Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	authority_n	divine_a	infallible_a	2,602	5	9.2547	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57693	Catholick charitie complaining and maintaining, that Rome is uncharitable to sundry eminent parts of the Catholick Church, and especially to Protestants, and is therefore Uncatholick : and so, a Romish book, called Charitie mistaken, though undertaken by a second, is it selfe a mistaking / by F. Rous.	Rous, Francis, 1579-1659.	1641 (1641)	Wing R2017; ESTC R14076	205,332	412

many other crimes doe not accordingly God often calls Idolatry by the name of Adultery and thereupon threatens a divorce to his people And in that commandement alone which forbids this Spirituall Adultery doth God onely mention his Jealousie Againe if a man be jealous let a stranger be never so like him his jealousie will not suffer his wife to love that stranger as himselfe yea he will not indure it though shee say it is for his sake and for likenesse to to her Husband How much more should the jealousie of God arise when his worship is given to things infinitely inferior to himselfe and so farre below that it is a kinde of blasphemy to name them in a comparison Accordingly God casts it off with a scornefull indignation To whom will yee liken God If this jealousie of God could not indure that Dagon should stand in one place with the Arke shall we thinke that the same jealousie will indure an Idol to dwell quietly with him in the soule of that man which is truly the Temple of God What agreement saith S. Paul hath the Temple of God with Idols For yee are the Temple of the living God And if Saint Paul aske this question as if it could not receive an answer How dare men to answer this question at least with such facility to dissolve it how dare they say Yes S. Paul It hath beene seene very generally that the Temple of God even ignorant Christians have had agreement with Idols for if Christians knew not but that the Idols ought to bee worshipped with divine worship they beleeving this might give divine worship to idols and this Idolatry is not damnable Surely if such an answer may thus get safe passage through this Text by some narrow way to make Idolatry to agree with God and salvation doubtlesse it seemes by Saint Pauls question the common and ordinary relation between them is disagreement and there is some great difficulty or some great rarity in this agreement And this great danger and difficulty should bee greatly pressed at least not lesse then the narrow way of escaping And indeed to expresse this danger and difficulty is my businesse at this time and for a further expression of it let the words of Iosua bee considered Yee cannot serve the Lord for hee is an holy and a jealous God Hee will not forgive your transgressions and sinnes except yee put away the strange gods which are among you I might add from many places of Scriptures That they who feared the Lord and served their own gods did not feare the Lord. And in the daies of good Iosiah God would Cut off those that worship and sweare by the Lord and sweare by Malcam And that Idolatry is generally clothed in Scripture with the title of Abomination and it is not easie nor usuall with God to dwell with Abomination But referring the Reader to his owne reading I conclude with that piercing and affrighting speech of Saint Paul There is a brother and it is a weake brother and this brother out of his weaknesse eates things sacrificed unto Idols with conscience of religious honour of the Idols the same weake brother seeing a strong brother eating in the Temple of Idols is strengthened in his making conscience and giving honour and worship to the Idoll and yet of this weake brother Saint Paul saith that Hee perisheth No doubt this weake brother making conscience of the Idoll beleeved this honour which his conscience gave to the Idoll was due and lawfull yea he beleeved it the more as Saint Paul saith by seeing a strong brother in the Idols Temple whom hee thought to have made the same conscience of the Idoll yet this brother for whom Christ dyed thus weake thus beleeving and upon such a tentation if wee beleeve Saint Paul perisheth by this Idolatry There is yet a third dangerous yea deadly infection of Rome in the Idolatry of Merits of which soules should bee wary for generally those merits are by by them made Saviours while they think that they are able to justifie or stand in judgement before Gods Justice and that they deserve life eternall yet Christ Jesus who is God blessed for ever could onely performe such merits for mankinde As for us when wee speake most of our good works Let us say with that holy man Remember me O Lord concerning this and spare mee according to the multitude of thy mercy and then put this clause to it from our Saviour When wee have done all wee are unprofitable servants Let not this Idolatry seeme small to us which the chiefe of them dare not maintaine when they dye though the Papall profit makes it pleasant whilest they live But let it bee as one of the botches of Egypt which kill the soules of thousands with death eternall Thus have wee seene errors deadly and damnable to many that professed them in the Church of Rome and beleeved what they professed wherefore the safest way by which charity joyned to verity may more clearly save some in this