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	doctrine_n	word_n	13,281	5	4.3007	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63629	A letter to the misrepresenter of papists being a vindication of that part of the Protestant preface to the Wholesome advices from the Blessed Virgin, &c. which concerns the Protestants charity to papists, and a layman's writing it : in answer to what is objected against it in the 4th chapter of the second part of the Papist misrepresented, &c. / by the same layman who translated the Wholesome advices, &c. and made the preface to them.	Taylor, James, fl. 1687-1689.	1687 (1687)	Wing T285; ESTC R39707	11,353	19

your Task would be still behind which is to prove That you have had all along and still have that Succession which I desire you to do in your next if you can if it be but for the Instruction of a Layman that desires to be led into all Truth necessary or even profitable for his Salvation And because I would not have you lose your labour I will open my greatest Difficulty against this belief I am sure you cannot go about this Work without taking Scripture in to furnish out your Argument Now I desire you to bring me such Scriptures which shall at least make it as evident that your Church was always to have a Succession of Infallible Teachers as it is to me from divers other Scriptures evident that your Pastors have most certainly contradicted the Doctrine of the Scriptures And when you have done this you shall hear farther from me In the mean time your loose Affirmations concerning the Catholick Church have been so often answered that you need not wonder that a Layman of our Church can tell what to say to them But to come to that wherein I am particularly concern'd You are disturb'd at my saying That the Worship Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome are so extreamly dangerous that nothing but Invincible Ignorance of which God only can judg can give us any reasonable hopes of their Salvation who live and die in that Communion Now surely the uncharitableness of this does not lie in supposing that Invincible Ignorance will be pleadable in this Case for 't is a Plea which will go a great way amongst those of the Roman Communion which I say with the more confidence because in the Romish Countries where I have been the People seem to me to have the fairest claim to the benefit of Ignorance that can be well imagin'd amongst Christians Now since at last you are brought in this Pamphlet of yours to agree with Protestants that Ignorance will save Men and that we yield the greatest part of the People have an indisputable right to it are not the Protestants charitable to a high degree If this will not please you I do not know what will. Surely Sir you do not expect that Protestants should believe and say that you with all your Errors about you are in as safe a way to Salvation as they themselves who have renounced them If this could be what I pray ye made our Fore-fathers suffer themselves to be separated from your Communion or makes us that we cannot join with you Certainly this was and is still nothing but want of sound Faith purity of Doctrines and Worship And I know nothing else can or ever was pretended to justify our Separation And this alone one would think might be sufficient to vindicate my Assertion from being uncharitable But perhaps I may do it more by and by But you 'l tell me that nevertheless Protestants are as uncharitable as Papists and come not an Ace behind them Indeed I should be very sorry this were true And tho it is I know an untoward Question to Papists yet I must ask How do you prove this Sir Why thus Protestants only allow Salvation to Papists upon Invincible Ignorance and Papists do the same to Protestants I must confess that in this Paper of yours you grant Salvation to Protestants who live piously and repent sincerely of all offences and through invincible Ignorance remain in that Communion Now whatever Truth there is in the Saying it self yet from you we look upon this Concession as a piece of New Popery The Old Popery was Protestancy unrepented of Damns Neither Invincible Ignorance nor Piety nor any Repentance that included not a leaving the Protestants Communion and joining with the Romish could Save But here we take notice that of this as well as of all the other unreasonable pieces of Old Popery you begin at last to be asham'd or at least to think it for the Interest of your design on foot to deny them or disguise and soften them that so they may go the better down with those People who are not so well read in your Controversies and suspect no Snake in the Grass But to go on with my Point Did not the Author of Charity Mistaken and Charity Maintain'd which produc'd that incomparable Book of Mr. Charity maintain'd P. 1. c. 7. Sect. 6. and in divers other places of that and Charity Mistaken Chillingworth stifly and boldly assert That all Roman Catholicks not one excepted Do with unanimous consent believe and profess that Protestancy unrepented destroys Salvation Did not the Jesuite in his Relation of Bp. Laud's Conference swear upon his Soul That there was but one saving Faith and that is the Roman And now in our Days has not a * Lucilla and Elizabeth Late Paper endeavour'd to make us as great Schismaticks as the Donatists And according to you can Schismaticks dying such go to Heaven And does not that Author force St. Austin to tell us in plain terms That whosoever is separated from the Catholick Church by which against all Modesty and Truth you always mean your own particular Church how laudably soever he thinks himself to live for this only Crime that he is disjoin'd from the Unity of Christ that is to say in your Language the Pope he shall not have Life but the Wrath of God abideth on him Pray Sir be so kind if not to me yet to your self to reconcile these Sayings with what you say viz. That there is no Papists but what will grant such Protestants hopes of Salvation who living piously and repenting sincerely of all Offences and through invincible Ignorance remain in that Communion Where 's the Truth and Honesty now of your Assertion That there is No Papist c. When I have already produced three and perhaps if I pleas'd could name three hundred What do you call this amongst you We call it contradicting one another Well however pray observe here 's two sorts of Popery But which must a Man rely on for Orthodox The Old or the New Popery I must confess I am inclin'd to believe the New to be best but certainly the Old Popery is the true standing Doctrine of the Church of Rome But suppose we stood in need of the New what should we be the better for 't unless the Concession were stampt with the Fishers Seal for you that deal it out to the World are but a private obscure Man and your Church is no more bound to stand to what you say than mine is to what I say unless it be Truth This that you grant at best is but a sign that you have a better opinion of the Protestant Religion than the Generality of your Writers But to let this pass I will now prove this Truth beyond any possible Reply viz. That Papists deny Salvation to Protestants remaining such and that Protestants grant a Possibility of it to Papists remaining such And therefore by Consequence the first must needs

