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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	authority_n	church_n	infallible_a	2,008	5	9.8493	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88669	The ancient doctrine of the Church of England maintained in its primitive purity. Containing a justification of the XXXIX. articles of the Church of England, against papists and schismaticks The similitude and harmony betwixt the Romane Catholick, and the heretick, with a discovery of their abuses of the fathers, in the first XVI ages, and the many heresies introduced by the Roman Church. Together with a vindication of the antiquity and universality of the ancient Protestant faith. Written long since by that eminent and learned divine Daniel Featly D.D. Seasonable for these times.	Lynde, Humphrey, Sir.; Featley, Daniel, 1582-1645.	1660 (1660)	Wing L3564B; ESTC R230720	398,492	686

contradict Romish doctrines not out of disobedience to man but out of obedience to him who commandeth us to contend for the true faith and to reprove and convince all gainesayers What Papists intentions are we take not upon us to judge their doctrines we put to the test of Gods word and finde them false and adulterine and all be it some points of their beliefe considered in themselves might seeme indifferent yet as they hold them they are not because they are not of faith Rom. 14.23 and what soever is not of faith is sinne Now no point of the Romish Creed as they hold it is of that faith the Apostle speaketh of that is divine faith because they ground and finally resolve all their articles not upon Gods word but upon the authority of the Pope Resp ad Archiepis Spalaten c. 47. Firmitas fundamenti ●● firma licet implicita in aureo hoc fundamento veritatis adhaesio valebit ut in Cypriano sic in nobis ad salutem faenum stipula imbecilitas caries in tecto contignatione explicitae erroris opinio non valebit nec in Cypriano nec in nobis ad per●●tiem or Church of Rome which is but the authority of man whereas on the contrary as Doctor Crakent horpe demonstrateth If any Protestant build hay or stubble upon the true foundation he may he saved because be holdeth the true foundation which is that every doctrine of faith ought to be built upon Scripture If the Iesuit wonder at this conclusion let him weigh the Authors reasons and he will be forced to confesse that the errors if there be any in Protestants in regard they sticke close to the true foundation and implicitly deny them cannot in them be damnable whereas the very true doctrines of faith in Papists because they hold them upon a wrong ground and foundation very much derogatory to God and his truth are not so safe To the third With what face can the Iesuit avow this considering that Prieras before alleaged and other writers approved by the Church of Rome mainetaine this blasphemous assertion that the authority of the Church is greater then the anthority of Scripture and all Papists of note at this day hold that the Scripture is but an imperfect and partiall rule of faith all Protestants on the contrary teach that it is an entire and perfect rule of faith Papists believe the Scripture for the Churches sake Protestants the Church for the Scripture sake Papists resolve all points of faith generally into the Popes infalibility or Churches authority Protestants into the written word of God which as Bellarmine himselfe confesseth De verbo Dei non script l. 4. c. 11. containeth all things necessary for all men to beleeve and is a most certaine and safe rule of beleeveing Yea but saith the Iesuit out of Vincentius Lerinensis De verbo Dei l. 1. c. 2. he that will avoid the deceits and snares of Haeretikes and remaine soundin the faith must strengthen his faith two wayes to wit by the authority of the divine law and the tradition of the Catholike Church This advise of Vincentius is sound and good if it be rightly understood and not in the Iesuits sense Vincentius there by tradition of the Catholike Church understandeth not unwritten verities but the Catholike expositions of holy Scriptures extant in the writings of the Doctors of the Church in all ages and we grant that this Catholike exposition of the Doctors where it can be had is of great force to confirme faith and confound Heretikes Vt Scripturae ecclesiastice intelligentiae jungatur authoritas For the stopping of whose mouth that Father saith and we deny it not that there is great neede to add to the Scripture the Churches sense or interpretation albeit as he there addeth which cutteth the throat of the Iesuits cause The Canon of Scripture is perfect and sufficient of it selfe for all things nay rather as hee correcteth himselfe Over and above sufficient cum sit perfectus