Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	according_a	church_n	true_a	3,494	5	4.5949	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26314	Actes of the General Assembly of the clergy of France, Anno Domini 1682, concerning religion translated into English for the satisfaction of curious inquisitors into the present French persecution of Protestants.; Actes de l'Assemblée générale du clergé de France de 1682, concernant la religion, retorquez contre ceux qui les ont faits. English	Catholic Church. Assemblée générale du clergé de France.	1682 (1682)	Wing A457; ESTC R6538	20,579	46

only by Faith That after Consecration it is still Bread That there is no Purgatory That we merit nothing by our good works And it may be added that of all the passages which they set down in the margent of their confession of Faith There is not so much as one which avers either in express or equivalent terms or in the same sense the thing which they would have believed This is the Method of Monsieur Veron which he took from St. Austin who saith to the Maniches Shew me that this is in the Scripture And in another place Let them shew me that this is to be found in the holy Scripture We may therefore confidently assert that they can neither prove any of their Articles contested nor oppugn any of ours by Scripture either in express terms or by consequences sufficient to make their Doctrin be received as of Faith and ours rejected as an Error The fifth is a Method pacifick and without dispute grounded on the Synod of Dort which all the pretended reformed Churches of France have received and which hath defined by the holy Scipture that when their is a contest concerning any Atricle controverted between two Parties who are of the true Church they ought to refer themselves to the Judgment of it under penalty to him who therein refuseth submission of being guilty of Schism and Heresie But now recurring to the time when the Dispute about some Article For example concerning the Real Presence first begun the two contesting Parties who were the Ancestors of those of the pretended reformed Religion and of us were both of the same Church which was the true because it was the only one before the separation which was not as yet made Their Ancestors therefore who would not submit to its Judgment and who did not seperate from it but because it condemned their Tenents were Schismaticks and Hereticks and so by consequence are these also because they follow their Sentiments To which they can answer nothing but what might have been answered by all Hereticks who have been condemned in all Ages This Method is made good as to all its parts in the small Treatise composed for that End The sixth Method is to shew them that the Roman Church or that which throughout the Earth acknowledgeth the Pope or Bishop of Rome Successor of St. Peter for Head is the true Church because there is none but that which hath the unquestionable mark of it viz. A visible continuance without interruption from Christs time to this present day This is a Method common to all Catholicks and is very well and briefly explain'd in the little Treatise of the true Church annexed to that of the pacifick Method T is the same which St. Austin frequently make's use of against the Donatists and chiefly in his Book of the Unity of the Church and in his Epistles whereof the prime passages relating to this Subject are alledged by Monsieur Arch-Bishop of Roan in the first Book of his Apology De l'Evangile where he excellently treats of this matter To this Method may be added the Maximes of which Tertallian serveth himself in his Treatise of Prescriptions against Hereticks and Vincentius Lyrinensis in his Advertisements It may suffice here to advertise that those two Treatises are enough to any one that will read them without Prejudice rightly to discern the true Church of Jesus Christ from all Societies which would usurp that Name The seventh Method is to let them see that those who first pretended to reform the Church in which they were with us had not nor could have any Mission neither ordinary nor extraordinary to convey to us another Doctrin than what was there taught and by consequence none was obliged to believe them seing they had not any Authority to preach as they did How shall they preach unless they be sent This is the usual Method which puts the Ministers on a necessity to prove their Mission A thing they will never be able to do This cuts of all disputes and is also one of the Methods of Monsieur the Cardinal de Richelieu The eighth Method is to tell them You do not know that such and such a Book of Scripture is the word of God otherwise than by the Church wherein you were before your Schism You cannot then likewise know which is the true sense of controverted passages otherwise then by the same Church which delivers it to us This is the Method of St. Austin in many places In his Book de Vtilit Credendi throughout And in his Book Contra Epistolam Fundamenti where he saith I would not believe the Ghospel unless the Authority of the Church obliged me to it this Method is handsomely laid open in the Treatise of the true word of God annexed to the pacifick Method The ninth Method is to shew them that the Church wherein they were before their seperation from it being the true One because it was the only One they could not reform it in its Doctrine so as to frame another for then it must have fallen into Error and consequently the Gates of Hell must have prevail'd against it which is directly opposite to the promise of Jesus Christ which cannot fail The Gates of Hell shall never prevail against it The tenth Method is that of Monsieur the Bishop of Meaux formerly Bishop of Condom in his Book entitled An exposition of the Doctrin of the Catholick Church Whereby distinguishing in every Article that which is precisely of Faith from that which is not so He makes it appear There is nothing in our Belief which may stagger a rational Judgment unless by taking for our Belief the Abuse of some particulars which we condemn or some Errors which they most falsly impute to us or the Explications of some Doctors which are neither received nor authorized by the Church This method is drawn from St. Hillary in his Book of Synods Let us saith he joyntly condemn vitious interpretations but let us not destroy the certainty of Faith The word consubstantial may be ill understood let us determine how it may be well understood we may settle amongst our selves the true State of Faith yet so as what hath been well establish'd may not be abolished And false conceptions may be retrenched The eleventh Method is taken from general arguments which Divines call motives of credibility It is of Tertullian in his book of prescriptions and of St. Austin who reckens up the motives which kept him in the Catholick Church The twelfth Method most brief and most easie is to press them with this Dilemma Before Wicleff Luther and Calvin and as much may be said of the Waldenses who were in the Twelfth Century The Church of those of the pretended reformed Religion was in a small Number of the Faithful or it was not at all If it was not at all then is it a false one because it was not perpetual as

