Selected quad for the lemma: opinion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
opinion_n	church_n	council_n	trent_n	1,107	5	10.4717	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63784	A discourse of the nature, offices, and measures of friendship with rules of conducting it / written in answer to a letter from the most ingenious and vertuous M.K.P. by J.T.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Two letters written to persons newly changed in their religion.	1657 (1657)	Wing T317; ESTC R27531	49,680	181

understandings The first is where was your Church before Luther Now if you had called upon them to speak something against your religion from Scripture or right reason or Universal Tradition you had been secure as a Tortoise in her shell a cart pressed with sheavs could not have oppressed your cause or person though you had confessed you understood nothing of the mysteries of succession doctrinal or personal For if we can make it appear that our religion was that which Christ and his Apostles taught let the truth suffer what eclipses or prejudices can be supposed let it be hid like the holy fire in the captivity yet what Christ and his Apostles taught us is eternally true and shall by some means or other be conveyed to us even the enemies of truth have been conservators of that truth by which we can confute their errors But if you still aske where it was before Luther I answer it was there where it was after even in the Scriptures of the Old New Testament and I know no warrant for any other religion and if you will expect I should shew any society of men who professed all the doctrines which are now expressed in the confession of the Church of England I shall tell you it is unreasonable because some of our truths are now brought into our publick confessions that they might be oppos'd against your errors before the occasion of which there was no need of any such confessions till you made many things necessary to be professed which are not lawful to be believed For if we believe your superinduc'd follies we shall do unreasonably unconscionably and wickedly but the questions themselves are so useless abstracting from the accidental necessity which your follies have brought upon us that it had been happy if we had never heard of them more then the Saints and Martyrs did in the first ages of the Church but because your Clergy have invaded the liberty of the Church and multiplyed the dangers of damnation and pretend new necessities and have introduc'd new articles and affright the simple upon new pretensions and slight the very institution and the Commands of Christ and of the Apostles and invent new sacramentals constituting ceremonies of their own head and promise grace along with the use of them as if they were not Ministers but Lords of the Spirit and teach for doctrines the Commandments of men and make void the Commandment of God by their tradition and have made a strange body of Divinity therefore it is necessary that we should immure our faith by the refusal of such vain and superstitious dreams but our faith was compleated at first it is no other then that which was delivered to the saints and can be no more for ever So that it is a foolish demand to require that we should shew before Luther a systeme of Articles declaring our sense in these questions It was long before they were questions at all and when they were made questions they remained so a long time and when by their several pieces they were determined this part of the Church was oppressed with a violent power and when God gave opportunity then the yoke was broken and this is the whole progress of this affair But if you will still insist upon it then let the matter be put into equal ballances and let them shew any Church whose confession of faith was such as was obtruded upon you at Trent and if your religion be Pius quartus his Creed at Trent then we also have a question to aske and that is where was your religion before Trent The Councel of Trent determined that the souls departed before the day of judgement enjoy the beatifical vision It is certain this Article could not be shown in the confession of any of the antient Churches for most of the Fathers were of another opinion But that which is the greatest offence of Christendom is not only that these doctrines which we say are false were yet affirmed but that those things which the Church of God did alwayes reject or held as Uncertain should be made Articles of faith and so become parts of your religion and of these it is that I again aske the question which none of your side shall ever be able to answer for you where was your religion before Trent I could instance in many particulars but I shall name one to you which because the thing of it selfe is of no great consequence it will appear the more unreasonable and intolerable that your Church should adopt it into the things of necessary belief especially since it was only a matter of fact and they took the false part too For in the 21. Session the fourth Chapter it is affirmed that although the holy Fathers did give the Sacrament of the Eucharist to Infants yet they did it without any necessity of salvation that is they did not believe it necessary to their salvation which is notoriously false and the contrary is marked out with the black-lead of every man almost that reads their works and yet your Councel sayes this is sine controversiâ credendum to be believed without all controversie and all Christians forbidden to believe or teach otherwise So that here it is made an Article of faith amongst you that a man shall neither believe his reason nor his eyes and who can shew any confession of faith in which all the Trent doctrine was professed and enjoyned under pain of damnation and before the Councel of Constance the doctrine touching the Popes power was so new so decried that as Gerson says he hardly should have escaped the note of heresy that would have said so much as was there defined so that in that Article which now makes a great part of your belief where was your religion before the Councel of Constance and it is notorious that your Councel of Constance determined the doctrine of the halfe communion with a Non obstante to Christs institution that is with a defiance to it or a noted observed neglect of it and with a profession it was otherwise in the primitive Church Where then was your religion before Iohn Hus and Hierom of Pragues time against whom that Councel was convened But by this instance it appears most certainly that your Church cannot shew her confessions immediately after Christ and therefore if we could not shew ours immediately before Luther it were not halfe so much for since you receded from Christs Doctrine we might well recede from yours and it matters not who or how many or how long they professed your doctrine if neither Christ nor his Apostles did teach it so that if these Articles constitute your Church your Church was invisible at the first and if ours was invisible afterwards it matters not For yours was invisible in the dayes of light and ours was invisible in the dayes of darkness For our Church was alwayes visible in the reflections of Scripture and he that had his eyes of faith

