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	faith_n	infallible_a	4,512	5	9.4343	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33180	To Catholiko Stillingfleeton, or, An account given to a Catholick friend, of Dr. Stillingfleets late book against the Roman Church together with a short postil upon his text, in three letters / by I. V. C.	J. V. C. (John Vincent Canes), d. 1672.	1672 (1672)	Wing C433; ESTC R21623	122,544	282

is no traditional Revelation or that God has used fraud or that his scribes have been unsincere with us because there are some divine Revelations written or again that there is no external infallible proponent or obliging Authority as to matter of faith and manners necessary because every one is an infallible proponent to himself and can use his best endeavours to discern the true sense of Scripture in necessaries to Salvation or also that the Church of Rome is not the Catholick Church nor any sound part thereof because the true believer must since●ely endeavour to discover the true meaning of written Revelations according to the intention of Gods holy Spirit if I say these of such like discourses of the Dr be first principles we need not fear begging the question in any discourse whatsoever But I purpose not here Sir to give you a special report either of the Drs. account of our Calick Religion or of his Principles of his own intending not to exceed the limits of a preliminary Epistle or to forestall your TO KATHOLIKO or the labours of others who have already entred the field or perhaps will hereafter appear there to help on the Doctors Itch of writing against the Roman Church or for his own as he makes it his Profession though to as little purpose as if he had forbid his beard to grow or the Sun to walk his usual rounds for God will preserve the work of his own hands should the Dr. scribble or babble till his dooms-day However it will be worth the while if he thinks his cause deserves it to consider his own contradictions his own Fanaticism his misrepresentations of our Catholick Devotions of our d●ctrine of repentance and Indulgences his Principles considered a●d this your Friends KATHOLIKO TO wherein he may find diversion enough for the ex●●cising his truth discerning faculty and sober enquiry And since he now has so notoriously injured the Catholick Church by Infamations and Novelties and has confidently provoked the Doctors therof to appear in the Field We may in all justice expect he will not as hitherto set guards upon all approaches nor shall be then want wherewith to employ his admirable talents in those his dear Fields which lay so open for himself to ramble in Now Sir as for any Answer to these our Reply's you must be sure to arm your self with a large store of Resignation either to be told by the Doctor of his many more important employments abroad and necessary Occupations at home for propagating the Gospel or to hear of some new disperate Piece against Popery which some considerable Person expects from him or that he is sick of some disease much like Demosthenes his Quinsie for 't is usual with Persons of his opportunities in this case still to answer besides the purpose nor to heed whatever has been often said unto them but ever to crow and caper as if each of them were a Conqueror so true is it That although thou shouldest bray a Fool in a Morter amongst Wheat with a Pestell yet will not his foolishness depart from Him So unwilling to detain You any longer from the perusal of this your KATHOLIKON I remain SIR Your devoted Servant J. C. June 25. 1672. TO THE READER Courteous Reader FOr preventing mistakes thou art desired to take Notice that some few Copies of J. V. C. his Third Letter speaking to the pretended Fanaticism and Divisions of the Church of Rome stole abroad without either the review or allowance of the publisher and therfore they are not owned as the true and genuine Work of that Author that which is here presented unto Thee together with his first Epistle which refutes Image Idolatry imputed to that Church formerly Printed now reprinted with addition and likewise his Second Letter replying to Dr. Stilling fleets Host Idolatry and Saint Idolatry and also to his Hindrances of good Life and Devotion Which make the whole Posthume Work of that Worthy Author answering to that Doctors Account Most considerable Errata Corrected Image Idolatry Page 20. Line 13. Beades Host Idolatry ● Pag. 30. lin 8. do take pag. 37. l. 5. for all Hindrances c. Pag. 14. l. 22. he may not Pag. 18. l. 8 how the Sacra●ents p. 19. l. 23. oft no waies Fanaticism Pag. 11. lin 11. propagation pag. 12. l. 9. peace and. p. 23. Acab p. 16. l. 18. Feast of the. ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ Stillingfleeton THe Book Sir which taken up with better affairs you sent unto me that I might after I had read it over draw an Abridgment of it for you with my own thoughts super-added in the close by way of a short Comment thereon is the second production as it seems of Doctor Stillingfleet against Popery Less displeasing it is I think to a Reader and nothing so tiresome as some other Books which have issued forth on that Side against the ways of Catholick Religion For there is some Truth in his Citations a seasoning of Salt and comical Wittiness sprinkled all over and no such thick gross venom of maliciousness wherewith other Books of that kind are overcharged appearing though much of it lie hid throughout his Book Indeed he perverts all things by his various subtilty But that is no more but what his own fame and interest here principally aimed at would require And we must give him leave to deride also and play and sport himself in his Book as a Leviathan in his own waters It is his pasti●ue and pleasure and a sweetness esteemed perhaps necessary to his life And who would be so ill-natur'd as to envy it him Besides it is a pretty piece of Rhetorick both fit and very efficacious to create in his Protestant Readers an opinion of his unerring confidence which is the one great end of his Labours And if we be thus kind he will in recompence of that our civility give leave I suppose to Catholicks who see him so jocund and supinely careless in his errors thence to conclude the strange inconsiderate security of the merry man But we must know Sir that this his elaborate Book against the Church of Rome as he speaks although it be his second yet is it not intended to be his last For If Catholicks have any thing to say quoth he either against our Church or in defence of their own let them come into the open Field from whence they have of late so wisely withdrawn themselvs finding so little success in it Thus he speaks in his Preface threatning if I understand him right another Knocker as stout a one as this can be if any one dare to appear against him or say so much as Boh to a Goose And these words of his import I think a Challenge called commonly a Defiance which Catholicks as soon as they had read thought it as much their duty as it sounded to be the Doctors desire to fit their Slings unto their Arms and meet him But the thing proved alas to be but a Copy of