the true Church ought to be according to the promise of Jesus Christ The forces of Hell shall not prevail against it I am with you even to th' end of the World If their Church was It must according to themselves have been corrupted and impious Seing they cannot Point out to us this small Number of their pretended Faithful who before their Reformers had condemned as they do now the Assemblys of the Papacy as that from whence all Superstitions and Idolatrys gained vogue They comported themselves at least outwardly as others So then their Church made up of this little unkown Flock was not Holy nor consequently the true Church The thirteenth Method is drawn from the quality of Schism which ought never to be made for any reasons whatever can be alledg'd For according to the Ministers themselves nothing else can be produced but Errors which they pretend to be crept into the Church from which they separated themselves by Schism But those who were there as well as they before their Seperation did firmly maintain as we do still maintain to this day that those are not Errors but Verity's And it is certain that of these so different Sentiments the one is true Doctrin the other Error and falshood consequently the one good Grain the other Tares But it belongs not to particular persons to Root up by their private Authority what they pretend to be Tares There is none but God who is the true Father of the Family who hath this Authority and who can communicate it to others It is he who appoints his Reapers namely the Pope and Bishops who are represented by the Angels to seperate the Darnel from the good Grain and to Root up the one without touching the other at the time of Harvest that is to say in a Council or by common consent of the whole Church And in that Case there is no need of a Council Wilt thou that we go and pluck them up Do not so for fear least you root up the wheat together with the Cockle suffer both the one and the other to grow till the Harvest we ought therefore never to seperate our selves under what pretence soever it may be but must tolerare that which we believe to be an abuse and Error and expect till the Church pluch up the Tares This also is one of St. Austins Methods in his Treatise against the Donatists where he sheweth by th' Examples of Moses Aaron Samuel David Isaiah Jeremy and of St. Paul who himself tolerated the false Apostles that none should ever seperate from their Brethren before a solemn condemnation of the Church Thereupon he saith that The Donatists were intolerably wicked For having made a Schism For having erested Altar against Altar For their having seperated themselves from the Heritage of Jesus Christ spread throughout the whole Earth according to the promise which he made unto it He adds That if they think this a small matter they need only see what the Scripture teacheth us herein by the Examples there shewn of the Punishment of so great a Crime For saith he They who made the Idol of the golden Calf were punish'd only by the Sword But they who made the Schism were swallowed up by the Earth By this diversity of chastisements one may know that Schism is a greater Crime than Idolatry See hereupon the Epistle 171. where in the Person of the Church he exhorts the Donatists to renounce their unhappy Schism Amongst other things there he hath these elegant sayings Why will you tear the Garments of our Lord And why will you not with the rest of the world leave entire this Coat of Charity which is but of one sole texture and which his very Persecutors would not rend And a little after You feign before the time of harvest to eschew the Cockle which is mingled by what you say with you because it is your selves that are this Cockle For if you were the good grain you would suffer the being mixt with Tares and would not seperate your seves from the Wheat of Jesus Christ There needs here no more than to change the word Donatists into that of Calvinists a thing which shews how far the Church hath always been and always ought to be acknowledg'd for infallible seing we must give place to its Decisions And that the Fathers have so firmly asserted we ought never to depart from her bosome and that we are so much the more oblidg'd to remain united to her for that she never refuseth to give ear to the complaints of her Children To confirm the precedent Method with a fourteenth we may demand of the Calvinists as to all our Articles what St. Austin demanded of the Donatists when the Church reconcil'd penitent Hereticks without rebaptising them For example It may be demanded of them when Jesus Christ was adored in the holy Eucharist before the Schism was the Church then the true Church or was it no longer so If it was then none ought to have seperated from it for a practice which it authorized If it was no longer so From whence departed Calvin What soyl put forth this Sprig What Sea cast him on our Coast From what Heaven did he fall upon Earth From whence came these Reformers Of whom received they their Doctrin and Authority to Preach Let those who have followed them look well where they are seing they can arise no higher then to these People to find their Original As for us we are secure in the Communion of that Church in which is now practis'd vuiversally throughout that which also was every where done before Agrippinus and Cyprian Then he adds these elegant words which are decisive In the mean while neither Agrippinus nor Cyprian nor those who followed them though they were of an opinion contrary to that of others did seperate from them but remained with their Dissenters in the Communion and vnity of the same Church That is to say expecting till she decided their differences Afterwards repeating in few words what he had said he conclude's If then the Church perish'd for having taught that the Baptism of Hereticks was good they could not shew the original of their Communion but if the true Church subsisted they could not justify their seperation and Schism which they made As much may be said against the Waldenses the Lutherans the Calvinists and other Hereticks who can derive themselves no higher than from Waldo Luther Calvin and their other Ringleaders This method of St. Austin is excellent If our pretended reform'd Brethren will defend themselves saying as in effect they do in all their Books that it is not they that have made the seperation but rather it came from us and that it is we who have cutt them off from our Communion We must answer That there are two sorts of seperation the one which is criminal the other which is lawful In the first One seperates himself from his Pastor