Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	church_n	controversy_n	infallible_a	2,534	5	9.3698	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52125	An account of the growth of popery and arbitrary government in England more particularly, from the long prorogation of November, 1675, ending the 15th of February, 1676, till the last meeting of Parliament, the 16th of July, 1677.	Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678.	1677 (1677)	Wing M860; ESTC R22809	99,833	162

to her honour but of others The Publick Service which they can spare to God among so many competitors in an unknown tongue and intangled with such Vestments Consecrations Exorcismes Whisperings Sprinklings Censings and Phantasticall Rites Gesticulations and Removals so unbeseeming a Christian Office that it represents rather the pranks and ceremonyes of Juglers and Conjurers The Refusal of the Cup to the Laity The necessity of the Priests Intention to make any of their Sacraments effectual Debarring their Clergy from Marriage Interdicting of Meats Auricular Confession and Absolution as with them practised Penances Pilgrimages Purgatory and Prayer for the dead But above all their other devices that Transubstantiall solacisme whereby that glorified Body which at the same time they allow to be in Heaven is sold again and crucifyed daily upon all the Altars of their Communion For God indeed may now and then do a Miracle but a Romish Priest can it seems work in one moment a thousand Impossibilityes Thus by a new and antiscriptural Belief compiled of Terrours to the Phansy Contradictions to Sense and Impositions on the Understanding their Laity have turned Tenants for their Souls and in consequence Tributary for their Estates to a more then omnipotent Priesthood I must indeed do them that right to avow that out of an equitable consideration and recompense of so faithfull a slavery they have discharged the People from all other services and dependance infranchised them from all duty to God or Man insomuch that their severer and more learned Divines their Governors of Conscience have so wel instructed them in all the arts of Circumventing their neighbour and of colluding with Heaven that wear the scholars as apt as their teachers their would have been long since an end of all either true Piety or common Honesty and nothing left among them but authorized Hypocrisy Licentiousnesse and Knavery had not the naturall worth of the better sort and the Good simplicity of the meaner in great measure preferved them For nothing indeed but an extraordinary temper and ingenuity of spirit and that too assisted by a diviner influence could possibly restrain those within any the termes or Laws of humanity who at the same time own the Doctrine of their Casuists or the Authority of the Pope as it is by him claimed and exercised He by his Indulgences delivers soules out of the paines of the other world So that who would refuse to be vicious here upon so good security He by his dispensation annuls Contracts betwixt man and man dissoves Oaths between Princes or betwixt them and their People and gives allowance in cases which God and nature prohibits He as Clerk of the spirituall Market hath set a rate upon all crimes the more flagitious they are and abominable the better Commodities and men pay onely an higher price as for greater rarityes So that it seemes as if the commands of God had been invented meerly to erect an Office for the Pope the worse Christians men are the better Customers and this Rome does by the same policy people its Church as the Pagan Rome did the City by opening a sanctuary to all Malefactors And why not if his Power be indeed of such virtue and extent as is by him chalenged That he is the Ruler over Angels Purgatory and Hell That his Tribunal and Gods are all one That all that God he can do Clave non errant and what he does is as God and not as man That he is the Universall Head of the Church The sole Interpreter of Scripture and Judge of Controversy That 〈◊〉 is above Generall Councils That his Power is Absolute and his Decrees Infallible That he can change the very nature of things making what is Just to be Unjust and what is Vice to be Virtue That all Laws are in the Cabinet of his Breast That he can Dispence with the new Testment to the great injury of the Divels That he is still Monarch of this World and that he can dispose of Kingdoms and Empires as he pleases Which things being granted that stile of Optimum Maximum supremum numen in terris or that of Dominus Deus noster Papa was no such extraordinary stroke of Courtship as we reckoned but it was rather a great clownishness in him that treated so mighty a Prince under the simple Title of Vice-Deus The exercise of his Dominion is in all points suitable to this his Pretence He antiquates the precepts of Christ as things only of good advice not commanded but makes it a mortall seu even to doubt of any part of his own Religion and demands under paine of damnation the subjection of all Christians to his Papal Authority the denying of two things so reasonable as blind obedience to this Power and an Implicite Faith to his Doctrine being the most unpardonable crime under his Dispensation He has indeed of late been somewhat more retentive then formerly as to his faculty of disposing of Kingdomes the thing not having succeeded well with him in some instances but he layes the same claim still continues the same inclination and though velvet headed hath the more itch to be pushing And however in order to any occasion he keeps himself in breath always by cursing one Prince or other upon every Maunday Thusday Nor is their any whether Prince or Nation that dissents from his Usurpations but are marked out under the notion of Hereticks to ruine and destruction whensover he shall give the signal That word of Heresy misapplyed hath served him for so many Ages to Justify all the Executions Assassinations Warrs Massacres and Devastations whereby his Faith hath been Propagated of which our times also have not wanted examples and more is to be expected for the future For by how much any thing is more false and unreasonble it requires more cruelty to establish it and to introduce that which is absurd there must be somwhat done that is barbarous But nothing of any sect in Religion can be more recommended by all these qualityes then the Papacy The Pagans are excusable by their natural darkness without Revelation The Jevvs are tolerable who see not beyond the Old Testament Mahomet was so honest as to own what he would be at that he himself was the greatest Prophet and that his was a Religion of the Sword So that these were all as I may say of another Allegiance and if Enemys yet not Traytors But the Pope avowing Christianity by profession doth in Doctrine and practise renonce it and presuming to be the only Catholick does persecute those to the death who dare worship the Author of their Religion instead of his pretended Vicegerent And yet there is nothing more evident notwithstanding his most notorious forgeries and falsification of all Writers then that the Pope was for severall Hundred of Years an honest Bishop as other men are and never so much as dreamed upon the Seven Hills of that universal power which he is now come to nay was the first that