sin of omission yours are sins of commission in case you are in the wrong as we believe you to be therefore you must needs be in the greater danger then we can be supposed by how much sins of omission are less then sins of commission 11. Your very way of arguing from our charity is a very fallacy and a trick that must needs deceive you if you rely upon it For whereas your men argue thus The Protestants say we Papists may be saved and so say we too but we Papists say that you Protestants cannot therefore it is safest to be a Papist consider that of this argument if it shall be accepted any bold heretick can make use against any modest Christian of a true perswasion For if he can but out-face the modesty of the good man and tell him he shall be damn'd unless that modest man say as much of him you see impudence shall get the better of the day But it is thus in every error Fifteen Bishops of Ierusalem in immediate succession were circumcised believing it to be necessary so to be with these other Christian Churches who were of the uncircumcision did communicate Suppose now that these Bishops had not onely thought it necessary for themselves but for others too this argument you see was ready you of the Uncircumcision who do communicate with us think that we may be saved though we are circumcised but we do not think that you who are not circumcised can be saved therefore it is the safest way to be circumcised I suppose you would not have thought their argument good neither would you have had your children circumcised But this argument may serve the Presbyterians as well as the Papists We are indeed very kinde to them in our sentences concerning their salvation and they are many of them as unkind to us If they should argue so as you do and say you Episcopal men think we Presbyterians though in errors can be saved and we say so too but we think you Episcopal men are Enemies of the Kingdome of Jesus Christ and therefore we think you in a damnable condition therefore it is safer to be a Presbyterian I know not what your men would think of the argument in their hands I am sure we had reason to complain that we are used very ill on both hands for no other cause but because we are charitable But it is not our case alone but the old Catholicks were used just so by the Donatists in this very argument as we are used by your men The Donatists were so fierce against the Catholicks that they would rebaptize all them who came to their Churches from the other But the Catholicks as knowing the Donatists did give right baptisme admitted their converts to repentance but did not rebaptize them Upon this score the Donatists triumphed saying you Catholicks confess our Baptism to be good and so say we But we Donatists deny your Baptism to be good therefore it is safer to be of our side then yours Now what should the Catholicks say or do should they lie for God and for religion and to serve the ends of truth say the Donatists baptism was not good That they ought not Should they damne all the Donatists and make the rent wider It was too great already What then They were quiet and knew that the Donatists sought advantages by their own fierceness and trampled upon the others charity but so they hardned themselves in error and became evill because the others were good I shall trouble you no further now but desire you to consider of these things with as much caution as they were written with charity Till I hear from you I shall pray to God to open your heart and your understanding that you may return f●●m whence you are fallen and repent and do your first work which that you may do is the hearty desire of Your very affectionate Friend and Servant I●●● Taylor The Second Letter Written to a Person newly converted to the Church of England Madam I Bless God I am safely arrived where I 〈…〉 after my unwilling departure from the place of your abode and danger and now because I can have no other expression of my tenderness I account that I have a treble Obligation to signifie it by my care of your biggest and eternal interest And because it hath pleased God to make me an Instrument of making you to understand in some fair measure the excellencies of a true and holy Religion and that I have pointed out such follies and errours in the Romane Church at which your understanding being forward and pregnant did of it self start as at imperfect ill-looking Propositions give me leave to do that now which is the purpose of my Charity that is teach you to turn this to the advantage of a holy life that you may not only be changed but converted For the Church of England whither you are now come is not in condition to boast her self in the reputation of changing the opinion of a single person though never so excellent She hath no temporal ends to serve which must stand upon fame and noises all that she can design is to serve God to advance the honour of her Lord and the good of souls and to rejoyce in the Cross of Christ First Therefore I desire you to remember that as now you are taught to pray both publikely and privately in a Language understood so it is intended your affections should be forward in proportion to the advantages which your prayer hath in the understanding part For though you have been often told and have heard that ignorance is the Mother of devotion you will finde that the proposition is unnatural and against common sense and experience because it is impossible to desire that of which we know nothing unless the desire it self be fantasticall and illusive it is necessary that in the same proportion in which we understand any good thing in the same we shall also desire it and the more particular and minute your notices are the more passionate and materiall also your affections will be towards it and if they be good things for which we are taught to pray the more you know them the more reason you have to love them It is monstrous to think that devotion that is passionate desires of religious things and the earnest prosecutions of them should be produced by any thing of ignorance or less perfect notices in any sence Since therefore you are taught to pray so that your understanding is the praecentor or the Master of the Quire and you know what you say your desires are made humane religious express material for these are the advantages of prayers and Liturgies well understood be pleased also to remember that now if you be not also passionate and devout for the things you mention you will want the Spirit of prayer and be more inexcusable then before In many of your prayers before especially the publique you heard a