Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A60249
|
An answer to Doctor Piercie's sermon preached before His Majesty at White-Hall, Feb. 1, 1663 by J.S.
|
Simons, Joseph, 1593-1671.
|
1663
(1663)
|
Wing S3805; ESTC R34245
|
67,126
|
128
|
AN ANSWER To Doctor PIERCIE'S SERMON Preached before His MAJESTY at WHITE-HALL Feb. 1 1663. By J. S. Non in persnasibilibus humanae sapientiae verbis sed in ostensione spiritûs virtutis 1. Cor. 2. 4. Printed in the year 1663. To the Queen-Mother MADAM THere appeared of late at White-hall a Philistin in black defying the Armies of the living God His strength was in his Tongue not in his Arme His weapons Breath and his combat an houres Boast Yet as to his own conceit a huge Goliah he blew down Mount Sion at a puffe and split in pieces the Rock against which the Gates of Hell shall never prevaile In that conjuncture because no adversary could securely be seen the applause flew high victory and triumph rebounding from all the hills of great Britany Yet God knowes all was but wind Flaverunt venti The windes blew Sion stands still immoveable and the Rock unshaken The blasts vanisht to nothing at the first jossle against the House of God because it was founded upon a Rock This hath lately been demonstrated by the excellent Pen of S. C. clearly evincing the no lesse ancient then unchangeable truths of our Doctrines But indeed there needed no such Gyant to defeat that Goliah the least of Iesse's Family the Church supported by the power of his Cause may hope for successe in such a Duell Upon which account I was encouraged to trace out another way of answer tending to disable his proofs by stripping his arguments and shewing them in cuerpo Now the Doctor 's Sermon having been both Preached and published under a Royall shadow I come with an humble suit prostrate at your Majesties feet that I may shelter this Answer under your gracious protection whose name as it is most renowned in the Christian world for zeal of Religion so upon your Royall assent 't will render all-secure the Author of this slender work Madam Your Majesties most humble and ever devoted Servant I. S. June 1. 1663. Gentle Reader I Am onely to advertise thee of three things in the perusall of this Treatise First that Doctor Pierce having in his Dedicatory to the King pretended to the publick confessions of our ablâ—…st Doctors in favour of his erronrs clogs both Margin and Text with our profest enemies as Goldastus Armacanus John Hus Hierome Prague Chemnitius Bishop Hall Cook Nilus Balsamon and others or with Authors of suspected faith whose works are forbidden by the Church as Erasmus Cassander Thuanus and Polidor Virgil de inventione rerum enlarged and corrupted by Protestants or if he cites any Orthodox VVriters they differ not in point of faith but in things indifferent or practises alterable upon just occasion Secondly that we alledge against them in our behalf the very prime Pillars of their pretended Church as Luther Calvin Jewell Whitaker and the like and that not onely in matters of indifferency but of the very substance of Faith Thirdly that Doctor Pierce knowing that we for our belief rest onely upon the Churches definition or interpretation of Scripture as an infallible ground and not upon this or that Schooleman Historian or Grammarians speeches yet he hath wearied his sides in declaiming against us upon the fancied credit of a few private mens words which were they truly cited would weigh nothing with us to the main cause of Religion Finally I professe my intent in this short work to be not so much a proof of our Catholick Doctrines as to shew the unconvincivg weaknesse of the Preacher's Arguments which he mistakes for Demonstrations An Answer to Doctor Pierce's Sermon Preached before His Majestie at White-hall Feb. 1. 1662. SIR 1. GIve me leave in the first place to tell you that your application of our Saviours words From the beginning it was not so is no less confus'd then unconcluding Confus'd as speaking in generall of a beginning and not distinguishing what beginning whether of time order institution or what Unconcluding because it either overshoots or falls short of the marke proving too much or nothing at all For neither were all truths revealed or all good practises in use from the beginning nor all heresies or corruptions since the beginning 2. You say our Saviour was sent to reform the Iewes that is not to found a new Law but to renew the old and that he made known the rule of his reformation From the beginning it was not so Well then if you take the beginning from the birth of the World as in Marriage then the whole Leviticus will be either superstition or profanation for from the beginning it was not so The Devils denying God's veracity You shall not die and Adam's eating the forbidden fruit or Cain's murdering his Brother Abel was not heresie or corruption for from the beginning it was so 3. If the rule begin with the Law it self why should the adoring of the Golden Calf be superstition since 't is as old as the self same Law why all that follow'd as David's Psalmes and Musick the adding seven dayes to the Passeover by King Ezâ—…chias 2 Chron. 