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A92921 An examination of Dr. Balyes five waies whereby he endeavours to prove the Church of Rome to be the only church of Christ wherein salvation is to be had, and the Church of England to be no true church. By Robert Seppens rector of Hingham in Norfolk. Seppens, Robert. 1679 (1679) Wing S2558A; ESTC R229928 13,895 37

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AN EXAMINATION OF Dr. Balyes Five Waies WHEREBY He endeavours to prove the Church of Rome to be the only Church of Christ wherein Salvation is to be had and the Church of England to be no True Church BY ROBERT SEPPENS Rector of Hingham in Norfolk LONDON Printed by M. C. for William Oliver Bookseller in the Market-Place in Norwich 1679. TO THE READER WHen King CHARLES the First that glorious Martyr of ever blessed memory was by his inhuman and unnatural Subjects most barbarously Murdered there were Missionaries from Rome employed in all parts of the Kingdom to disaffect the people to the Monarchy and the Hierarchy to the Religion and the Government of the Kingdom Established by Law Amongst the rest one came to a Gentlewoman not far from me when I lived at Bradenham and presented her with a Book Stiled An End to all Controversies of which Doctor Baly was the Author Now Doctor Baly you must know was revolted from the Church of England and was had in great esteem for two famous Books formerly Published by him One was a Romance Dedicated to the Lady Crane of Suffolk Entituled Herba Parietis or the Wall Flower the other was A Narrative of the Conference betwixt King Charles the First and the Marquess of Worcester at Ragland Castle It is not my present business to enquire how well he discharged himself in those his undertakings But certainly the last Book he Published viz. An End to all Controversies and that indeed which was given to the foremention'd Gentlewoman in order to some further design upon her was palmarium opus the most worthy of the three The Gentlewoman after the perusal of it brought it to me with an earnest desire to hear my judgment of it to satisfie therefore her request I Read it over and in the Reading of it I observed it consisted of these two parts especially A Calumnious invective against the Church of England then a Polemick Discourse wherein the Doctor by Five Arguments had there endeavoured to prove the Church of Rome to be the only true Church wherein Life and Salvation was to be had and the Church of England to be no true Church The Gentlewoman soon perceived what dangerous Consequence this Book might be of and so was not infected with any of those pernicious Principles contained in it But I fearing lest through the weakness of her Sex though indeed she was Prudent Vertuous and in matters of Religion of understanding above her Sex she might have been prevail'd upon by those Arguments and being very much concern'd to deliver her from the danger and poyson of them I thought my self oblig'd to commend an Antidote to her to prevent infection To effect which I passed by the Railing invective part of his Discourse and made it my business to Answer the Polemick part of it wherein though he very confidently boasts of his Arguments as unanswerable and invincible yet after a strict enquiry and examination of them I neither found Hector nor Achilles in them This Discourse I Penned long since and immediately after delivered it my self to the forementioned Person who liv'd to see the happy Restoration of His Majesty and then dyed in the Communion of the Church of England I long expected some Answer to this but hearing of none I have now ventur'd to make it publick not out of any desire to appear again in publick but partly to vindicate my self from the suspicion of Popery which I have been traduc'd for partly by way of caution to others Such as it is I willingly submit to the Judgments of unprejudiced Readers and that it may prove effectual for the vindication of our Church from the false accusations of its adversaries is the hearty Prayers as well as desires of R. S. Sacraments of the Lord. Augustine Psalm xxxii Epist 48. and 164. c. The peevish Schismaticks took advantage upon this their Concession to conclude themselves to be the only Church and to exclude all others If it be so say they Communio nostra est Ecclesia Christi Our Communion is the Church of Christ alone Aug. de Bapt. de cont Donat. lib. 1. cap. 10. And Petilianus dixit Petilian saith Come to the Church O people and fly from the Traditors if you will not perish that you may know they are guilty they judg rightly of our Faith c. Contra lit Pelit lib. 2. cap. 1.8 If this reasoning of Petilianus was good then the Roman Church it self was excluded if it was not why does the Romanist use it against us We must not do that to others we would not have others do to us For that Argument the Doctor frames out of our Concessions towards the end of that Chapter 'T is very fallacious The Church of God is but one The Church of Rome is the True Church The Church of England is opposite to that Church Therefore the Church of England is no True Church But not to trouble you with the vitiosity of his Logicks I shall answer it as it lies When we say the Church of God is but one we mean the Universal Church we speak not Emphatically or Exclusively as if she were the whole or the only Church but we mean she is a True particular Church When we say the Church of England is opposite to the Roman Church we mean Secundum quid in some things not simpliciter not simply in the Essentials of a Church but in some Doctrins and Observations In which respect some Church may be opposite to the Roman Church and yet be a True Church still as long as she retains all the Fundamentals As for example one Doctor in the Roman Church may be opposite to another in some Opinions and Observations of Discipline and yet be a True Catholick still as well as the other A Second way whereby he pretends to end all Controversies and prove the Roman Church to be the one Holy Catholick Church where Remission of sins is only c. Is by reference to a third party as Umpire in the business and so he saith Protestants are cast in their own Cause by the Arbitrement of St. Augustine who being the Monarch of the Fathers is Appealed to by both Parties as a competent Judg. Cap. 26. 'T is well the Doctor will acknowledg any Umpire in the cause but the Pope or the Roman Church Surely this is a work of Supererogation which he now does in a Bravado to shew what abundant ways he hath of confuting the poor Church of England but he was not the Authour of this device Ieronymus Torrensis a Jesuite many years ago abbreviated all St. Augustines Works and Published them in honour of his Church by the name of Augustinina Confessio Augustines Confession And Brerely a Priest contracted his Doctrine into a lesser Model after him and call'd it St. Augustines Religion How much the Doctor is beholden to his two forerunners for their Collections the world must not know and 't is no matter whether they