the Father but no news of worshipping the Host But secondly there are not the same grounds to believe Christs presence here as that Christ is God and if that presence be not then is it idolatry without excuse It is here granted that the person of Christ visibly appearing to us in any place may be worshipped but there is not the same reason of believing and seeing And if any reply blessed is he who hath not seen and believed he may know that that word is here impertinent relating not to this matter but to the Resurrection It is also granted that in the celebration of the Eucharist we are to give a spiritual worship to Christ as well as to the Father performing that Religious Act with a due veneration of his majesty and power with a thankfulness for his goodness a trust in his promises and a subjection to his supreme authority We grant also that external reverence may be shewn in the time of receiving the Eucharist in signification of our humble and thankful acknowledgement of his benefits But we deny first that Divine worship is to be given to the Elements on the account of a real presence or that the same adoration is to be given out of Communion as in it And this is the only Controversie For how can one be sure that the object is such in it self as deserves worship sine it seems Bread still The Scripture that sayes This is my Body may be otherwayes interpreted and then the words will not make it out and the sence of them given by Fathers is hard to seek and harder to find the world being full of disputes about it The sence of the present Church can stand in no stead For is it enough that the Pope say so No. If he define it No. If a General Council concurre with him No unless they proceed in a right way and who knows that Besides how can we tell that he who consecrates is a Priest or hath any intention to do it And as we cannot be sure of the object of worship there so neither that we have yet sufficient reason to worship For Divines are not resolved whether the humanity of Christ taken abstractively from the Divinity be capable of Divine worship so that if the humanity be present with the Divinity it is uncertain whether I may worship it and as distinct from the Divinity it is certain I cannot And though out of the Sacrament we may worship Christ safely enough yet not so in the Sacrament where his corporal presence is the cause of our adoration and perhaps without the Divinity at all which is unto no purpose of Christs institution But suppose Christs Divinity be present yet this gives not ground enough of worshipping the thing wherein he is present For how and why should it be Here are their Doctors puzled mightily to shew how their worship is terminated in this case and how God is united to the Sacrament more then to the Sun and Moon and whether there be any hypostatical union in one place more then another What can they urge for any sufficient authority of this their worship The authority of the Roman Church That is nothing worth Catholick Tradition Let them shew it Scripture That cannot do it alone without Council and Fathers as some of their own learned men acknowledge For the words This is my Body may stand with a Metaphorical as well as a real sence But if they chance to be mistaken in the belief of this Doctrine then can they not certainly be excused from Idolatry as their own men Bishop Fisher and others do acknowledge no more then the Manichees and some others who said Christ was the Sun and therefore worshipped it Veneration and Invocation of Saints is another piece of Idolatry c. § 1. The Author having prosecuted in one long Chapter the first piece of our Catholick Idolatry he bestows upon us another here as long as it about two other our Idolatrous parcels the Eucharistian Host and Saints For Idolatry is such a rumbling sound that he thinks not fit to confine it to one Chapter as the other three subjects Indevotion Fanaticisme and Division but we must hear of it on both sides our head unto our double confusion But it is here to be noted that he changes now the mode of his Sophistry in to a new kind I suppose for his Readers refreshment Before he cast beams now he throws motes into our Eyes Our Images he confounds by the Loggs of Heathen Idols but our Eucharist by the dust of Philosophical curiosities which he so spreads abroad that he loseth his own eye-sight § 2. And as he changes his Logick so does he alter his phrase also And he has a reason for that too In his first Chapter he charged us with worshiping God by Images and in Images now he does not say in the like phrase that we worship God in the Host or by the Host And of this his sudden change of phrase I believe every Reader does not take notice or perceive a reason though the Author have one and that a good one for it and I think a couple For first a waggish wit must so provide that he impose upon his adversary not that which is true or sounds true but what is or sounds false To worship God in Images sounds false but to worship God in the Host sounds true and therefore he imposes that upon Catholicks but not this Secondly This his diversity of phrase brings him in all the materials of that his first and this present Chapter which he could never by any force have haled into his paper unless he had carefully so placed his words as here he does The charge of worshipping God in Images gave him occasion to talk how such a worship cannot terminate upon God how that the invisible Deity cannot be represented how the Heathens worshipped God in their Idols how that Aaron and Jeroboams sin was no other c. which materials till up his first Chapter and had all failed him had he spoke singly of the respect which Catholicks bear to their holy Apostles and Martyrs represented either to their ear or eye which is all they do On the other side his charge of worshipping the Host and not God in the Host opens him a passage for all the talk of this his second Chapter how that we have no command in Scripture of worshipping the Host though we be commanded to worship Christ how that we have no ground to worship the Elements how that we cannot be sure that the Host is an object of worship how Schoolmen are puzled to declare the union with the Elements and Symbols c. which are his materials against this second parcel of our Idolatry and had all failed him too had he fairly imposed upon Catholicks a worship of God in the Host as before he did a worship of God in Images For these two great reasons he warily imposes upon them in choice phrases of