruice Neither did they vse praying to them in their publique seruice For so also Saint Augustine saith Aug. de Cinit Dei lib. 22. c. 10. The Martyrs are named at our sacrifice as men of God that haue ●uercome the world but they are not called vpon by the Priest that sacrificeth But you pray vnto them in all your Liturgyes and worship them with Doulia And for all other things by you alledged though they haue been anciently vsed yet their beginning is not vnknowne vnto vs. Elym But you haue not yet answered my argument prouing that our case and theirs is all one For admit that there were some little difference yet this cannot conclude against vs as no Church if they were a true Church seeing wee agree together in one kinde of seruice Paul They agreed not with you in errours against the foundation and therefore were not implicated in the same danger as euen in this about the Saints departed where the chiefe danger lyeth viz. in worshipping them and trusting to them as to Mediators that shall preuaile and that haue power to helpe But you shall not thus put me from the first thing propounded viz. to shew the beginning of these superstitions Pope Alexander first instituted Holy Water Anno 115. Sabel Tom. 1. Concil Pope Hig●●● Chry●●ne in Baptisme Anno 141. Euseb lib. 4 c. 10. An Exorcift was first ordained by Pope Caius Anno 283. Sabel The signe of the Crosse was not vsed but for signification 300 yeares or if for blessing with inuocation vpon him that was crucified the trust not being in it but in Christ crucified A materiall Crosse or Crucifixe was not set vp till 400 yeares after Christ neither was it appointed till Anno 710 when the Trullan Councell ordained Cap. 82. Policbron l. 5. c. 12. Can. 15. that Christ should bee pictured hanging vpon the Crosse The first Crosse erected in England was Anno 635 in the time of King Oswald In the fift Carth. Councell