the Sacraments wherein all Scriptures Catholicks Protestants agree and yet in the very next place he undertakes to prove that faithful Preaching of Word and Administration of the Sacraments whereof this Holiness consists are no marks of the Church and this he doth by two or three Arguments Pag. 256. which if used against the fifteen marks of Bellarmines assigning would pare them all out of Roman Scutchions Now fearing he had done somthing he could not answer he comes to salve all by a new distinction of Holiness Holiness saith he may be taken two ways Pag. 267. First For an Universal purity of Doctrine and true Preaching of the Word as 't is opposite to all errors in every Dogmatical and Essential Point Secondly For a particular discerning Holiness whereby the true Preaching of the Word is opposite to all palpable and gross absurdities repugnant to the very Principles of Nature Rules of Faith and express Texts of Scripture What the meaning of this distinction is I confess I understand not nor I believe he himself if he were injoy'd to make it intelligible and justifie it by the Rules of Art I believe it would cost him more pains than the writing of his Book After he hath told us of this miraculous distinction which no man knows to what purpose he advanceth to the great works viz. To prove the Roman Church to be a True Church by those marks which are no marks We will consider saith he on our side what Doctrine it is which the Roman Catholicks do Preach and on the other side what Doctrine it is which the Protestants maintain and comparing both together observe whether of the two Preach more sincerely or faithfully For the Catholicks saith he they prescribe a strict way by Confessing of sins doing Pennance Restitution for wrong done set-times of Fasting c. But the Protestants the clean contrary If the Protestants taught all things he would make the world believe they do they were very monsters of men not fit to live in the World But we that know what we Preach as well as he proclaim to the world that we Preach Confession of sins doing Pennance Restitution for wrong done Mortification Set-times of Fasting contempt of the World Self-denyal Chastity Virginal Vidual Marital and all other things necessary to be believed and done for Salvation What if some Sectarian Zelots amongst us teach the contrary How does this concern the Church of England who in Justice stands not bound to maintain or answer for all the wild and mad opinions of them that separate from her And therefore 't is not fair dealing in this Doctor to make the world believe we hold all things contrary to sound Doctrine much worse to father upon the Church of England all the loose furious spurious Principles of all that stand in opposition to Rome What have we to do with the intemperate speeches of Luther or the new Divinity of the Lemanical Dictator who follow none but Christ and the Primitive Catholick Church But grant that the Church of England should not Preach the Doctrine of Christ so sincerely as the Roman Church does how does it follow upon this that the Church of Rome is the only True Church and the Church of England none 'T is a Rule in Logick that magis minùs non variant speciem that more or less Intention or Remission does not vary or diversifie the kind If the Church of England do Preach Christs Doctrine so sincerely as to Preach it sufficiently for mans Salvation all things necessary for mans Salvation though the Roman Church Preach it more excellently The Church of England may be a True Church still For there are degrees of the sincere Preaching and profession of Christs Doctrine One consisting in a freedom from all errours and that is not necessarily required to the being of a Church Another consisting in a freedom from all pertinacious error And 't is this last we make a note of the Church a sincerity free from all pertinacious error and in this degree of sincerity the Church of England does profess to Preach Christs Doctrine and by so doing is a True Church The second Mark that Protestants make of the True Church is the lawful Administration of the Sacraments whereby he undertakes in Cap. 30. to prove the Church of England to be no True Church At first he Scoptically mentions it calling it an Ear-mark although as wise and as learned a man as himself Alexander Ales made it so in good earnest At last he himself makes use of it to prove the Church of England to be no True Church viz. because the Church of England neither administers all the Sacraments which are Seven nor holds it necessary all should be administred nor acknowledgeth all to be Sacraments which is contrary to express Text of Scripture and the Word of God A high degree of contumacy and perversness if True and enough to stigmatize us to all Ages But if the Church of England allow all to be Sacraments that are so and the number of Seven Sacraments in that sence the Ancient Church call'd them so though amongst them two more chief and generally necessary to Salvation What degree of Heresie is this For the word Sacrament we know it is an Ecclesiastical word and in the power of the Church to impose upon what holy Signs or Ceremonies she pleaseth And if the Antient Church have thought it fitting to call those Holy Actions mention'd in the the Scripture with that name as Confirmation Holy Orders Matrimony c. we oppose it not we commend the moderation of Melancthon who thinks this no just matter of quarrel But 't is well known that the word Sacrament was used two ways by the Antients First largely for any Holy secret or sign of any Holy secret So Tertullian calls Christianity it self a Sacrament lib. 4. contra Marcion and in his Fifth Book speaking of Abrahams Sons he calls them Sacramenta figuram the Sacraments of figures and in his Book against the Jews he calls the Hatchet of Eliah Sacramentum ligni the Sacrament of the wood Somtimes strictly for a Holy secret Symbolically signifying and Sealing some Spiritual Grace and Ordained by Christ for that purpose And so they esteem'd Baptism and the Eucharist Sacraments in a more excellent manner But to go no further than the words of the Doctor p. 287. where he defines a Sacrament to be a visible sign of an invisible Grace Divinely Instituted for our Sanctification How will the Doctor by this Definition prove all the Seven to be True Proper Sacraments when Five of them want Divine Institution or matter and form Essential to Sacraments To instance in Confirmation they acknowledg themselves there is no command of Christ for it but only the Example of the Apostles The matter they say of this Sacrament is Holy Chrism Confect and made of Oyl Olive and Balm Consecrated by a Bishop the Form is the words of the Bishop I sign thee with the