30. 22. the Encaenia or Feast of Dedication instituted by Iudas Machabaeus kept and honoured by our Saviour Ioan. 10. 22. the reading of Scripture to the people every Sabbath day Act. 13. 22. no superstition since from the beginning it was not so 4. If to reform Christian Churches you set up your Pharos with the precise beginning of the new Law then since nothing with you in point of Religion was from the beginning but what is exprest in the Written word the leaving to abstain from blood and strangled things commanded by the Apostles as necessary the use of the Crosse in Baptisme the change of the Sabbath into Sunday the Baptisme of Infants the non-Rebaptization of Hereticks the verball pronouncing the words in the form of Baptisme as necessary to the validity of the Sacrament the Degrees and Titles of Primates Arch-Bishops Bishops Deanes c. will be superstition errour and profanation for from the beginning it was not so Then on the contrary the Saduces Cerinthians Nicolaits Ebionits will not be Hereticks because they were from the beginning nay nor the Papists neither if as some Learned Protestants affirm Popery began under the Apostles Therefore S. Paul saith Doctor Willet calleth Papistry a mystery of iniquity which began even to work in his dayes And Mr. Middleton No marvel though perusing Councils Fathers and Stories from the Apostles forward we finde the print of the Pope's feet And Mr. Perkins Our Church ever hath been since the dayes of the Apostles and that in the very midst of Papacy Insomuch that Urbanus Rhegius a Learned Protestant being press'd to shew a change in the Roman Church since the Apostles time gives this desperate answer Though it were true that the Roman Church had changed nothing in Religion would it therefore presently follow that she were a true Church I think not A learned thought indeed supposing what S. Paul writes
of the Roman Châ—…ch in his dayes Your faith is renowned in the whole world Rom. 1. 5. By this Rule forsooth so appli'd all heresies and usurpations in both Lawes may be dispatcht For though there is hardly any of them in the Church which may not truly pretend to some great antiquity even farre beyond the Reformation Yet because they are not so old as the old man much lesse as the old Serpent therefore they are convinc'd to be heresies and usurpations Loe how under the weight of this ponderous application lie crush'd for ever all the modern ancient errours and corruptions not onely of Disciplinarians Anabaptists Socinians Solifidians Raâ—…ters Millinarians Reprobatarians but most of all the Pontificians for they like Mahometans have a grand compound of severall erronrs and corruptions pretending indeed to some great antiquity yet bundled up in a new Creed the Articles whereof though as old as the new Law yet not reaching to the dayes of the old Serpent they make up a young Symbol not passing the age of the Council of Trent 6. Page 6. You fasten this Quotation upon our Learned Countryman Ioannes Sarisburiensis The Roman Church shewes her self towards others rather a Step-Mother then a Mother There sit in her Scribes and Pharisees but how sincerely the whole Chapter will discover In which the Authour having related how in a conference with Adrian the fourth at Benevent in Italy the Pope askt him familiarly what men thought of the Roman Church I saith he using a holy freedome laid open the evils that in divers Provinces I had heard For as it was said by many the Roman Church which is the Mother of all Churches shewes herself towards others rather a Step-Mother then a Mother There sit in her Scribes and Pharisees But then as to his own particular observation he solemnly professeth in these words Yet one thing upon the testimony of my conscience I boldly professe that I saw no where more honest Clergy and who more detested avarice then in the Roman Church and in relation to the Pope's authority thus He that dissents from your Doctrine is either an Heretick or a Schismatick Is not this very unhandâ—…ome dealing in a Preacher first to omit wilfully