Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	book_n	church_n	holy_a	11,338	5	5.0671	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33486	The converted capuchin, or, The recantation of Father Basil after he had continued nigh forty yeares a fryer of that order and perswaded many Protestants to the Romish-beliefe : with his answers to those reports framed against him since he left his convent at Roüen to be one of the reformed church at Sedan / English according to the French copy.; Declaration du sieur François Clouet, cy-devant appelé Père Basile de Rouen, où il déduit les raisons qu'il a eues de se séparer de l'Eglise romaine. English	Basile, de Rouen, d. 1648?	1641 (1641)	Wing C4738; ESTC R23037	16,013	23

THE CONVERTED CAPUCHIN OR The Recantation of Father BASIL After he had continued nigh forty yeares a Fryer of that Order and perswaded many Protestants to the Romish-Beliefe With his Answers to those Reports framed against him since he left his Covent at ROÜEN to be one of the Reformed Church at SEDAN Englished according to the French Copy LONDON Printed by E. G. and are to be sold by Richard Harper at the Signe of the Harpe in Smithfield 1641. BEhold here a true Convert an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile no Spalata to change a petty Bishoprick for a better Deanry and lose that too to turne againe in hopes of a Cardinals Hat by the allowance of the Pope his Schoole-fellow Here is one of Gods little Ones whom no ambition or earthly preferment spurres forward but a holy ayme at the Kingdome of Heaven who having forsaken a certaine being unites himselfe with a Church upon whose charity depends his whole reliefe with a Church which admits no Priority in the Ministry and therefore could have no expectances of Ecclesiasticall promotions In his old Age after he had passed nigh forty yeares in the Capuchin Order where were novices enough to have travelled for his maintenance and have kept him warme in his Covent He was the Popes Missionary whose faculties by vertue thereof were severall and notable as hereafter are expressed And as his eminency for them besides his golden tongue which graced his Sermons to the admiration of his auditors made his revolt from them the more considerable So hath he gotten store of contumelious reports from them who in him have lost the glory of their Order and their Chaire and the best benefactor to their Edifices his perswasions prevailing more upon the devotions of the auditors then all the rest he left behinde him But let their Aspersions be as many as malicious The Church of England is well acquainted with the nature of Popish flamme● as in that of our sometimes reverend Bishop King and others neither will our Fryer beg any helpe in his vindication nor doubts but by what followes to give his Reader satisfaction Some way may be given his Adversaries to load him with lyes since t is not so much fault as custome among them and the prime weapons they use in defence of their precious Religion to wit their jugling exorcismes and lying miracles as in the boy of Bilson c. Yet because their Abuses may passe for Truths if unanswered and my selfe was told by a Fryar of the same Order that Father Basil our Converts departure was for the love of liberty I have translated for Thee their Calumnies and his Answers whereby Thou mayest easily discerne the untruths and malice of his Accusers That he was not a man of that Disorder those of that Order would have thee beleeve surely Father Joseph that great wit and Confessor to the Cardinall of Richelieu would have us think when he sollicited him by Letters to accept the superiority of the Queens Capuchins but his Fraternity finding him to be of more profitable use among them as the sequell intimates hindred his voyage hither And that his austere and exemplary life together with his elaborate preaching gained him a rare opinion from his compatriots those many hundreds of Protestants he drew into the Romish folds are witnesses for which his soule doth hourely pennance and his eyes shed rivolets of teares in prayer for their safe returne into the bosome of the Church againe So that if God had pleased to have wrought in him this work among us we might have hoped the rest of his Order here as well as divers of them in France might have become Converts through his example besides many of our English Renegadoes who happily might have beene stopped in in their flight from their holy Mother the Church of England to that adulterous one of Rome There are strong Reasons and Motives written by the same pen which engaged this Convert upon his Resolution more at large then here set downe And when I shall finde thou hast procured an appetite to them by reading these I shall take some paines to make them Converts for thy fuller satisfaction To the Church of ROME Sirs I Make no doubt but my alteration will beget an ill interpretation of it in them who are ignorant of the motives and because each man will deliver himselfe according to his owne fancy I desire to satisfie all by this my Declaration intreating them to suspend their judgements untill I have enformed them of the reasons which I am here setting downe First after I have humbled my selfe before my God praying him that my unworthinesse passed over he would be pleased to illuminate my understanding guiding my soule and my hand so that I may alleage things conformable to his Word I do in his glorious presence as before him that is my Judge and knowes my heart make this protestation That I have not embraced this profession to live at more ease and better my worldly condition or to leade a life of more liberty or plenty For in that religion whereof I earst was under a cloake of being poore I had store of all things and while I so continued had wherewith to please my selfe in abundance farre was I from having any cause to complaine of want and was honoured among them and had a setled Lively-hood but by the Religion I have now entred am reduced to an assured poverty and deprived of the best of my worldly conveniencies losing the good will of Millions who highly valued me yet this poverty and disgrace I entertaine as an honour since it is for Gods cause and that Jesus Christ hath scored out our way herein by his owne miseries and sufferings My life I thank my God hath beene blamelesse and I am provided for the convincing of those which would urge ought to the contrary Had I been a man prophane and vicious they would not have allowed me the office of Superior for twelve years which I did yet exercise but the last yeare among those of mine owne Order nor did I leave it for any misdemeanor I had committed but to obey the call of my gracious God who so knocked at the doore of my conscience that I could not be quiet I dare without vanity say that I have been in the Church of Rome and the Capuchin Order of good repure I preached vehemently against the Church of God wherewith I have now by the Lords great mercy ranked my selfe not thinking then that I waged warre against my owne Captaine and Saviour and that is it wherein I confesse with perfect sorrow I have grievously offended his sacred Majestie I had there no other booke than the holy Scripture which might be termed the Word of God nor was it thence I digged ordinarily the doctrine which I taught no more than others who preach in the Romish Church that tye not themselves to the interpretation of holy Writ and when I entred into the Order I