scripturae canon sibique adomnia satis superque sufficiat To the fourth Here the Iesuit would make his Reader study a little and his Adversarie to muse Vero nihil verius certo nihil certius but it is indeed whether hee be in his right wits or no. For first as Seneca well resolveth one thing cannot be said truer than another one truth in Divinitie may be more evident to us than another but in it selfe it cannot be truer or surer Secondly admitting there could be degrees of certainty at least quoad nos there can be yet no comparison in regard of such certaintie betweene an Article of the Creed assented unto by all Christians and a controverted conclusion maintained onely by a late faction in the Westerne Church But the sitting of Christ at the right hand of his Father is an Article of the Creed set downe in expresse words in holy Scripture Mark 16.19 Luke 24. consented unto by all Christians in the world whereas the carnall presence of Christ in the Sacrament by Tranfubstantiation is no Article extant in any Creed save onely that of Pope Pius his coyning in the yeare of our Lord 1564. It is neither in words set downe in Scripture as the other Articles are neither can it be necssarily inforced or deduced by consequence as foure great Cardinals of the Roman Church confesse Cameracensis Cajetan Roffensis and Bellarmine Neither was this Doctrine of the Romane Church ever assented unto by the Greeke Church nor by the Latine anciently or generally as I shewed before Thirdly the Iesuit contradicteth himselfe within eight lines for having said in the eighteenth line Pag. 384. that Christ his corporall presence in the Sacrament was more sure than his presence in heaven at the right hand of his Father about seven lines after forgetting himselfe hee saith that Wee shall find as much to doe marke as much not more in expounding that Article of the Creed as they doe in expounding the words This is my Body Wherein it is well hee confesseth that Papists make much to doe in expounding the words This is my Body which is most true for by the demonstrative Hoc they understand they know not what Neither this Body nor this Bread but an Individum vagum something contained under the accidents of Bread which when the Priests saith Hoc it is Bread but when hee hath muttered out an Vm it is Christs Body Likewise by the Copula est is they understand they know not what either shall be as soone as the words are spoken or is converted unto or is by Transubstantiation Lastly by Body they understand such a body as indeed is no body without the extension of place without distinction of Organs without facultie of sense or motion and will hee make this figment so incredible so impossible as sure nay more sure than the Article of Christs ascension into heaven and his sitting at the right hand of his

sense of the Calvinists and withall confesseth that St. Austins opinion is more probable If this I say may bee deemed raving then will I confesse your railing is a good answer But he despaires say you of his cause who seeth Maldonats saying practised by the Church of Rome against his Church and doctrine I confesse with the blessed Apostle Acts 5.38 39. If our counsell or worke be of men it will come to nought and then I might despaire of it but if it be of God yee cannot overthrow it lest happely yee be found even to fight against God We have no cause blessed be God to despaire of our Religion which in one Age hath spread over the better part of Christendome But I conceive there is little hope of you or your cause who have sold your selves either with Ahab to worke wickednesse and maintaine Idolatrous worship for your owne advantage or like Maldonat See Maldonat Col. 1536. Unum è duobus intelligatur necesse est aut tunc non scandaliz abimini cùm videritis filium hominis ascendentē ubi erat prius aut contra tunc magis scandaliz abimini prioremsensum plerique sequātur Chrysost Augustin c. Yet Maldonat followeth the latter openly to professe greater hatred to Protestants than love to the truth it selfe For it is apparent ex professo he preferreth his owne opinion without any authoritie before St. Austin nay contrarie to St. Austin and hee gives this reason for it Because this sense of mine doth more crosse the sense of the Calvinists But I may say to you as sometimes a Ludov. Viv. de Civ Dei l. 13. c. 24. Ludovicus Vives spake upon the like occasion St. Austin is now safe because of his age but if he were alive againe he should be shaken off as a bad Rhetoritian or a poore Grammarian And yet this good Saint was so farre from defending any opinion against the knowne truth that on the contrarie he preferreth the interpretation of b August contr Cresc Grammat l. 1. c. 32. l. 2. c. 32. p. mihi 218. 