Church is to finde some that are cleare from these errors And these being produced may serve for patternes to others to drive them from these errors And accordingly it is possible to find some within the Romish territories that have been cleer from these Idolatries yea some that have beene Teachers and Writers and no doubt they have begotten some Auditors and Readers like to themselves And first for the killing error of making the Pope or his Church the god and utmost foundation of faith there are not a few of the late Writers as Lorca tels us that wholly deny it The authority and testimony of the Church doth nothing pertain to the assent of faith neither as part of the object nor as a condition without which faith cannot bee which opinion of Canus not a few of the later men doe imbrace to this hee adds which was the opinion of Calvin And to make this yet more cleer that often objected place of S. Augustine I would not beleeve the Gospel except the authority of the Church did move mee Lorca saith Canus Calvin answer with the very same words That Augustine meant nothing in this sentence but that the Church is an apt beginning and as it were an introduction by which a man wholly ignorant of the faith is fitly led unto it but not that the Church should bee the reason of beleeving for that is Because God speaks in the Scripture and it is an infallible instrument of the divine Testimony And Lorca afterwards affirmes That the resolution of this question Why you beleeve is lastly and directly resolved into the testimony of God and this is the adaequate reason of beleeving Because God saith it Thus are there some and not a few of the Church of Rome as Lorca tels us that avoid the shipwrack of soules which is visually suffered by faith in the Pope or testimony of man even

the Law and the reigne of the letter should preserve knowledge now under the Gospel and Kingdome of light notwithstanding any grace or power from this Sacrament may leave the people in ignorance and the old complaint under the old may be renewed in the new My people perish for want of knowledge And if thus they perish it is very likely that notwithstanding any grace of this Sacrament it is not charity but uncharitablenesse that kils them Hee proceeds If hee have not spirit for so much as that but resolves to walk on in the broad way of a married life that state is honourable though it be inferiour to the former and shee joynes him to a wife by a Sacrament also conferring grace A strange opposition of things agreeing and a setting at ods of things which God hath set at friendship If hee have not spirit for so much as that saith our Author but resolves to walk on in the broad way of a married life c. as if hee that resolves to bee married may not have so much spirit as that which is fit for the Priesthood I cannot see in any place of Scripture but that the spirit of Priesthood may very well agree with marriage if the spirit of error that forbids marriage did not work in the Papacy to set them at discord yea our Author saith Order gives grace and Matrimony gives grace and I wonder how one of these graces falls out with the other I wonder also with what charity or rather uncharitablenesse Rome can deny Orders to a man that hath a gift of teaching because hee hath not the gift of continency surely shee is either uncharitable to Gods Church in thus denying Orders where God hath given a gift that deserves them or uncharitable to the Minister in tying him to that continency whereof the gift is not given him On the one side if this man want Orders a Congregation that wants him may starve for lack of him on the other side if hee want marriage his soule is tyed to the fire and so is in danger to bee consumed with the flames of it and either way is Rome still uncharitable even in these things by which our Author would prove her charity As for the sacramentality of Marriage and grace conferred by it I must take them but for empty words before I see Christs Institution in the Scriptures to put substance into them A Sacrament as Cassander from Hugo well gathers is a signe instituted by Christ to signifie and convey an inward grace which by some likenesse it representeth Now Marriage indeed representeth the union betweene Christ and his Church but it was not instituted by Christ that this union should be given by it and indeed that such grace is represented and given by Marriage as by a Sacrament wee read not in the Scriptures yea their own Peter Lombard Durand and Cassander deny that marriage giveth grace therefore it remaines onely as a Tridentine and not a divine Sacrament of grace and the gift of a supposititious Sacrament with fained grace is but a fruit of that carnall charitie which giveth stones for bread He goes on If in his last sicknesse hee be afflicted by those sharpest arrowes of his invisible enemy shee annoints him towards the combat and enables him by that extreme Unction and by the benedictions and prayers which accompany it to resist and conquer those adverse powers Behold a Romish Unction different from the ancient Unction even by the confession of Romists themselves for this Unction is given us as our Author tels us in his last sicknesse But the ancient Unction was given of purpose that it might not be his last sicknesse that was given to heale this because hee is condemned to