Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	believe_v	church_n	faith_n	5,993	5	6.0238	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63729	A copy of a letter written to a gentlewoman newly seduced to the Church of Rome by the Reverend J.T. D.D. late Bishop of Down and Connor.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1687 (1687)	Wing T306; ESTC R77	16,694	24

or decrees of the Church or the messages of your friend or the Letters you receive or the Laws of the Land all which are liable to be abused by evil persons but not by good people and modest understandings It is now become a part of your Religion to be ignorant to walk in blindness to believe the Man that hears your Confessions to hear none but him not to hear God speaking but by him and so you are liable to be abused by him as he please without remedy You are gone from us where you were only taught to worship God through Jesus Christ and now you are taught to worship Saints and Angels with a worship at least dangerous and in some things proper to God for your Church worships the Virgin Mary with burning incense and candles to her and you give her presents which by the consent of all Nations used to be esteemed a worship peculiar to God and it is the same thing which was condemned for Heresie in the Collyridians who offered a Cake to the Virgin Mary a Candle and a Cake make no difference in the worship and your joyning God and the Saints in your worship and devotions is like the device of them that fought for King and Parliament the latter destroys the former I will trouble you with no more particulars because if these move you not to consider better nothing can But yet I have two things more to add of another nature one of which at least may prevail upon you whom I suppose to have a tender and a religious Conscience The first is That all the points of difference between us and your Church are such as do evidently serve the ends of Covetousness and Ambition of Power and Riches and so stand vehemently suspected of design and art rather than truth of the Article and designs upon Heaven I instance in the Pope's power over Princes and all the World his power of Dispensation The exemption of the Clergy from jurisdiction of Princes The Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences which was once made means to raise a Portion for a Lady the Niece of Pope Leo the Tenth The Priests power advanced beyond authority of any warrant from Scripture a doctrine apt to bring absolute obedience to the Papacy but because this is possibly too nice for you to suspect or consider that which I am sure ought to move you is this That you are gone to a Religion in which though through God's grace prevailing over the follies of men there are I hope and charitably suppose many pious Men that love God and live good lives yet there are very many doctrines taught by your Men which are very ill Friends to a good life I instance in your Indulgences and pardons in which vitious men put a great confidence and rely greatly upon them The doctrine of Purgatory which gives countenance to a sort of Christians who live half to God and half to the World and for them this doctrine hath found out a way that they may go to Hell and to Heaven too The Doctrine that the Priests absolution can turn a trifling repentance into a perfect and a good and that suddenly too and at any time even on our Death-bed or the minute before your death is a dangerous heap of falshood and gives licence to wicked people and teaches men to reconcile a wicked debauched life with the hopes of Heaven And then for penances and temporal satisfaction which might seem to be as a plank after the shipwrack of the duty of Repentance to keep men in awe and to preserve them from sinking in an Ocean of Impiety it comes to just nothing by your doctrine for there are so many easie ways of Indulgences and getting Pardons so many con-fraternities stations privileg'd Altars little Offices Agnus Dei's amulets hallowed devices swords roses hats Church-yards and the fountain of these annexed Indulgences the Pope himself and his power of granting what and when and to whom he list that he is a very unfortunate man that needs to smart with penances and after all he may choose to suffer any at all for he may pay them in Purgatory if he please and he may come out of Purgatory upon reasonable terms in case he should think it fit to go thither So that all the whole duty of Repentance seems to be destroyed with devices of Men that seek power and gain and find errour and folly insomuch that if I had a mind to live an evil Life and yet hope for Heaven at last I would be of your Religion above any in the World. But I forget I am writing a Letter I shall therefore desire you to consider upon the premises which is the safer way For surely it is lawfull for a Man to serve God without Images but that to worship Images is lawfull is not so sure It is lawfull to pray to God alone to confess him to be true and every Man a liar to call no man Master upon Earth but to rely upon God teaching us But it is at least hugely disputable and not at all certain that any Man or society of Men can be infallible that we may put our trust in Saints in certain extraordinary Images or burn Incense and offer consumptive oblations to the Virgin Mary or make vows to persons of whose state or place or capacities or condition we have no certain revelation we are sure we do well when in the holy Communion we worship God and Jesus Christ our Saviour but they who also worship what seems to be bread are put to strange shifts to make themselves believe it to be lawfull It is certainly lawfull to believe what we see and feel but it is an unnatural thing upon pretence of faith to disbelieve our eyes when our sense and our faith can better be reconciled as it is in the question of the real presence as it is taught by the Church of England So that unless you mean to prefer a danger before safety temptation to unholiness before a severe and a holy Religion unless you mean to lose the benefit of your prayers by praying what you perceive not and the benefit of the Sacrament in great degrees by falling from Christ's institution and taking half instead of all unless you desire to provoke God to jealousie by Images and Man to jealousie in professing a Religion in which you may in many cases have leave to forfeit your faith and Jawfull trust unless you will still continue to give scandal to those good people with whom you have lived in a common Religion and weaken the hearts of Gods afflicted ones unless you will choose a Catechism without the second Commandment and a Faith that grows bigger or less as men please and a Hope that in many degrees relies on men and vain confidences and a Charity that damns all the World but your selves unless you will do all this that is suffer an abuse in your Prayers in the Sacrament in the Commandments in Faith in