241. Cresconius a Grammarian before St. Cyprian the Martyr because it seemed to him more probable and agreeable to the truth CHAP. VI. The summe of his Answer to my Sixth Section THe Knight saith he seemes to acknowledge that he cannot assigne the time and persons when and by whom the errors of the Roman Church came in Good Physitians use to enquire of the causes effects and other circumstances and upon the circumstance dependeth the knowledge of the disease We pleade prescription for our doctrine from the beginning The difference betwixt Heresie and Apostasie The Church cannot fall away without some speciall note and observation The Reply I● is to be wondered what art and policie your Church doth use to put off the triall of her cause when it should come to hearing If we speake of a depravation of your Faith you crie out it is blasphemie If we shew your owne mens complaints for a reformation of your doctrine you say they meant a reformation onely of Discipline If we plainly prove the noveltie of your Trent Articles by comparing them with the Tenets of ancient Religion you threaten to bring an action of the Case against us for slandering and defaming of your Church except we can assigne the precise time and person when those errors came in Let us use the words of your fellow Campian Can I imagine any to be stuffed in the nose Camp Rat. 2. that being forewarned cannot quickly smell out this subtle juggling Why doe you not rather complaine of the Noveltie of our doctrine and bid us shew the time when and the Authors who first broached our two Sacraments our Communion in both kindes our Praier in a knowne tongue our spirituall presence and the like if I faile in these then say The Knight seemeth to acknowledge he cannot doe it The errors in your Church which wee complaine of are negative Articles amongst us and the proofe lies on your side If you cannot shew Apostolicall Authors for your owne doctrine must we be therefore condemned because we doe not prove the Negative Or otherwise it must needes follow by your Logick that it is the same doctrine which was once delivered to the Saints because we cannot shew the first Author of it You cannot denie that there are many particular errors in the Church whose first Authors cannot be named by you nor us and therefore will you conclude they are no errors The custome of communicating little children in the Sacrament of the Lords bodie and bloud was an error and continued long in the ancient Church yet the first Author of it was not knowne There were many did hold there was a mitigation and suspension of the punishment of the damned in hell by the suffrages of the living this error was anciently received yet the first Anthor was not knowne The opinion that all Catholike Christians how wicked soever shall in the end be saved as by fire was an ancient error but the Author is not knowne Againe Alph. contr haeres verbo Indulgentia p. mihi 354. there are many things saith your Alphonsus knowne to later writers which the Ancients were altogether ignorant of There is seldome any mention of Transubstantiation amongst the Ancients almost none of Purgatorie what marvell if it so fall out with Indulg ences that there should bee no mention of them by the Ancients If therefore such errors crept into the Church in the first and best Ages which are now condemned by your selves and us without enquiring after the time and Authors that first broached them Nay more if your points of Faith as namely Transubstantiation Purgatorie and Indulgences were altogether unknowne to the Ancients as your men confesse why should you require us to shew the first Authors of your doctrines which were utterlie unknowne to the ancient Fathers Or rather why do you not condemn them with us as you do the errors which were received for true doctrines amongst the Ancients If St. Peter were at Rome no doubt the Church received beleeved his Prophesies There shal be false Teachers among you 2 Pet. 2.1 who privily shall bring in damnable heresie If the Apostle both forewarned you and us that errors and heresies must steale in privily sensim sine sensu secretly and by degrees into the true Church and yet would not reveale the Authors of the heresies what madnesse were it in you or us to passe by those damnable Heresies or rather to pleade for them because wee cannot learne the name of the false Teachers Vincentius Lyrinensis Vincent Lyr. de haeres c. 15. who was living 400. yeeres after the Apostles time complaines that certaine in his dayes did bring in errors secretly which a man saith he cannot soone finde out nor easily condemne The Serpent hides himselfe as much as hee can saith Tertullian and sheweth his chiefe skill in wreathing himselfe into folds Tertull.

