Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	according_a	church_n	prove_v	2,572	5	5.9942	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97089	A brief answer to the many calumnies of Dr. Henry More, in his pretended Antidote against idolatry. Shewing that no prudent person can, upon any rational ground, be deterr'd from returning to the communion of St. Peter's chair, by any of the doctors best and strongest evidences to the contrary.	Walton, John, 1624-1677.	1672 (1672)	Wing W675A; ESTC R225655	39,521	109

towards it Yet this even taken in its most favourable circumstances is a most wicked and impious mocking of God says the Doctor And he adds That if the image be the object of these postures and incurvations as it seems to him plain and beyond all questioning that it will be so then he says it will be idolatry To this I return that I hope the Ethicks cannot be offended with me no more than divinity can be able to reprove me if I say this Conclusion gives God the lie and makes Him the approver commander and rewarder of Sin even idolatry it self For God promised a reward to Prayer made in the Temple 2 Chron. 7. 15. Where notwithstanding there were graved Angels or Cherubims upon the wals And he commanded his People to adore the Ark over which were Cherubims or Angels of Image-work where the worshipper could not possibly make his addresses but he must needs bow at lest circumstantially though not objectively towards an Image And yet Pray'r even thus circumstanced was approved commanded and declared by God himself rewardable Now this is the very posture both for act and object which cannot down with the Doctor but he must needs have it to be idolatry and his most charitable gloss upon the action can afford it no name under an impious and wicked mocking of God Whence if reason may be allowed to make the inference the Doctor 's Tenth Conclusion must needs be found guilty of giving God the lie and making him the approver commander and rewarder of sin even the sin of idolatry Having thus made our way through all the Doctor 's Ten Conclusions the Reader may please to observe how far he forgets himself and over-runs the Title of his Chapter insomuch that he scarce ever faces about to it from the beginning to the end for whereas the Title promised to deliver What idolatry is according to divine declaration and that he himself makes his boast in the end of this Chapter To have abundantly convinced the Church of Rome of multifarious idolatries if they will stand says he to divine definitions or the declarations of holy Scripture in this point Yet on the contrary 't is evident there are not even so many Scripture-quotations in this point as may make up so much as a duall number The only way then for the Doctor to make out the title of his Chapter and his vapouring Rodomontado against God's Church is to deify his own conceptions that is to make his own word pass for the Word of God and his Authority for divine And then truly we have no reason to be offended at him for taking upon himself so kindly that very imputation which he seeks no less weakly than injuriously to pin upon the doctrine and practice of the Church The Second Section In Answer to the Doctor 's Second Chapter THis Chapter compared with the former is but a second part to the same tune longer in words but as weak in performances to the full as its Predecessor The Title promises to declare What Idolatry is according to the determination of clear and free reason and this in 25. several Conclusions His first second and third Conclusions quite digress from the charge in hand showing what a grievous sin idolatry is which is much more largely and learnedly declared by our own Authors and readily granted by us with this further allowance that if he can fix the crime upon us with any shew of reason we shall freely acknowledg our guilt to be of a double dye to what it was in the Jew or Gentile The fourth and fifth tell us that idolatry necessarily involves in it ignorance or mistake in the act of worship or the object The fifth advances a step further and concludes very abruptly that because all idolatry involves in it some ignorance or mistake therefore no ignorance or mistake can excuse from idolatry very learnedly From the Fourth and Fifth the Doctor makes a long stride to his One and Twentieth Conclusion where he peremptorily concludes that because mistake does not excuse him from idolatry by Conclusion the Fourth and Fifth therefore the adoration of any object which we out of mistake conceive to be the true God made visible by hypostatical union therewith is manifest idolatry Thus he But let us put the case that some Christian contemporary to Christ our Lord whilst he so journed upon earth had through meer mistake adored some other Person for Christ Here the Query arises whether this Man's error would have pleaded his excuse I or no The reformed Churches of France in their Apology by Daille ' declare for the affirmative And truly Reason seems clearly to be on their side For what reason or equity will condemn a loyal subject who intending an address to his Prince should take Hephestion for Alexander a Peer for his Soveraign and so make tender of his allegiance to another Person whom he innocently mistakes for his Prince Let us parallel the two cases As this loyal Subject's address is intended only to his Prince so the Christians address in the instance above-said is directed only to Jesus Christ In both these cases there intervenes an error of fact both the religious and civil worship being misplaced as to the circumstance though not as to the object And why this error should be imputable either to treason in the one case or to Idolatry in the other or why more to idolatry in the one case then to treason in the other is that which it will concern the Doctor to speak to if he means to maintain his conclusion And till he hath done this he shall never be able to prove what he aims at in his 22. Conclusion that any idolatry is committed though it should so fall out through inadvertence or any other accident that an unconsecrated or untransubstantiated Host were exposed to the veneration of the People for as no adoration is here due so none is intended but only to Jesus Christ adorable where-ever he is The 6th 7th 8th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 18th and 24th Conclusions talk big against Invocation of Saints But the best speaks amongst them are the 8th 10th and 12th The Eighth leads the Van in these terms Any actions gestures or words directed to any creature as to an object which naturally imply or signify either the incommunicable or incommunicated eminencies of God is the giving that worship that is the right and due of God alone to that creature and that injury against the divine Majesty which is termed idolatry Then follows the Tenth and in a high and mighty language speaks thus An omnipercipient omnipresence which does hear and see whatever is said or transacted in the world whether considered in the whole or as distributed into terrestrial celestial and supercelestial not only all these omnipercipiences but any one of them is a certain excellency in God and for ought we know incommunicated to any Creature The Twelfth brings up the Rear with an Ergo If