death and thought past healing Saint Mark saith that the twelve did annoint with oyle many that were sick and healed them and S. Iames Let them pray over the sick annoynting him oyle and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up So wee see that healing or raising up is expected as a fruit of this ancient Annointing but death is expected as a follower of Romish Annointing for even Bellarmine's proofe of this Sacrament is drawne from the desperate and dying state of the sicke That since Sacraments were provided for our helpe in our ingresse into the Church and our progresse in the Church it is not to be beleeved that there should want one at our egresse See here that the Unction which anciently was used for our regresse is now used by Romists for our egresse And therefore it is not the same Unction yea it is not the same if wee beleeve their Cardinall Cajetane saying that Saint James his Unction agreeing with the Apostles Unction doth not agree with extreme Unction in word nor effect and indeed the effect of S. Iames his Unction was health but the expected consequence of Romish Unction is death Wherefore let them joine health to their Oyle which was anciently joyned to it and then wee will think they give that Unction which was the ancient Unction and a fruit of charity But if they give Oyle without health the signe without the thing what charity is there to give an empty signe in stead of a reality Yea how doe they abuse that Oyle aswell as the Receivers in misgiving it as a Sacrament of death which in the true use of it was appointed for a meanes of life SECT IV. Monasteries and other Romish works bearing a shew of charitie are proved to bee contrary to it BUt Romish charity seemes not to leave men when they bee dead but then followes them even dead men with dead prayers issuing from a blinde and therefore a dead charity For is it not a dead charity that in her prayers for the dead is not animated by a true and lively faith the want whereof turnes all things and ther●fore both the shewes of charity and prayers into sinne And can there be any faith without the Word of God and doth the Word of God any where shew Purgatory so evidently that faith may assuredly beleeve it and thereupon offer up prayers for the deliverance of the dead from it A Work ascribed to S. Augustine plainly saith The catholick faith by divine Authority beleeves a first place The kingdome of Heaven it also beleeves a second which is Hell a third wee wholly know not yea wee finde that it is not in the holy Scriptures Now if it bee not in the holy Scriptures it is no matter of faith and if Purgatory be not of faith then the prayers for soules to bee freed from that Purgatory whereof there is no faith are prayers not of a true that is a beleeving and seeing charity but rather of blinde infidelity As for this Authors praying for the dead to the worlds end I wonder why he should speak of it when he should not be ignorant that if the living friends

make love the mark of his true Disciples seeing those are onely Christs true Disciples which so learne Christ as they draw that spirit from him which teacheth them love and breatheth it into them And surely if a sonne of God by that spirituall eye which hee receiveth from Christ Jesus with his Sonne-ship do clearly behold another son of the same father how can hee chuse but love him as a brother he cannot chuse but love him for the unity that is betweene them for they are one spirit by being begotten of one Spirit in Christ Jesus and as none hateth his owne flesh but cherisheth and loveth it so none should hate his owne spirit but cherish and love it Secondly hee should love his brother for uniformity aswell as for unity there is a spirituall likenesse and conformity betweene spirituall brethren and commonly likenesse breedeth love they are both created unto one image and how can a sonne of God but love his owne likenesse which hee seeth in his brother As in a glasse face answereth to face so a Saints soule answereth to the soule of a Saint and when one sees his owne shape in the other from this likeness and harmony there must needs arise spirituall love and amity Thirdly if a Saint consider the excellency of a Saint how can he chuse but love him for his excellency God is the chiefest and highest excellence and he that most resembleth God is therefore most excellent Now among visible creatures there is none that resembleth God more then a Saint for he is a sonne of God begotten to the true image of God his father therefore hee that loves God that begat loves also the Sons whom God hath bego●ten and the man according to Gods own heart because his goodness the fruits of love extends not unto God therefore he communicates it to the Saints and Sons of God that excell in vertue as if that were the next degree to doing good unto God himself to love cherish and doe good to his sons and Saints And indeed what is a fitter object of love next to the chiefe and soveraigne Good then a Saint who by a derivative goodnesse most representeth him God is light and a Saint is light in the Lord God is goodnesse and righteousnesse and a Saint is created according to God in righteousnesse and true holinesse The heart of a Saint is according to Gods heart yea he is partaker of a divine nature and groweth in it from glory to glory And as this divine