agener all Councell may erre the Church may erne if the Church may erre the faith which that Church teacheth may faile and consequently there can bee no certaintie How easily are these leaves plucked away and torne in pieces 1. Though such a Councell as the Councell of Trent consisting of a few Bishops swaied by the Italian faction may erre it would not from thence follow that the whole representative Church might erre 2. Though the whole representative Church in a free and generall Councell lawfully called might erre yet many millions in the Catholique Church may hold the orthodox beliefe and consequently the faith of the Church not totally faile Yea but saith the Iesuit take away the infallibilitie of the Church there is no rule of faith This assertion of his is open blasphemie as if God would not bee true though all men were found liars though the Roman Church and Pope erre a thousand times yet the rule of faith remaineth unvariable in the holy Scriptures Yea but S. Gregorie equalizeth the foure first generall Councels to the Gospel and saith in effect that they could as little erre as the 4. Gospels and that upon the deniall of their authoritie the Christian faith might be shaken as well as by the deniall of the Gospels and the like authoritie giveth your Parliament unto them I answer S. Gregorie equalizeth the foure first generall Councels to the foure Gospels not in respect of authoritie but in respect of the veritie of the articles defined in them he saith not they could as little erre but they did as little erre in their decisions or to speake more properly that their doctrine was as true as Gospell because the determinations in those first generall Councels against Heretiques are evidently deduced out of holy Scriptures Our Parliament alluding to the words of S. Gregorie speaketh in the same sense as hee doth Yea but saith the Iesuit your Parliament lawes acknowledge that for heresie whatsoever is condemned for such in any of those Councels which is in other words to acknowledge them for a rule of faith and consequently to bee of infallible authoritie and to joyne them in the same ranke with the Canonicall Seriptures Idem jungat Vulpes by the like reason the Iesuit might say we joyne the booke of Articles of Religion and Homilies in the same ranke with the Canonicall Scriptures because we condemne for heretiques all that obstinatly maintaine any doctrine repugnant to them which wee doe not because we hold the Decrees of a provinciall Synod to bee of in fallible authoritie but because wee are able to prove all the Articles there established to be consonant to the holy Scriptures Yea but further saith the Iesuit in the same statute P. 203. you give power to the Court of Parliament with the assent of the Clergie in their Convocation to adjudge or determine a matter to be heresie which is the very same as to give it power to declare faith or to be the rule thereof I answer the statute giveth power to the Convocation to declare faith and determine heresie out of Gods word and by the sentence thereof and no otherwise In such sort to declare faith is not to be the rule of faith but to judge and measure things by the rule There is a maine difference betweene these two which yet the Iesuit here confoundeth as if they were coincident to declare faith and to bee the rule of faith every Iudge declareth the Law yet is he not the rule of the Law The Inquisitors in their jndices expurgatorij and the Sorbonists in their censures declare what is heresie yet the y are not Itrow the Rule of popish faith every meater in the market declareth that such or such is the measure of corne and graine yet is not every or any corne-meater the Winchester standerd It is one thing to be the rule and another to measure by the rule and declare what we have measured But to retort the Iesuits phrase upon himselfe hee is not capable it seemes of this discourse which yet every market-woman or boy is Well let the authoritie of generall Councels bee great in the Church and of the foure first Councels greatest of all quid hoc ad Rombum what maketh this for the infallibilitie of the Trent conventicle much saith the Iesuit every way for what saith hee can you say more against the present Church and present Councell of Trent then against the Church and Councels of those times What can we say nay what can we not say what have we not said or what could all the Papists in the world answer to what wee have already said After hee hath taken away the legall exceptions made against this conventicle by the Authour of the historie of the Councell of Trent and of the litterae missivae and Iewel his Treatise affixed to that Historie and Chemnisius his Examen and Doctor Bowles his latine Sermon preached to the Convocation and lately printed after hee hath proved which hee will never bee able that the Assemblie at Trent was a free and generall Councell and called by lawfull authoritie and all the proceedings in it according to ancient Canons yet it will still fall as short of the Councell of Nice in authoritie as in antiquitie that consisted of most eminent learned and holy Bishops and Confessors this for the most part of hungrie animals depending on the Popes trencher as Dudithius a Bishop present at that Councell declareth at large in his letter set before the Historie of the Councell of Trent to which I referre the reader To the second The testimonies alledged by the Knight for the sufficiencie of holy Scriptures are ponderous and weightie and the Iesuits exceptions to them are sleight vaine and frivolous To the testimonie out of the Acts I have kept backe nothing that was profitable unto you and I am pure from the bloud of all men Act. 20.20.27 for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the Councell of God hee saith that S. Paul speaketh of the doctrine by him preached not of the written word of God as in like manner our Saviour saith that what hee heard from his Father hee made knowne unto them Iohn 15.15 and yet delivered not one word in writing It is true S. Paul speaketh of the doctrine which he preached but it is as true that the doctrine which he preached hee confirmed unto them by testimonie of Scripture For S. Luke saith Acts 17.2 that S. Paul as his manner was reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Iesus whom hee preached unto them was Christ and they that received the word with all readinesse of mind searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so Act. 24.14 and again I confesse that after that way which they call heresie so worship I the God of my fathers beleeving all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets If the Iesuit had read the verse immediatly following testifying