Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	true_a	visible_a	7,129	5	9.3865	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42572	A letter to the superiours, (whether bishops or priests) which approve or license the popish books in England particularly to those of the Jesuits order, concerning Lewis Sabran, a Jesuit.	Gee, Edward, 1657-1730.	1688 (1688)	Wing G457; ESTC R9493	8,989	18

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Virgin 's Womb and is connected relatively to it I will hope that the sight of these things will not only acquit me in your Consciences from the Accusation of a gross Cheat which M. S. had laid to my charge but that you who Licensed that Letter to Mr. Needham to the Press will not for the future suffer Mr. Sabran to lay such very false and groundless Accusations either unto mine or any of our Writers charge If you do notwithstanding this discovery of him and his strange practices suffer him to go on in his way we shall for the future be obliged to lay any such Slanders at your doors Reverend Sirs who License them Another Accusation as heavy as either of these he does advance against me about the Words of the Council of Chalcedon He tells Mr. Needham in that his obliging Letter to him That I having made way for a Forgery falsify that Council's words I have got it seems of late a very unlucky hand or a very unjust Adversary but you Reverend Sirs shall determine whether it is I hope I need not tell you the History of Stephen and Bassianus nor remind how it was upon the mention that Flavianus had communicated with Bassianus the rejected Bishop of Ephesus that the Bishops which belonged to Constantinople rose up and cryed out This is the Truth we all say the same the Memory of Flavian is eternal behold the Truth Flavian lives after death the Martyr shall intreat you for us Flavian is here Flavian judges with us My crime here is that I have Translated the words of the Council different from him but why so many hard words upon it He Translates the words Flavianus lives after death that the Martyr pray for as but I with my Forgery The Martyr shall intreat you for us I will put down the Text it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do not intreat you Gentlemen to trouble your selves to end this doughty terrible Quarrel betwixt Mr. Sabran and me I hope some of Mr. Pulton's Scholars at the Savoy are so much Proficients as to tell what Mood and Tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of If they be I will e'en leave it to them and trust the Lads with it who will certainly be Degraded if they be not on my side I will trouble your Reverences no further with Mr. Sabran's Accusations of me I hope these I send you may have so much success as to discover the Man to you which is the utmost of my Intentions in this Letter against him for I am very certain that such a knowledge and insight into the Jesuit and his Behaviour will procure him a Quietus from you who cannot love to have your Cause defended by such disingenuous and unaccountable ways as this Mr. Sabran is got into However the least I can hope for at your hands is that when this Mr. Sabran sets up for Writer again you would lay your Commands upon him to leave out such defamatory Language and to have a care of Forgeries and Falsifications and that you would let him know withal that if he does not leave off such Practices you cannot in Honour or Conscience give your License or Allowance to his Books since he has been not only accused but proved before your own faces to have been guilty of such behaviour as is not only dishonourable to your Religion but Christianity itself But after all I am not of such a temper as to believe that Mr. Sabran or any of your other Authors are of such a Nature as to love these unaccountable Practices for their own sakes or to calumniate others for Calumnies sake no I profess my belief to be that what any of them have been guilty of herein is matter of necessity and not their own choice that it is the very great badness of your Cause and not their own Inclinations that puts them upon such dangerous things and this gives me occasion to address my self to your selves Reverend Sirs and to beg of you that you would so far lay by all prejudices and partial interests as to admit a serious consideration of this one thing into your minds that that cannot be either a good a true or a safe Religion that is forc'd to make use of such Arts and Arguments in the defence of her as are a blemish to our common Christianity I have the charity to believe that were your Church of Rome as pure now as it was in the Apostles time or as pure as our Church of England blessed be God for it is and our Church as corrupt as we know yours to be that you would have the same tenderness for our immortal Souls as we have for yours and that you would with all the earnestness and concern imaginable call upon us and exhort us and beseech us to come out of the Church of England and forsake all dangerous and unlawful Doctrines and Practices Give me leave therefore Reverend Sirs who have this very care and concern for all your Salvations to be as earnest with you as such a thing and your condition doth require at our hands That your Condition as Members of the Church of Rome is most dangerous and unsafe to your Souls I need not tell you now especially since all that care and pains and unwearied diligence hath been taken by the Church of England to