Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	write_v	writer_n	writing_n	18	3	8.9314	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35761	Faith grounded upon the Holy Scriptures against the new Methodists / by John Daille ; printed in French at Paris anno 1634, and now Englished by M.M.	Daillé, Jean, 1594-1670.; M. M.	1675 (1675)	Wing D115; ESTC R25365	115,844	322

them that we as well as our Doctors reject them formally and precisely and wish that they had never been spoken off and that they may be Aeternally buried in the cave of errors from whence they came For as Eating good meat is sufficient to preserve the life of man nor is it necessary for him to know Hemlock Aconite or Antimony or to know poysons 't is enough that he is not so unhappy as to eat of them even so 't is in Religion for to obtain salvation 't is sufficient for a man that he believe the holy and wholsome truths communicated to us by the Lord Jesus there is no need that he should know particularly the innumerable poysons which the enemy hath scattered in the World nor that he should know exactly to what degree every one of these false doctrines are poysonous 't is enough for him that he is so happy as to believe none of them To speak properly the express and formal rejection of an errour makes no part of Faith for then Faith would have been imperfect before the birth of the error Before Mahomet came into the World the Faith of Christians was intire and sufficient although it was ignorant of the seducements of that Impostor and though it knows nothing of Marcion of Manicheus of Arrius nor of Pelagius yet it is sufficient to salvation provided that it believes firmly that which Jesus Christ hath revealed There is then a great difference between those propositions which supposeth and affirmeth the truth and those which reject the error The reason why our Fathers have ranked them in the body of the same declaration was not because they were ignorant of this difference but another occasion obliged them to do it for being separated from the Church of Rome and afterwards having been calumniated of holding diverse very strange opinions vide Epist 10. the K. which is in the beginning of our Confession of the year 1559. in fine to make the King their master his subjects their fellow Citizens see clearly what their thoughts were about Religion they not onely declared the belief they had of Christianity and of every one of the articles of which it consisted but also what they thought of the doctrine and communion of the Pope from which they had withdrawn themselves We ought then to distinguish carefully these two sorts of articles which this reason joyns and mixeth together some affirmative and positive declaring that which we believe others negative and exclusive declaring that which we do not believe the first lays down that which is our Faith the second rejects that which is not so For example these are of the first sort that there is a God that he ought to be worshipped with all our affections that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and God Eternal that he was made man that he hath taken our nature in the womb of the holy Virgin that he dyed to expiate our crimes that his blood hath washed and purged our souls from all sin that he is risen and ascended into heaven and there reigns at the right hand of the Father that sins are pardoned to men by the grace of God when they believe in the Gospel that believers are obliged to live holily that Charity is necessary for salvation that the Lord hath ordained that we should be baptised in the name of the Father Son and holy Ghost for the remission of our sins and that he hath likewise commanded us to celebrate the memory of his death in taking eating and drinking the Sanctified bread and wine that this bread and this wine are the communication of his flesh and of his blood that those who believe and live according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ shall have Aeternal salvation and that those who believe not in him shall perish But these following are of the second sort That we ought not to adore the Host of the Church of Rome nor invoke their dead Saints that the mass is not an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of men that the Pope is not the head and spouse of the universal Church that he hath no power neither directly or indirectly over the temporals of Kings and States of the world that neither he nor the Church which adheres to him have the right of never erring in the Faith nor are they the reason and grounds of our Faith that it is not for the merits of our works that our sins are forgiven us or that grace or life is given to us that the bread which we break and the cup which we bless in the Church loseth not their substance that none of those who communicate at his table ought to be hindred from drinking of the Cup of the Lord that neither the chrism nor the penitence nor the ordainor the marriages nor the extream unction are Sacraments that believing souls departed this life are not burned in the fire of Purgatory Since we believe the first Articles and that we preach and recommend them to men we are obliged to shew the truth of them and since the most part of them are so obscure that we have not natural light enough to discover and perceive them it remains that we prove that God hath revealed them to humane kind For these are the three sources of all our knowledge sence reason and the revelation of God now 't is neither the sins nor reason of man that demonstrates to us that Jesus Christ is the son of God or that those who believe his Gospel shall have the happy Aeternity We cannot prove the truth of it then but onely by the means of revelation Now all Christians and namely those of the Church of Rome with whom we dispute in this Treatise confess that the writers of the Old and new Testaments were inspired by God and did write by the revelations of the Spirit now we cannot more clearly ground the Truth of the Articles upon which our Faith consists then by shewing that they are taught in these divine writings T is for this we acknowledg our selves obliged and of which 't is most easie to acquit our selves as we hope to make appear in this book And as for the other Articles which are of the second sort it belongs to us to justifie and make appear that the holy Scripture teacheth no where to believe what it self rejects as it teacheth no where that there is a Purgatory or that the Pope is the Monarch of the Church or that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice For having once shewed that we shall have clearly justified that we have been obliged to exclude such opinions of our Faith since we hold that all the things which we ought to believe as necessary to our salvation are taught in the Scriptures for that if these be not found there Rome is in the wrong to believe and preach it as necessary and have reason not to receive it in our belief T is an unjust cavilling to demand this of us further that we