those words As it was said by many and then to impose upon an Authour what he only rehearseth out of other mens mouthes secondly to skip over the words which is the Mother of all Churches wherein appeares the judgement of Nations as to the Primacy of the Roman Church Thirdly to conceale the Authour 's own words by which he expressely declares a quite contrary sence to what you wrongfully charge him with Good Reader Crimine ab uno Disce omnes 7. From your eight page till the sixteenth you seem like Euclid in his First Book to speak principles undemonstrable or with Pythagoras to exact your Auditors assent without reason upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he said it 〈◊〉 you assert but prove not that the point of Infallibility is the great Palladium of the Conclave as if the meeting and shutting up of the Cardinals to chuse a Pope the usuall notion of a Roman Conclave were the same as the whole Catholick Roman Church or the guift of infallibility in defining matters of Faith were proper to the Cardinals without a Pope A profound Erudition Secondly you assert without proofe that the learned Members of the Roman Church swallow glibly so many errours because they swallow this first that she cannot erre 8. Like men in fear you strike first knowing the blow to be unavoidable from us that Protestants chop up so many errours because they first devour this that notwithstanding all Christs promises the infallibility of the Apostles and the necessity of that gift to preserve her from errours yet the whole Church of Christ even in her greatest representatives can erre Thirdly you assert without ground that the point of Infallibility is an old Article of a new Creed Sir there is no such Creed extant in the Roman Church A profession of Faith I admit was appointed in a Bull by Pius quartus to be sworn to by Pastours of Souls and Professours of Learning only But if that be a new Creed much more will your thirty nine Articles make up a new Creed stuft with so many modern negatives and unto which not all but some amongst you were by your Statutes to subscribe But howsoever In your S. article you receive and believe 3. Creeds the Apostles Creed Nice Creed and that of S. Athanasius Now I ask these two last are they new Creeds or no if new ones then the Church has power to make new Creeds if not why should the Churches Declarations be call'd new Creeds rather now then in those former times Fourthly you assert quite gratis that in the Council of Trent the Roman Partisans were not afraid to make new Articles of Faith As if to declare explicitely to the faithful such verities as are contain'd implicitely or virtually in the written word of God or what traditionary Doctrines are truely Divine coming down from the Apostles by never interrupted succession of practice and belief were to make new Articles of Faith Did the Council of Nice make new Articles of Faith when it declared the Celebration of Easter or the validity of Baptisme ministred by Heretiques or the consubstantiality of the Sonne with the Father what the Council of Constantinople and St. Athanasius adde in their Creeds by way of declaration to the Apostles Creed doth it speak new Articles of Faith There was a time when some Canonical Books were not de fide obligante of necessary belief as the Epistle to the Hebrews and that of St. Iames c. are they now after the Churches acceptation new Articles of Faith And yet be those justly anathematized who deny any one of the aforesaid points so declared Why then might not the Council of Trent upon occasion of emergent heresies declare anew what was to be held about the Sacrifice of the Mass Purgatory Invocation of Saints Worship of Images and the like and yet no more in contempt of the Apostles denunciation Gal. 1. 8. then the definitions of former General Councils When did the Church forfeit the power of defining St. Paul's anathema strikes at you Protestants who adde your negative articles contrary to the word of God not at the Church which declares what is truly revealed in it 9. What you say here about the time when the denial of Marriage to Priests began of the date of Transubstantiation halfe-Communion publick prayer in an unknown tongue and the Popes Supremacy shall be answered in your demonstratons 10. You abuse very disingenuously the learned Cardinal Bellarmine in saying first that he boasted of the antiquity of Purgatory where as in the places you quote there is not a syllable of that humour only this modest expression We do not find the beginning of this doctrine but all the Ancients both Greek and Latine from the very