convince you of the Errors and Dangers of your Ways They have left you now unexcusable if you do not betake your selves as bound in conscience into the Bosom of your most tender but neglected Mother the Church of England by having proved it so plainly and so fully that your Religion is not the true Religion of Christ They have proved that your Romish Religion hath no Foundation nor Countenance in the Word of God and where I beseech you should the Christian Religion be found if not in the Holy Scriptures does it want that advantage the Jewish hath of being visible in the Old Law The Clergy of this City have almost gone through all your Romish Doctrines and Practices and made it apparent that those very few Texts of Scripture which you lay claim to in defence of your Religion are most directly against it As they have shewn that the Holy Scriptures are not for you so they have proved that your Religion had no being till Christianity had been above three hundred years in the World your selves cannot be ignorant of the Truth of this you cannot deny that when your Writers are challenged to produce the Examples of the three first and purest Ages of the Christian Church that they dare not undertake it I will instance in your Representer who wrote the Nubes Testium and in Mr. Sabran himself who hath not given one word of answer to my challenge to shew me that your Invocation of Saints was taught and practised in the three first Ages of the Church This is a mighty and unanswerable Prejudice against your Romish Religion for where in God's

Name should we look for sincere Christianity and where should we expect to find it if not in the Records of the Sacred Scriptures and in the Practices of the first and purest Ages of the Christian Church I will not descend to the particular Controversies betwixt you and us it is too tedious for the end of a Letter but will beg of you that your Religion and ours may be tried by this evident and plain Principle That that Religion ought to be preferr'd to any other which doth most tend to the promoting and propagating the Glory of God and of our blessed Saviour and securing the Edification of the People of their Communion Now in the fear of God and with his assistance let us impartially examine both Churches by this Rule you your selves shall be Judges here as to the first whether that Church doth not more promote the Glory of God that is for dedicating and attributing all Religious Worship to God alone than that Church which doth divide it betwixt God and his Creatures betwixt God and Stocks and Stones and the Bones of Dead Men if the more we worship God the more we honour him that Church must honour him most of all which worships him most of all and that the Church certainly does which makes all Religious Worship whatever peculiar to his Infinite Majesty alone And for the Glory of our blessed Saviour does not that Church honour him most that makes him the Sole Mediator that offers up all her Prayers in his Name and for his Honour does not she honour him far more than that Church which makes Saints and Angels Joynt-Mediators with him and worships them for that which is to be done by him alone and for which all that worship ought to have been paid to him The greatest Honour we can do our blessed Saviour certainly is to rely wholly upon his Mediation and to place our whole confidence in him And for the Edification of the People does that Church consult it so much as hath its Prayers in a Language the People do not understand as that Church which puts up such Prayers as all the People can understand and joyn with This is so evident against the Church of Rome that we need neither Scripture nor Fathers to urge against you since the very Light of Nature doth so absolutely condemn such dumb unintelligible Service It were easie for me to urge these things further upon all your Consciences but I can only now intreat you that as you love your own Souls you would give way to such further Reflections upon these three points as will be apt to suggest themselves if you be resolved to lay aside all Prejudices from Education Station or Interest It will be more glory for any one of you to embrace the true Faith and Protestant Religion now than at any other time since this will convince the World that it was the pure Dictates of your Consciences and the concern for your immortal Souls that made you leave the dangerous Communion of the Church of Rome and renounce all her Errors and corrupt Doctrines Do not despise Reverend Sirs the Concern I discover for your eternal Interest you will joyn your Prayers to mine that after the proving of all things you may have the Grace to hold that which is good and then I am certain you cannot continue in the Communion of the Church of Rome In the mean time I have this further Charity for you to believe that if the Church of England be a true Church of Christ and her Doctrines pure and her Worship holy as I am certain it is and ready to seal my Belief with my Bloud that you will joyn your Prayers with mine for the Prosperity of this Church of England that God would abate the Pride and asswage the Malice of all its Enemies and that he would confound the Devices of all and every Society or Party of Enemies against this most Holy and Apostolick Church of England In the Confidence of this your Christian Charity I cannot but subscribe my self Reverend Sirs Your most hearty Well-wisher and humble Servant in Christ E. G.