Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	church_n	faith_n	truth_n	4,940	5	6.2410	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65798	Notes on Mr. F.D.'s Result of a dialogue concerning the middle state of souls in a letter from Thomas White.	White, Thomas, 1593-1676.	1660 (1660)	Wing W1838; ESTC R27876	31,093	81

of as great mutability as time hath mutation is in potentia another thing to the proportion of the changes of time as because a man who walks can stop and the flame of a candle go out in an instant therefore the consistency of a material subject as to our minds consideration is but moment-strong and we can affirm nothing of it in force of contradiction more durable then the unchangeableness or identity of time which is purely a thought or an abstraction Out of this it follows that if we put in spirituall substances a more then momentanean constancy we must also put the force of contradiction in them proportionable to that constancy or identity of it self to it self Now your self seeming to admit this constancy under the name of aeviternity in spirits for a future eternity it seems to me you should admit nothing in spirits that is not compossible together in the subject and by evident consequence that not to have an act and to have one in the same aeviternity is as impossible as not to have and to have in the same instant of time You will peradventure tell me this position ruins some common opinions in Divinity and my brittle Vindicator would tell me it moulder'd away his faith Sir if you be of the opinion that Theology is arriv'd to its non plus ultra I am not I think many now common and probable opinions will in after ages be demonstrated against and prove erroneous and therefore the pure authority of Divines who build upon pure reason hath no farther force with me then their reason And I think I have learned this lesson out of Saint Augustin as I am sure your self also have how ever in practice apparences may seduce you from the exercise of it as if you believe it consonant to Scriptures Fathers Councils c. without a legitimate examination of them which when you go about you find them to be easily eluded by the glosses of blasted Authors many of which kind of Authors nevertheless Saint Hierom in his Comments upon the Scriptures was used to cite that men of understanding might see in the variety of divers conceits what truths might be picked out even of blasted Authors as Aristotle out of the verities mingled among false opinions drew his own demonstrations The rest of these Chapters is but an explication indifferent to both sides in which as you admit in Purgatory a disposition to charity so me thinks you should to the change of affections by it And whereas you say that the soul is extra viam the common Tenet of Divines should admonish you that she is not in state to have new revelations and changes which are the propriety of Via Notes on the tenth Chapter WHich is for its Positions entirely true and holy but you seem to suppose as true some misinformations or misapprehensions concerning your Adversary as that he questions generall traditions and calls them novelties which how you can do who know Saint Austin testifies in his time as yet the question was not agitated and that each part might prove either true or false and that the Authour of the celebrated Dialogues expresly teaches they were unknown till his dayes and from thence till Saint Odilo's time very little esteemed or noysed How such an opinion can chuse but be a Novelty in respect of the Church of God I cannot understand or that six hundred years ago with a known beginning can enroll it into the practices or doctrins delivered by the Apostles passes my reach As for the universall sense of the Church I hope the Council of Florence's act will demonstrate the contrary as you may see in my answer to the Vindicator whither I beg leave to remit you The Text you cite out of Saint Austin is excellently true Quae universa tenet Ecclesia ab Apostolis praecepta bene creduntur quanquam scripta non reperiantur but with these cautions That the Church that is the community of Believers as such not as a multitude of men hold them as of faith not opine them only to be current truths else every common perswasion grounded on any probable Reason or Authority would become an unchangeable Article of Christian Religion and in this I think I have your consent if I mistake not the the 32. Chapter of your Systema which I formerly cited and desire my Reader to peruse the whole Chapter being excellently pertinent to this purpose As also Verons general Rule of Catholike faith which I hear is newly translated into English There you shall see how warily that experienced Controvertist proceeds in separating faith from opinions No doctrin says he begun since the Apostles though confirm'd by miracles and those miracles reported by Saints or approved by generall Councils or attested in the Bulls of canonization can ever be an Article of faith Nor is the practice says the same Auhor even of the universall Church a ground firm enough to build a point of Catholike faith upon because the object of faith is truth and the Church often guides her practices by probable opinions which upon occasion she may change And for Decrees of Councils the same Doctor maintains and cites Bellarmin for his opinion that unless the Council proceed conciliarly that is by due examination c. and define properly not barely affirm a thing by simple assertion and occasionally as it were en passant it does not oblige our belief and which is highest of all though the Council decree expresly and professedly a Doctrin debated yet unless it be defined as a truth to be believed with Catholike faith they are not properly heretiques that hold the contrary What you deliver that one mans satispassion may by way of impetration satisfie for another and profit him is very acceptable and none but they who mistake the words can dislike the sense for we see humiliations accompany solemn prayers both in the Law of Moses and Grace and nature it self teaches us it is a convenient habit for him that intreats mercy Notes on the eleventh Chapter WHere I see very little for me particularly to except against but that you term our Tenet an Innovation which name better becomes your own But this is an Indulgence to be granted to the conceit every one has of his own arguments For the opinion that the sensitive or corporeall part of man is capable of venial sin in it self and so of goodness I neither have nor will have any thing to do with it You say 't is taught by the most speculative Divines as Scotus's Scool and Cajetan c. I dare not meddle with such great men As for your Opiniators you speak of I cannot point you to a fairer example then the Vindicators Creed which he hath declared to be his faith in his Discourse against me To the touch you give about probable opinions the question is too great to engage in on so slight an occasion The place you quote out of Saint Austin seems not to concern the