nature is glorious and lovely so are the fruits of it atractively amiable Love joy peace long suffering goodnesse faith meeknesse temperance yea all goodnesse righteousnesse and truth The beauty of the body is by no means comparable with the beauty of the soule for the beauty of the soule is the Image of God and the glory of this Image having in it divine light vertue and goodnesse shines in the soul with a farre higher excellence then colour and complexion laid on the clay and earth of a fading and corruptible body and according to this excellence the beauty of the soule is preserved to immortality when the beauty of the body is suffered either to vanish before the body or to lye with it in the dust and there to die a kinde of second death neither shall it ever recover life againe but by a conjunction with the beauty of the soule If corporall beauty have been joyned with spirituall beauty then shall it rise in a farre more excellent beauty but if it had not with it spirituall beauty purity and goodnesse and fairenesse of soule it shall not arise in glory and beauty it shall not see the face of God but it shall be sent away with ougly spirits being it self transformed into the deformed character of a countenance weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth If then a Saint be so lovely and the love of a Saint is so just and reasonable and God doth love this Love and doth give his Saints the Spirit of love of purpose to love one another and so this love is the marke of a Saint a Sonne and a Christian let every Saint make himselfe sure of this love and not onely of the shew and word of it but of the essence and life of it Let him love a Saint whom God loves and love him because God loves this love of a Saint Let him love a Saint as hee loves his owne safety which is annexed to the love of the Saints Let him love a Saint because a Saint loves God Let him love a Saint because hee is like himselfe and because the Saint loves him Dilige Deum tuum dilige in Deo tuo charum tuum Imaginem Dei tui Ille te perinde diligendo Deum in Deo diligat Love thy God and in God love thy brother the image of God and let thy brother in requitall by loving God love thee also in God SECT II. Peace is declared to be the first fruits of love and to make love fruitfull in other graces and is further commended 1. By the beauty and usefulnesse of it 2. By the mischiefs which proceed from dissention 3. By the authority of Scriptures 4. By the example of Christ. TRue Christian love will not bee solitary and fruitlesse but it must bring forth peace and bee attended by it Love is it selfe the fruit of the spirit and peace is the fruit of this love yea love which delights to bee fruitfull loves this peace because by her shee communicates her other fruitfulnesse It is best sowing in a calme and if we will beleeve Saint Iames the fruit of righteousnesse is best sowne in peace So Peace the eldest daughter of Love is a midwife to her mother and delivers her of the rest of her children and without her help the mother doth nothing but make abortions Therefore as thou wouldest have thy love to be fruitfull and by her fruits profitable to the Saints so be thou sure to have her attended by peace that through peace with the Saints thy love may profitably extend it selfe to the Saints The unity of the spirit must be kept in the bond of peace and indeed with whom wilt thou keepe peace if thou wilt not keepe it with those who are one spirit with thee By one spirit are we all baptized into one body and we be members one of another by our unity in this one body How comely yea how necessary is it to the preservation and prosperity of the body that the members of one body bee at peace and unity and how monstrous and destructive is it when one member fights with another That fatall sentence cannot bee avoyded If yee bite one another yee shall bee consumed one of another But contrarily the kingdome of God which is peace flourisheth by the peace of the subjects of that kingdome and therefore St. Paul having taught the former to the Romans adjoyneth the latter

saved But how dangerous or deadly soever their faults were they fall directly on the Popish faction both in point of heresie schisme for they hold the like heresie to the Donatists That the Church is onely in the Popes party and accordingly by uncharitable schisme they cut off all those from their communion that are not of this party And now hee comes back againe to Irenaeus as if hee had found some new matter in him Nay Irenaeus whom I named before implies not onely that it is necessary for a true Christian Catholick to differ in no one point of the doctrine or faith from other Christians but hee must withall not beleeve any thing after a different manner that is to say upon a different motive from that for which it is beleeved by other Christians But what doth Irenaeus say being thus called back again He saith nothing for our Author only saith that hee implies just as St. Cyprian before was made to comply But what doth he imply That it is necessary for a true Christian Catholick to differ in no one point of the doctrine or faith from other Christians But is there any such sentence or implying in this Chapter Surely I doubt this Cavalier delt too much upon trust and hee whom hee trusted too much upon deceit I have read over the Chapter