Body is one of the actions or gestures which God did chuse in setting out the mode of his own Worship Ergo Incurvation towards or in reference to any Creature as to an object is idolatry Now I subsume But Abraham used this incurvation towards Men and Angels Gen. 18. and 23. And the beloved Disciple of Jesus reiterated the like incurvation towards an Angel Apoc. 22. 9. I shall leave the ergo to the Doctor for the premises being his I shall not envy him the glory of the Conclusion which makes Abraham and Saint John Idolaters The 16th 17th 19th and 20th talk much of a symbolical presence and incurvation towards it Whereof the 16th refers to the Ninth and has its Answer there The 17th That the Pagans worshipping their demons though not as the supreme God by symbolical presences c. Become Ipso Facto Idolaters To this I have already answered shewing that the Pagans gave the worship and title of Deities to their demons and therefore became Ipso Facto Idolaters The 19th defines magisterially That incurvation in way of Religion towards an open or bare symbolical presence be it whatever Figure or Image as to an object is flat Idolatry Here I would gladly know of the Doctor why he calls a Figure or Image a symbolical presence but only because the Image is a sign or token signifying or representing the Person whose image it is Then I enquire further whether for the same reason the Name of a Person be not a symbolical presence in its kind as well as the image forasmuch as both of them are signs or tokens representing the same thing with this only difference that the Image represents it to the eye the Name to the ear And why then may we not bow to the Image of Jesus as well as to the Name of Jesus or how can the one be condemned of idolatry but the other must incur the like brand The 20th Harping still upon the same string of a symbolical presence will needs maintain That religious incurvation towards a bare symbolical presence wittingly and conscientiously directed thither though with a mental reserve that they intend to use it meerly as a circumstance of worship is notwithstanding real idolatry To me this Conclusion seems big with a spirit of contradiction as being manifestly against Scripture against the practice of the Church of England and lastly against Dr. More himself That it is clearly against Scripture besides what I have said in my answer to the last Conclusion of the first Chapter is sufficiently evidenced from the incurvation the Scripture commands to the Name of Jesus which is as much a religious incurvation as any we give to those symbolical presences called Images That it is against the practise of the Church of England and proves that all Protestants who kneel at the Eucharist are Idolaters I conceive to be no less manifest for Protestants in their Communion acknowledge See the Protestant Rubrick after Communion no corporal and real but a bare figurative and symbolical presence of Christs natural flesh and blood And religious incurvation towards a symbolical presence being real idolatry according to the Doctor What follows by a clear sequel but that all Protestants who bow the knee at the Eucharist are Idolaters And if the Protestant-Communicant in his vindication chance to fly to a mental reserve and allege for his excuse that he uses it meerly as a circumstance of worship and that his intention terminates not in the symbolical presence but looks up to the Person of Jesus Christ the Doctor will smilingly tell him for they are his own words in the like case Concl. 19. That direction of our intention here is but a Jesuitical juggle and that the using it meerly as a circumstance of worship is idolatry and so he cuts him off from that plea and leaves him without all excuse Thirdly That it is against the Doctor I appeal to the Doctor himself by bringing his 16th and his 20th Conclusions face to face The 16th openly avoucheth That the erecting of a symbolical presence with incurvation thither ward was declared by the supreme God the God of Israel one of the manners of worship due to him The 20th runs counter and stifly presseth That religious incurvation towards a symbolical presence without exception of any wittingly and conscientiously directed thither is real idolatry These two Conclusions as I conceive do thwart each other no less than if he had said in direct terms All religious incurvation towards a symbolical presence is idolatry Not all religious incurvation towards a symbolical presence is idolatry For the 20th is a Universal affirmative and maintains the first The 16th implies no less than what is asserted in the second The 22th and 23th Conclusions weakly cavil at the adoration of the Host as idolatrous either in Catholiques or Protestants But these petty niblers at the most blessed and ever adorable Sacrament shall have their answer in the next Chapter where the Doctor treats this Subject Ex professo Only here I add that for Protestants indeed to adore the Sacrament who believe no corporal presence of Christ there but that the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their natural substances so speaks their abovesaid Rubrick would be the like crime as for an unconverted Jew to adore Jesus Christ in whom he believes not But what is this to the Doctor 's purpose Both the Jew and the Protestant lie under the prejudice of an erroneous perswasion which upon application to rational and sound motives may and ought to be deposed In the 25th and last Conclusion the Doctor starts a pretended Objection against his charge of idolatry in the adoration of the Eucharist and overflows whole Pages in answer to it But the Catholique Church makes no such Reply nor stands in need of any such vindication of her doctrine and practise And therefore I leave the Doctor to the pleasure of his own thoughts raising his Aery Castle with one hand and beating it down with the other And so I pass on to the Third Section The Third Section Which answers to the Doctors Third Chapter THe Title of this Chapter delivers it self in these terms That the Romanists worship the Host with the highest kind of worship even that of Latria according to the injunction of the Council of Trent and that it is most gross idolatry so to do It had been ingenuous in the Doctor whilst he states Catholique Doctrine to speak Catholique language The Council of Trent even as quoted by himself mentions not the Host but only the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament or which is the same of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament Which is a quite different thing from that uncatholique expression of worshipping the Host For Catholick Principles own nothing of the Host to remain after consecration but the species or symbols Nor does the Council enjoyn the worship of Latria to the symbols but to Jesus Christ veiled with the symbols In this Chapter the