an end I fancy Sir that you or whoever was the Author of the First Part of the Papist Misrepresented c. and some others of your Church have found to your grief and shame that either of these Doctors you speak of could if they had pleas'd to have undertaken so mean a work have writ another sort of a Preface than I have done to the disadvantage of the French Popery now imitated in England Let the meanness of the performance prevail over you to believe that neither of them made it But indeed you are Injurious to them to fancy they would be guilty of such indirect dealing No No Sir the Divines of the Church of England have a better Cause they need use no Arts or Tricks no feign'd Miracles no bold Untruths no malicious Whispers and Slanders to support and defend it nor put Shams upon the World. This practice is none of theirs and if you please that may be added as a mark to prove ours a true Church And indeed I could easily persuade my self to believe that your own practice that of your Party was in your Thoughts when this Fancy entred into your Brain But in a Word and to put you out of pain about these two Doctors for I cannot blame you for dreading them I do assure you that neither of them made that Preface and once more that I who now write this Letter to you am a Lay-man and writ that Preface such as ' t is And if I could but be infallibly certain that the old Popery was alter'd in the point of Malice Revenge and seeking occasion against those who never so little oppose or hinder the designs of Rome I would give you entire satisfaction in this Particular and not only tell you my Name but where I live But because I cannot get out of my Thoughts some late Actions and that hard usage of the brave Author of Wholsome Advices c. I fear lest Old Popery may be practis'd upon me too and therefore think it but common Prudence to conceal my self For to tell you true I am not yet weary of that little Happiness I enjoy But Sir you make your Misrepresenter tell the World that I am dabling out of my Element by which one would think that after all you believ'd I am a Layman Well but how out of my Element May not a Layman tell Truth and do good to his Neighbour's Soul Is God's Spirit is all Knowledg limited to Holy Orders Because there are some Functions appropriated to Clergy-men such as Administring the Sacraments c. does it therefore follow that a Layman may neither write nor discourse of any Matters of Religion Pray Sir does that Command Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self oblige Laymen as well as Clergymen If it does and since I may edify my self why I beseech you not another And can a Man express his Charity to his Neighbour in a higher manner than in Spiritual Things But the Arguments are infinite which might be us'd in this Case And therefore I shall only ask you whether Tertullian and Origen and many other of the Ancient Fathers writ not about Religion when they were Laymen Nay more did not Pope Adrian and Pope Nicholas admit Laymen into Councils And pray what was Picus Mirandula but an Earl and meer Layman and Sir Thomas More Lord Chancellor of England But above all what was that Prince who wrote against Luther for which the Pope thought fit to bestow the Title of Defender of the Faith upon him But indeed why should it seem strange that you and your Church should find fault with Laymen's medling in Controversies of Religion especially against you when you dare totally barr Laymens reading the Holy Scriptures for which they have a Command from God Search the Scriptures and perswade them to put out their Eyes and throw away their Reason which God and Nature has given them to be their Guide through this deceitful World. And yet I dare say that if a Layman would undertake so knotty a piece of Work as to write in Defence of your Church that you would not tell him that he was d●●●ling out of his Element tho he were no better than a profligate Poet. I pass over your unhandsom Language and 't is below me to return it But I cannot but stand amaz'd to find a Member of the Church of Rome and a maintainer of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation make his Misrepresenter say That the Protestant Teachers know the People they have to deal with that their discerning Faculties are stupified that they 'l pass over fifty Contradictions without once stumbling and that there 's no fear of enquiring How can this be No Sir the Teachers of the Church of England are not guilty of this Tyranny We are Members of a Church that invites all her Children to the highest attainment of Knowledg and teaches them that a reasonable Service is the most acceptable to God and imposes nothing upon them that either destroys or contradicts their Reason and Senses that not only allows her Children to read the Holy Scriptures but beseeches them to do it provided they do it with a modest dependence on their lawful Teachers for the sense of some Texts which may not be so clear to Persons who are unacquainted with the Proprieties of the Languages in which the Holy Scriptures were writ and the Customs and Manners of the People and Countries where they were pen'd In a word the Church of England allows a private Liberty of examining all things she propounds and does not expect that Men should follow her blindfold She requires indeed Obedience in those few Points which are absolutely necessary to Salvation because they are so plain that it is impossible for an honest and sound Mind to question them But for things of an indifferent Nature she only desires that for the sake of Peace and Vnity Order and Decency that her Children would not dispute about them In line she is very sure that they and they only are her true Children her most sincere Members who are the most obedient to Scripture and most ready to yield to the Evidence of them and Reason and Sense And thus Sir I have endeavour'd to restore Peace to your Mind by shewing that Protestants are not at all uncharitable but that Papists are and that I am a Layman and yet may meddle in Divinity and not be dabling out of my Element And now I hope you 'l be no longer in a fright of those two Doctors you hinted for assure your self that unless there be occasion to defend a poor Layman of their Church as far as the Truth and the Religion of it are concern'd for you may possibly hear from me upon some other Point these two Doctors are better employ'd than to trouble themselves with you But if against this plain Proof that the Papists are the only uncharitable Persons you will yet rub your Forehead and make Protestants as bad What Remedy Truth