and can finde no such implying But I finde that which wee often object against Romists Traditions Why should wee leave the doctrine of the Prophets the Lord and his Apostles and hearken to those men when they tell us their errors The other inference from Irenaeus That a Christian must not beleeve by a different motive from that by which it is beleeved of other Christians is a point that is mortall to Popery For they making the Popes word or authority the motive of their faith herein doe differ from the motive of faith received by the Christians in Grecia Armenia and AEthiopia and so transgresse most dangerously and I doubt fundamentally against this rule produced and approved by the Author as from Irenaeus though there I cannot finde it And now after a just examination of these Allegations I cannot but inferre that There appeares a manifest losse of the cause when the places produced for proofe of it prove it not So that the Authors conclusion being no way made good by his allegations it is left still solitary forsaken and unproved And whereas hee saith For the present it may suffice to have proved the necessity of perfect unity in the Church wee must needs reply That hee hath most imperfectly proved the necessity of so perfect an unity And for the other piece of his conclusion That indeed no reason can bee given why if there bee allowed any more true Churches then one there should not be admitted aswell two thousand as two I acknowledge with him that not onely no reason can bee given of this but also of the Cavaliers speaking of no reason in this point For it is not denyed by us that there is but one true Church and if you make two you may make two thousand But wee deny that every little difference makes two Churches of one and this neither the Author hath proved neither doe his citations suffice to prove but let him here looke to himselfe and his fellow Romists whether they bee not in danger of making two thousand Churches who have made a second Church called the Church vertuall the Pope yea a third Church the Pope and his mysticall body for he is a mystery also but of iniquity which two Churches many eminent members of the Catholicke Church deny to bee that one true Church whereof they are members In the meane time Romish uncharitablenesse in damning Protestants remaines still as a proved truth seeing this Authors proofes for an imaginary perfect unity by which he undertooke to prove it an untruth doe not prove this unity and no such unity proved no untruth proved so they are still uncharitable and Protestants doe yet speake truth when they affirme their uncharitablenesse CHAP. VII A consideration of the Cavaliers fifth Chapter wherein to the great danger of the Papacy that is proved by Scriptures and Fathers which wee doe not deny That out of one true Church of Christ no salvation is to be found SECT I. This ground yeelded doth not produce any discharge whereby the Romists may be freed from uncharitablenesse in damning Protestants THe Cavalier fights on our side and against his fellowes wee are yet left in the Church notwithstanding any thing he hath said or alledged and he hath yet left salvation to us and uncharitablenesse to his owne Papacy And now we being left in the Church he goes about to prove that out of this Church there is no salvation So upon the matter hee proves that out of the Protestants Church there is no salvation But then what will become of the Papacy which will not be of one Church with saved Protestants And indeed except it were to speake for us and against the Papacy what need is there of these proofes for a point not denied by us For wee give him this at first onely for the asking That out of the onely true Church the body of Christ there is no salvation Yet will hee needs goe on to fight for a point which we confesse yea withall to fight for us against himselfe And indeede even where he would seem to fight against us hee doth it so loosely and far-off that it is hard to discerne how his blowes doe concerne us Let us see his first onset Since the Church of Christ our Lord is so truely one and but onely one it followes easily enough that no salvation can be had out of this Church and that every Heresie or Schisme is sufficient to deprive any soule thereof but yet neverthelesse to the end that men may bee wholly left without excuse or rather that they may bee the better warned to take heed in time of those miseries which otherwise they are to feele for all eternity I will strengthen also this truth by the Authoritie of some few Scriptures and Fathers of the Primitive Church for so by degrees it will easily and of it selfe appeare that wee Catholicks are not faulty in that wherewith wee are so much charged I confesse it is hard to finde out this Authors order and way his end or drift we know but the way by which he would come to it is hard to bee seene I am sure hitherto hee hath not made good his first steps in it and yet hee would seeme to proceed as if hee came neerer to his end by degrees when yet hee is still on his threshold for first though the Church of Christ be but one and it doe follow that no salvation can be had out of that one Church this as hath beene noted is no degree to the cleering of Papists uncharitablenesse in damning Protestants Againe it doth not follow that every Heresie in the Popish sense is