Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	article_n	church_n	creed_n	1,359	5	10.1652	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A15508	Charity mistaken, with the want whereof, Catholickes are vniustly charged for affirming, as they do with grief, that Protestancy vnrepented destroies salvation.	Knott, Edward, 1582-1656.; Matthew, Tobie, Sir, 1577-1655, attributed author.; Potter, Christopher, 1591-1646.; Potter, Christopher, 1591-1646. Want of charitie justly charged.	1630 (1630)	STC 25774; ESTC S102197	54,556	140

both those former were expresse heretickes euen in the Protestants owne opinion as wel as ours for their misbeliefe of other things and that those doctrines wherein those former heretickes agreed with vs and dissented from the Protestants are now most vniustly condemned by them in our persons howsoeuer for the hideing of their owne misery they are content to winke at the selfe same opinions in them who were their predecessours in heresie But all this while it must still be noted that they make themselues able to daunce also in this Net by the distinctiō which they haue framed of fundamentall and not fundamentall For if this had not beene deuised but that it might haue beene declared that the obstinate beliefe of any one single heresie depriues a man of saluation and therefore that there is no meanes to make any one mā to be of the same Religion with any other but by being wholy of the same Religion so farre forth at the least as that he must not obstinately deny any one doctrine thereof whether it be important more or lesse when once as hath been sayed it is lawfully and sufficiently propounded and comaunded to be belieued by the true Church it would instātly haue been made as patent and cleare as it is true certaine that neither when Luther rebelled from the Church of Christ our Lord nor in any age before his time there was in the whole world any one kingdome or country or citty or towne or family of men or pastour or flocke yea or any one single person so much as of Luthers owne and much lesse of the now Protestant Religion which is now forsoothe so farre refined beyond his To conclude the making of this distinction betweene fundamētal not fundamentall points of faith and the resoluing not to declare which is which doth saue them with a great part of the ignorant world from the imputation of Rigour in their proceeding with vs. For how could they persecute as they doe without extreame note of cruelty yea or euen how could they dissent without apparent impiety from our beliefe and practise of those doctrines wherein we haue had and still haue prescription of so many ages if the contrary thereof should be confessed by themselues not to be fundamentall We must not therefore wonder if that they sticke so fast as they do to this distinction for hereby it appeers that they haue wit inough to keep themselues warme which they could not do so wel without this cloake vpon their backs It is also more them probable that one reason why they are so vnwilling to giue in any Catalogue of the fundamentall points is because they know soe well how ridiculous they would make themselues by the infinite variety of their Catalogues For if it be so familiar with them to be of different mindes cōcerning particular doctrines how much more would they be so in this which is a roote of many branches or rather a monster of many heads And so there can be no doubt but that some of them would not be more resolute in restraining the fundamentall points into a narrow compasse then others would be in enlarging them to a broader I will consider what is sayd by most of thē to this purpose because this chapter is growne into length you shall expect that which followes in the next That Protestants neither do nor dare declare what are their fundamentall points of faith whereby yet they would pretend that they liue in the Communion of the one true Church of Christ our Lord. CHAPTER IX IT is vsuall with many to affirme that the Apostles Creede containes all the Fundamentall points of Faith but these men when they are pressed grow soone ashamed of that opinion when they are tould that in the Creede there is no mentiō made at al either of the Canō in holy Scripture or of the nūber or nature yea or so much as of the name of Sacraments Besides that there are so great differences betweene them and vs about the vnderstanding of the Article of the desce●t of Christ our Lord into Hell and that other of the holy Catholike Church and that also of the communion of Saints which we belieue and they deny to inuolue both prayers for the dead prayers to Saints as that we should not be much the better either for our knowing or confessing that the Creede containes all the Fundamentall points of Faith vnles with all there were some certaine way how to vnderstand them right and especially vnles vnder the Article which concernes the holy Catholicke Church they would vnderstand it to be indued with so perfect infallibility and great authority as that it might teach vs all the rest For indeed according to that sense not only the whole Creede but euen that single Article of the holy Catholicke Church might be said to containe the reason of all our Faith so Fundamentally as that we should neede noe other guide then that But if we vnderstand it otherwise the Scripture it selfe speakes of particular errours which are dānable in them by whome they are embraced and yet they are not at all against any expresse doctrine of the Creede As namely where S. Paule calls it a doctrine of diuells to forbid marriage and meats which by the way is not to be vnderstood of the chastity and fasts of the Catholicke Church as Protestants do most peruersely affirme which knowes that those things are lawfull but that yet it is most gratefull to God when his seruants for his loue depriue themselues of those delights but of the heresie of the M●ni●hees as S. Austen doth expresly declare who forbad both marriage and meats as being abominable and impure through the institution thereof which they said was deriued from a certaine second ill cōdicioned God of their owne making In like manner S. Peter saith that S. Paule in his Epistles had written certaine thinges which were hard to be vnderstood and which the vnlearned and vnstable did peruert to their owne destruction S. Austen declares vpon this place that the places misunderstood concerned the doctrine of Iustification which some misconceaued to be by faith alone by occasion of what S. Paule had written to the Romanes And of purpose to countermine that errour he saith that S. Iames wrote his Epistle and prooued therein that good works were absolutely necessary to the acte of Iustification Here vpon we may obserue two things the one that an errour in this point alone is by the iudgment of S. Peter to worke their destruction who embrace it and the other that the Apostles Creede which speakes no one word thereof is no good rule to let vs knowe all the fundamentall point of faith Others say that the booke of the 39. Articles declares all the fundamentall points of Faith according to the Doctrine of the Church of England but that also is most absurdly affirmed For as it is true that they declare in some cōfused manner which yet indeed is