excellent persons writing so many Books upon such a Subject should forget the principal as by a consort and common conspiration how happened it that in some place they did not speak to us of the Sacrifice of the Mass the pretended Soul of all Religion Of Transubstantiation which is the ground of it of the worshipping of the Host the heart of Devotion of the Veneration of Images of private Confession of the Invocation of departed Saints all exercises of Piety so exquisite and saving If you believe those of Rome Why have they not in some places commanded obedience to the Pope magnified his Authority the only hinge upon which their faith turns the life and Salvavation of humane kinde according to the Mximes of our Adversaries Now and some Ages pust there hath not been written any Book of Religion how little soever it hath been where these Doctrines have not always been met withal and indeed if they were of that importance which they make them it were to betray men to speak to them of piety without touching upon these Let then the Scriptures of the New Testament be if they please a Letter only of Credence an imperfect Rule and in sum what they will yet it consisteth of many Books of considerable bigness and it is no way credible but in some part or other there would have been some mention made of these Doctrines if these divine Authors had believed and taught them Secondly Above all if you consider that the particular designe of their Tracts and Disputes would evidently oblige them to speak of them in divers places where they say nothing of them For Example St. Paul making a long comparison between Christ and Melchisedec in the seventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews and treating almost of no other thing in all that Divine Epistle but of the Priesthood was not he evidently obliged to speak of the Sacrifice of the Altar and of the Species under which he was offered and so mysteriously figured so many Ages before by the bread and wine of Melchisedec and nevertheless he saith not a word of it What do I say that he said not a word of it he hath done more For instead of saying these things so necessary to his Subject according to the Hypothesis of Rome he sayeth others of it which shakes it so rudely that the Devoto's of his Sacrifice were all scandalized at it their Doctors sweating unprofitably to make these agree with their belief Thirdly In the eleventh of the first to the Corinthians the Apostle chastiseth the irreverence of the Corinthians in the celebrating of the Sacrament who mixed their meals with the Communion of the Lord could he alledge to them upon this Subject any thing more to the purpose than the Transubstantiation and Adoration of the Sacrament shewing them that it is not bread which we receive in the Eucharist that it is the Lord of Glory the very body which was crucified for us upon the Cross What Romish Doctor is there who being to treat of this Subject doth not use this reason at the beginning middle and end of his Dispute But the Apostle saith nothing of it and that which is altogether strange very far from speaking so in speaking of the Sacrament he calls it Bread three times Fourthly in divers places of his Epistles as namely in the 12 Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans in the fourth of the Epistle to the Ephesians in the third of the Epistle to the Colossians and elsewhere he infers all along the duties of the faithful as well for their piety towards God as for their charity towards their Neighbours But he saith not a word of their secret Confession nor of their Invocation of Saints nor of their worshipping of Images nor of any such-like things Fifthly 1 Thes 4.13 In the first to the Thessalonians he speaks of our duties in the mourning which we use for departed friends but without speaking to us to pray for them which was the fittest place for it Sixthly In the first to the Corinthians he reprehends their divisions at the beginning but 't is without saying any thing to them of the Chair of St. Peter the only line of the Union of Christians as those of Rome say Sevently 1 Cor. 12.28 Eph. 4.11 In the twelfth of the same Epistle and in the fourth of the Epistle to the Ephesians he makes a Catalogue of the Charges which the Lord instituted in his Church he having given Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors How in such a place should he have forgotten the Pope if he had known him 1 Tim. 3.1 2 3 8 9. Eightly In the first to Timothy and in the Epistle to Titus he writes at large the conditions requisite to to the Bishops and Deacons Tit. 1.6 How upon this point did he not speak of their not marrying if it were esteemed necessary in such charges Ninthly 1 Pet. 1.1 5.1 St. Peter in the beginning of his Epistle is qualified with the Title of the Apostle of Jesus Christ and in the last Chapter recommends to the Priests the duty of their charge and to make them value his admonition he alledges to them only that he is an Elder amongst them Why did he not take in such an occasion the name of Monarch of the Church or Of Servant of the Servants of God that is to say the first and highest of all the Officers of God which are in the world no body can be ignorant but that it would have been an imprudence near to stupidity of these holy Authors to have forgotten these things in such considerable places if they had believed them But their Writings although we knew no other things of them doth enough justifie to us their wisdom and dexterity in judiciously using every thing that might serve for their purpose Read St. Paul and the first Epistle of St. Peter and you will not demand other proofs for this It remains then that we say that their silence about these Doctrines of Rome so constant and so universal and even in places where it had been to the purpose to alledge them prove clearly that they did not know them 10. After all If it be not possible to shew by the Scriptures that these Doctrines have been revealed by the Lord and taught by his Apostles I do not see by what other means one can prove it For as for the Books of the Antient Doctors which they commonly call the Fathers their Authority is not great enough nor the testimonies which they render of these Doctrines evident enough to ground them upon and to oblige us necessarily to put them amongst the Articles of our Faith as we have in my Opinion sufficiently shewed in a Treatise which we have published upon this Subject And as to the Authority of the Roman Church which now is it is as doubtful and incredible as all the other Articles which they assert so that this cannot serve to prove that they