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scripture_n book_n church_n tradition_n 5,140 5 9.1021 5 true
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A57744 The late act of the convocation at Oxford examined: or, The obit of prelatique Protestancy: occasioning the conversion of W. R. (sometimes of Exeter Colledge in Oxford) to Catholique union Rowland, William. 1652 (1652) Wing R2075; ESTC R219949 37,064 142

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in them and after the Se● Apostolique But as ve● quivocally use the term Episcopacy as signifying your nothing so I must deny it and connumerate it with your errours Again you strike upon Tradition for your Episcopacy wherein you commit a great soloecism in Divinity If it had been for Episcopacy in it self without restriction to your Idol you had come home indeed but as it was presented in your pide-coloured tincture it was never amongst the Ancient except Colythus and his complices might be admitted into the head of your list from whom you have an Jschyrian generation of Priests which S. Athanasius and as he assures us the generall Councell and I am sure the whole Church ever since condemned for spurious But in good earnest it is strange to see with what modesty you esteem a meer pretences for as much as concerns your Episcopacy of fifteen hundred years possession to be an invincible plea in this point and a reall and clear prescription for so many ages shall not hold for all others as most undoubtedly there was not any considerable opposition against Masse till Calvins time Luther was not so impudent as to take it away and how he fared in the sense of the whole Church we all know and so for many more high Articles of which I speak afterward wherein you are fallen All men carefull of their souls will sadly consider this It was truly and usually said of an eminent Bishop of your Order that he was Puritanus tantùm non in Episcopatu The same is as truly said of these pretenders to Episcopacy that they condemn Antiquity in all things except Episcopacy If novelty be not lawfull in this why in all other doctrines which you relinquisht against Antiquity It 's not Antiquity but fancy and ambition you follow els a true Syllogism in the same form will always conclude You put me in mind of the Asse who wresting Orpheus his sharp out of Apollo's hand played so ill-favouredly that the very dogs barked at him I will not be thought to apply this to you yet I must needs say that you begin to wrest our divine Arguments out of our hands and ye handle them so unhandsomly and jarringly from all our and your principles that all sorts of men will see whence and how injuriously you take them You go on 1. Would give such advantage to the Papists who usually object against us and our Religion the contempt of antiquity and the love of novelty that we should not be able to wipe off the aspersion 2. Would so diminish the just authority due to the consentient judgment and practise of the universall Church the best Interpreter of Scriptures in things not clearly exprest Reader observe what necessity there is for all sorts of Christians to recurre to Tradition for Lex currit cum praxi that without it we should be at a loss in sundry points both of faith and manners at this day firmly believed and securely practised by us when by the Socinians Anabaptists and other Sectaries we should be called upon for our proofs As namely sundry Orthodoxall explications concerning the Trinity and Coequality of the persons in the Godhead against the Arians and other Heretiques the number use and efficacy of Sacraments the Baptizing of Infants National Churches the observation of the Lords day and even the Canon of Scripture it selfe 3. In respect of our selves we are not satisfied how it can stand with the Principles of Justice Ingenuity and Humanity to require the extirpation of Episcopall Government unlesse it had been first clearly demonstrated to be unlawfull to be sincerely and really endeavoured by us To the first Indeed you cannot wipe off the aspersion no more then a Blackmore his colour You have given us a strange advantage and in this one passage put an affront upon all your former abettors An eminent person of your order being urged with the antiquity of our tenets replied that if things were to be salved by antiquity then sin would challenge great pre-eminency Thus far hath this plea been derided by you I could fill and foul many sheets in giving a syllable of your Authors for this Yet all antient Fathers and Councells esteemed this an infallible Plea and therefore the Nicene Fathers as appears in Athan. his Epistle of the Nicene Decrees cryed Ecce nos demonstramus istiusmodi sententiam à patribus ad patres quasi per manus traditam esse They esteemed it enough to shew a constant descent of their faith and this is our challenge against you To the second I see you forget that your 6.20.21 Articles exclude all orall Traditions it hath been the maine pretended cause of scandall and as ye have judg'd it most fundamentall that Catholiques plead a necessity of Apostolicall I raditions with the divine Scriptures Have not all the books of your Writers to this day been filled in proofe of the sufficiency of Scriptures and yet now even in the highest points of Christian Doctrine you acknowledge a necessity to have recourse to Tradition what man could have read this your second reason and not have conceived that this Praelatike slip had been again inserted into the old incorruptible Trunk or Body of the Catholique Church but the truth is that self-interest compells you to speak truth against your old Doctrines this blow hath struck you under the fifth rib and like the poor Pilgrime of Hiericho layed you wholly on your backs as objects of pity You specifie here many of the highest mysteries and to omit the rest you acknowledge that the Orthodox explication of the B. Trinity cannot be had from the Scripture alone without the Church Have not we then reason to confesse the Scripture alone not sufficient If you did stand to this truth there had not been such subdivisions of sects who deny the B. Trinity amongst you I have not indeed heard of many who embrace Arrius his Tenet that is that the Son is God but not co-eternall with the Father nor equall to him as Athanasius shews that he held but there are under the latitude of the Praelatique party who with Paulus Samosatenus Corpocras c. call in question his Deity and restraine him to his humanity and hence some eminent persons taking scandall left you and are joyn'd to the Catholike Church Nay you are not ashamed to run though vainly to Traditions for the chiefest grounds of your own Praelative Sect herein confessing that Scripture cannot reach them But to leave this to your selves let me instance more of our Doctrines which you most calumniate What more universal Tradition was extant then Masse that is the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Body and Bloud of Christ offered daily and perpetually for the living and the dead Read Mr. Perkins his Problemes he tells you that it was universally believed that Christ gave his true Body and Bloud at his last Supper Ask all the Liturgies since Christ In like manner read them for Jnvocation of Saints and Prayers