of such an origin is to be suspected and dangerous You say the Sequence of the Mass for the dead inculcates the horror of dooms-day to move good people to help the souls out of Purgatory before it come As if you conceiv'd that day would be worse to them were they not help'd before which Position I confess I understand not Since it is the generall Doctrin that the same doom is given in the particular judgement and there is nothing then to be decided but Eternity You bid me consider that these three alone Saint Gregory Zacharias and Saint Chrysostom carry the Greek and Latin Churches on their backs but give me leave to say that the Fathers and Authorities I have cited of which you take no notice are so far more numerous and strong then they that to use your own phrase they carry both their Churches and them and all on their backs You come at last to the Council of Chalcedon and Ischyrions action against Dioscorus for mispending a Ladies monys bestowed at her death for the good of her soul so the text hath it if I remember right and not for the souls of the deceased as you write it though if it were so written it were conformable to the use of the Church and true Doctrine and so I must put this also amongst your other proofs which want a little of that pious affection to stretch them home to the purpose For your argument hence seems to stand thus almes given for the dead are to be distributed faithfully therefore souls are delivered before the day of Judgement After this severe consequence of your own you entertain'd the confidence to censure my explication of the offertory for a sophisme because I think the punishment exprest there signifies that of Hell not Purgatory But certainly it is a spice of great weakness to believe the contrary without a stronger proof then your bare word since the expressions are so horrid that greater or more significant can scarce be found as the jaws of a Lion or Devil the deep dungeon that Tartarus or the deepest sink of Hell should not swallow them up And in the Office of the dead where no order dwels but everlasting horror and other such dreadfull phrases And the Greeks use to call it in their rituals Gehennam But why sedes refrigerii should speak your purgatory I am not capable of the consequence It may be said by Writers that refreshment is given there but sure none before you ever call'd that suffering state the seat of refreshment Notes on the fifth Chapter AS your Chapter is short so shall my Notes You say tradition alone cannot prove faith in all Articles but you prove it not for neither the Council of Trent nor Saint Irenaeus though the one say Catholike Faith is contained in both and the other that both are necessary for the Church say that Tradition alone is not sufficient Rather Saint Irenaeus saith it is as all those Fathers must needs be understood to do who in case of difficulty send us to the Apostolicall Churches But to be short I make you this argument If Scripture teach somewhat that is not in Tradition either Scripture in such passages needs an Interpreter or no If none can any sensible man perswade himself it hath not been the perpetuall doctrin of the Church so it be in a point necessary to be known And if Scripture do need an Interpreter that interpreter binds the Church and is the immediate Revealer and he must have the Authority of such a Proposer to oblige the Church to his interpretation It is therefore a sophism to put the Scripture for a self-sufficient authority to bind the Church in what is not known by tradition But Scripture is necessary for condemnation of Heretiques in such points as they pretend to deduce from it and so the Council of Trent declares it self when it speaks upon what ground it would proceed What consequents follow of this doctrin we must expect your leisure to declare as yet I know none Notes upon the sixth Chapter IN the beginning of the sixth Chapter I find little difference betwixt your doctrin and mine For though you explicate Aristotles Nunc otherwise then I should do yet not being necessary to our purpose it is not fit for me to take notice of it Only I understand not how after you have very learnedly declared that the soul by its aeviternity hath the succession of the parts of pain all together afterwards you put that a soul by twenty years duration in pain hath suffered so long the hard consequents of that duration For if the extension of time as far as concerns the intrinsecal existence of the soul was all resumed in aeviternity and aeviternity was all together by the very initiating of it I cannot apprehend the running of time by it can add any intrinsecall consequent which was not in it by the very making You seem to add yet a greater Paradox telling us notwithstanding the being of aeviternity all together yet there is a priority of nature in it which though I can conceive in causes and effects as being different things yet in a pure indivisible it passes my understanding specially when the priority must be in succession where when one part is the other is not Neither doth Aristotle help you in whose doctrin the decreeing of the will is a successive action as depending on a corporall motion in the body But this being the subtilty of a Scotist I pray do not perswade your self that in our doctrin which makes the duration of the acts of the soul the very duration of the soul a change of act can be connaturally admitted You insinuate something of a Metaphysicall charity and that our doctrin is suspected to account voluntarily assumed penance to be superfluous if not superstitious Sir I desire you by the freedom you see in my writing to speak meaning loud not to mince any sinister conceits fram'd of my Tenets Truth loves light and in this particular point I will openly declare you my sentiment All austerities or extern actions which either conduce to the breeding of charity in our selves and neighbours or to the conserving and increasing it in those that have it and to the extending of it by diffusion into divers subjects all this though there be no obligation for the actions in common which is meant by their being voluntary I esteem holy and sanctified But if any one should think God takes pleasure that we should weaken or afflict our bodies without intending profit to our souls but meerly because it pleases God by and for it self I am of opinion that he makes God a tyrant and that his action is both superfluous and superstitious After this point I find no disagreement between us in any thing that concerns our question some words at the very ●nd of the souls being exercised in a passive compliance seem improper in our naturall and vulgar apprehensions but not false and therefore not