made a vow to keepe the Rules and Institutions of Saint Francis which bind not the Friers to study sacred letters but command in expresse termes That those of the fraternity which are unlearned need not to study to learne them but ordaine in the second chapter that they should be clad in old tayments and that they might peece them with sacke-cloth and other peeces on Gods blessing Being thus fastned to this Order I thought with my selfe that in observing it I should do workes of Supererogation by which I supposed to doe more good than God commanded me and so to merit a degree of glory in Paradise above that common to the Saints which had no more perfection here than meerely to fulfill the Law of God In the interim this perswasion dwelt in my soule that true Religion which leads to salvation comes from God not humane invention To the end therefore I might strengthen my selfe in the beleefe of the Romish Church and be furnished with answers to gain-sayers I desired to know as exactly as I might what Jesus Christ and his Apostles Founders of Christian religion taught us as it is contained in holy Scriptures but in reading them glory be to God it happened cleane contrary to my purpose and intendment His Prayer upon his Conversion O Lord my God and my Creator who from all Eternitie knowest those that are thine owne which no power can wrench from thy holy hands how copious hath bin thy bounty to me thy poore servant thou hast dealt with me ó Lord according to the greatnesse of thy Compassion by reducing my soule from death my eies from superstitious tears my feet from falling Thou didst suffer me to spend neere forty yeares in an erronious religion which I supposed conformable to thy holy Word and have as obstinately defended it not slighting the least occasion tending to the persecution of thy Church But O my eternall God it was my ignorance did it and I now beg thy pardon with an heart contrite and humbled before thy glorious face Thou hast put me to the test O Lord by a sore disease which I thought would have put an end to my being in this world but thy goodnesse contented it selfe to depresse my body that thou mightest raise up my soule in giving a good issue to my heavie triall I have been fully sensible of thy benefits Oh Eternall what shall I render unto thee for them that am but dust and ashes in thy Divine presence I will sacrifice unto thee a sacrifice of thanksgiving I will invocate thy holy Name I will pay my vowes in the presence of thy people in thy Temple and employ the rest of my dayes in the service and edification of thy Church Give O Father of Mercy the same grace which thou hast bestowed on me unto them that shall reade this my Declaration and particularly my God and my blessed Father I beseech thee with teares of true sorrow to have pitie upon those whom I have helped to erre from the right way perswading their revolt from thy holy Church O suffer them not to be deprived of the participation of the blood and merits of thy Son Christ Jesus but touch thou their hearts with a sorrow such as may conduce to a true repentance in them Have likewise mercy upon so many poore soules as goe astray for want of instruction prick them forward with the goad of thy feare stirre in them a desire to know thy truth by reading thy holy Word let thy relieving hand draw them out of the mire whereinto they are fallen by originall sinne regenerate them O good God unto a newnesse of life by the workings of thy holy Spirit nor lay thou to their charge the hatred they beare me for reverencing thy holy Name But grant rather that they acknowledging the sanctity of the doctrine which I have embraced which is the very same Jesus thy Son brought from heaven on earth they may clearely see how they are abused and abhorre those superstitions which inveterate wont makes them thinke to be none that they may detest the impiety of their seducers who being blind may else be throwne into the pit unlesse thou open their eyes by the beames of thy holy Spirit Let them not depend longer upon humane traditions but receive thy Word for the onely guide of their faith and Jesus Christ their Mediator and Sacrificer so that having led a life here in the confession of thy most holy Name and the profession of that truth contained in thy most holy Word wee may together everlastingly blesse thee in thy holy Tabernacle in Heaven Amen A Refutation of calumnies which were put upon mee I Should conclude my Declaration thus with giving of thanks which I am bound to render the divine goodnesse for having not only taken from me the horrid and darke veile of my blindnesse and called mee to his marvellous light but also for the courage he hath given me to withstand all the assaults that corrupt nature and humane respects could bring against my resolution did I not feele my selfe obliged to adde these lines in defence of my innocencie which I understand to be abused by the enemies of true religion Yet if the interest of God and his holy Church could set apart my owne interests herein I would make it my glory to despise these disgracefull aspersions for the love of my Redeemer who hath given me himselfe for an example But such separation not being possible I will genuinely and without sharpnesse represent that which may serve to wipe away these reproaches which they have published against me protesting that all the revenge I will take for these injuries is to entreat God with a good heart for the salvation of them which are the authors that he would please by his goodnesse and the efficacie of his holy Spirit to break the bands of that Error wherewith they are so strongly bound that he would be gracious to them as he hath been to me and putting off that vaine industry to be reputed holy among men they may subject themselves to the Word of God to the end they may be saved The first Calumny I Learn by letters of my friends that they accuse me for drawing out of the purses of divers persons above two thousand pound sterling under pretext of Pius uses and that now I serve my owne turne with it to the prejudice of them for whom it was appointed The grossenesse of this Calumny hath discovered it selfe so much the better for who is it but knowes that Capuchins handle no money nor doth any body use to offer them any unlesse that craving almes at a doore unawares they put a double in their scrip as they would to an Eremite but the Capuchins do never receive it Their Order permitting them to receive a bottle of Wine a Capon or things of like kind but not one Double or Denier as doe others who professe poverty If any man have received this summe of money for me