beliefe of the holy Scripture it selfe and consequently of all the other greatest points We differ about the Primacie of S. Peter and his successours yea and about the infallibility of generall Councells and so therefore about the supreme iudge on earth of all our controuersies in Religion We differ about the iustification of soules and the value which the death and grace of Christ our Lord hath imparted to the workes of the children of God We differ in a world of particulars about the article of holy Catholicke Church and namely whether it must alwayes be visible or noe euen to the eyes of men and whether it must alwayes be free frō errour and fallibility We differ about the Communion of Saincts whether we may either pray for thē who are in Purgatory or to thē who are in heauen And we differ not only about these and many other most importāt points as mē who ar ready to relinquish their opiniōs if they be cōmāded but we ar on both sides resolued to persist though both the Catholicke Church in her counsells and the Protestants in their seuerall Confessions haue declared that their owne opinions are true and the contrary false and though we on the one side haue cast excommunication vpon the new deniers of those doctrines of ours which we haue receaued frō Christ our Lord his Apostles and they on the other haue filled their parts of the world which scurrill blasphemous inuectiues against those sayd Doctrines of ours and haue taken vpon themselues to be the reformers of the Church though without either ordinary mission or miracles and to be true publishers of the ghospell and euen the very illuminatours of the world And now therefore let that be considered once for all which hath formerly ben shewed about the stile of holy Scripture Fathers which speake those said things of Heresies and Hereticks without specifying in particular what they are And let it also be called to minde what Catalogues the Fathers of the Primitiue Church haue made of heresies whereof many abstracting frō the pride and disobedience which thereby is committed against the Church are neither of so great importance in themselues or at least not great at all in respect of those many most important Articles which ar mutually affirmed or denied betwene the Protestants and vs. For what imported it all that some were so foolish as to hold al men bound by Scripture to put of their shoes when they prayed yet S. Augustine cited them for heretickes in his Catalogue But the pride wherewith they presumed to abuse Scripture and to impose such a fond law vpon mēs cōsciences a resolutiō not to leaue it when they were commaunded by the Church was that which made it heresy in them Or what Article of the Creede or what book of Scripture or what sacramēt of the Church did the Quartodecimani deny or what errour did they introduce but only the celebrating of Easter at another time then was ordained by the Church and yet for this doth S. Austin inroll them in the rancke of heretickes the same I might exemplifie in many other particulars Presumption and pride which is expressed by choosing obstinatly maintaining of any doctrine or discipline cōtrary to the iudgment and commaundement of the Catholicke Church and by refusing to submit therein to the same Church is that wherein the very life spirit of Schisme and Heresie doth consist And the question is not here whether the point vpon which the Schisme or heresie is grounded be in it selfe of so great importance yea or no but whether there be in the hearte of any priuate man or men such a diabolicall degree of obstinacy and pride as to preferre their owne sence and Iudgment in things belonging to the faith and worship of our Lord God before the resolution and direction of his holy Catholicke Church which is his spouse his kingdome his house his Sanctuary and his citty which was made the treasure house of grace the foundation and pillar of truth the depositary of the holy Ghost and the heire of most faithfull and firme promises that euen the gates and power of Hell it selfe should neuer be able to preuaile against it And now I say if there be found such a sinne as this in the soule of man as to preferre his owne poore dictamens before the decrees of this Church it is so very enormous so barbarous so wholy out of the way of al Religion of reason of nature and euen of common sence it sauours of such a spirituall and infernall presumption so much the more cordially to be first lamented and then detested because it is cloaked vnder the collour of the ghospell and Christian liberty and I know not what of that kind that really it can deserue no other place or degree of punishment then Hell it selfe And now that all this is true namely that heresie cōsistes not in the material beliefe of a false doctrine for the contrary thereof perhaps was not sufficiently propounded to be belieued but in the disobedience to the Church after it is propoūded that famous exāple of S. Cyprian and the Donatistes may serue for prooffe For S. Cypriā was of the first who fel vpō the doctrine of rebaptization of such as had beene baptized by Hereticks and the Donatists afterward succeeded in the same But in S. Cyprian it was but errour because the Church of his time had not absolutely condemned it but growing after to condemned in the Donatists time it was Heresie in them not to forsake it Which drew Vincentius Lirinensis to make this exclamation O admirable change of things the authours of an opinion are held Catholicks and the followers of the selfe same are iudged hereticks And S. Cyprian himselfe declares the same in substance vpō a like occasion concerning others For when one inquired of him what that erroneous doctrine was which Nouatianus the schismatick had taught his answere to his friend was directly this Thou must know that we should not be curious what that doctrine is which he teaches since he is out of the Church teachinge clearly therby that not the quality of the doctrine but the pride of the man is that which makes the hereticke And in deede if this were not the rule whereby heresies and schismes must be knowne it were impossible to conclude what were an heresie or a schisme and so also there should fall out to be no heresie in effect at all which might not be compatible with saluation Now this opinion is not only contrary to the current of holy Scriptures and Fathers and to the beliefe and practise of the Catholicke Church of all ages but euen of the Protestants themselues who condemne not only vs but one an another also as is abundantly shewed the Authour of the Protestants Apologie c. for the Roman Church and especially in the place cited in the Margine fol. 408. where he cites Luther expresly saying thus We