Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A91516
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The right religion, reviewed and inlarged / by L.P. Gent.
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L. P., Gent.
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1658
(1658)
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Wing P74C; ESTC R181384
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42,130
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187
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THE RIGHT RELIGION Reviewed and inlarged By L. P. Gent. John 24. No man cometh to the Father but by Me. Ezekiel 13. Woe be to foolish prophets that follow their own spirit they see nothing but vain things and divine lies saying The Lord whereas the Lord hath not sent them Printed at PARIS M.DC.LVIII TO THE CATHOLIKES OF ENGLAND THe old saying Truth purchaseth hatred is verified at this time wherein Truth is grown so loathsome and hatefull that whosoever goes about to tell it indangers displeasure It is strange that any can take distast at that all desire which is to know the truth Truth being the natural pleasing object of the understanding Neverthelesse such is the perverseness and vanity of some that they despise and maligne what ought most of all to be cherisht and loved of whom it is said They preferred darkness before light Joh. 3. Having then undertaken in this small Treatise to declare Gods revealed Truth I should be wanting to my self in so dangerous an enterprize if I did make choice of any other Patronage than yours Renowned Catholikes whose many and glorious sufferings for the said Truth have rankt you in the number of the best and greatest Conquerors Others hold dependence of Fortun you of Grace they surmount force and strength common to beasts you Reason and Will proper to men They overcome vanquish'd men you conquerors themselves their conquest is of others onely yours of others and your selves too In a word all the addition that is to be made to your greatness is a continuance of patience and constancy And this God hath in store and will give conditionally that you ask it heartily He that hath begun a good work in you desires no better than to perfect the same What need you fear your enemies may hurt themselves but want power to wrong you unlesse you will Nay their worst is your best taking away your estates your good names bereaving you of your Liberties your lives those bruta fulmina which render them so formidable begets you a richer and surer possession Heaven and Eternity All the pudder they keep in vexing you is but sowing your seed for you which undoubtedly will grow up to an hundred fold increase Let them hammer cut hew you till they are weary they do no more than carve and fit you for the walls of Heaven And who can justly say he is a loser that changes for better gets much with the losse of little Take a serious view of the B. Saints that passed as you do through a sea of calamites and troubles and are now at rest with God and amongst them all you will not discover one complaining The richnesse and magnificence of their reward hath so fully recompensed their forrows and losses that they wonder at the unwillingnesse and repining of some to part with and at the greedinesse and injustice of others to wrest from that which neither can long keep For the covenant betwixt birth and death stands firm and inviolable as that gives all things this must return all bare and naked This I know is meer folly to hardened Libertines that look not beyond the fading pleasures of this life but not to melting Christians who believe and are assured that Heaven is a Reward a Gole a Crown which are not to be atchieved by sitting still by leading a licentious and inordinate life but by flying evill overcoming temptations doing good and vertuous acts Take heart therefore brave Champions and be not daunted for your greater comfort and incouragement rest assured that God is with you yea marshalls the very field you fight in and when he sees it for your spirituall advantage he will either cause a retreat to sound that you may have a time of breathing in this world or crown you with victory that he may have just cause to reward you in the next Then your persecutors will be at a stand have no more to say to you and your troubles will be at an end your mourning out your cries and sighs cease your grievances heard and redressed your teares dried up the sweat of your browes wiped away and finding your excessive gain unspeakeable joy will seize your hearts and make you glad that you had the grace and courage to suffer for so good and gracious a God For my part I shall ever acknowledge your greatness admire your glory and from your goodness raise to my self a hope that you will dart a ray to quicken and cherish these my indeavours whereby you will add an obligation to my being Your devoted Friend and Servant L. P. To the Reader Good Reader OF many Religions professed in this land severall Writers men of approved integrity and profound learning have so clearly demonstrated that there is onely one true and that the Roman is it that I cannot but impute the ungenerall acknowledging of the same to prejudice or impatience of labor To prejudice in them that have read their works and yet do not believe accordingly To impatience of labor in others that will not bestow the paines to turn over great volumes The best remedy for that sort of men is to implore the Divine Goodness for cleane and unbiass'd hearts without which it is not possible to behold the radiancy of Truth For this J have endeavoured to draw Catholike Belief into a narrow room as a vast world into a small Map to the end that with a little travails much may be discovered Jn pursuance whereof J shew in the first place the end of man in the next the will of God and the means which he hath appointed to attain to this end Then I evince the weakness and vanity of such pretences as divers make to this and other means Lastly the true Church appears in her right colours And for as much as Truth shines brighter by opposition after the manne◠of contraries the mainest Objections of Adversaries are propose◠and solved By all which if Go◠prove to be glorifyed and you rea◠benefit I shall have the return 〈◊〉 desire and wish my aime being 〈◊〉 other than Gods Glory and you◠good THE Right Religion reveiw'd c. CHAP. 1. Of happinesse 1 THE severall knowledges of things within and above the reach of Reason are sufficient Evidences that there is a naturall and a supernaturall state in both which God is the beginning and end of all 2. In the naturall for who is so short-sighted that doth not see that what hath been is at this present existent and visible was not alwayes so That then it could not produce it selfe out of the void state of nothing and by consequence that it needed an active Beginning that never was nothing and ever something whereby to bring nothing to existence and being And who so stupid that doth not feele want or satiety in the possession of whatsoever is created or made Honours expose as Cedars on Hills to the boysterous storms of Envy and malice lift up high to make the fall greater
to observe the unjustness of sectaries who impute easiness to Catholiques avouching that according to their Religion a bare confession of sinns to a Preist pacifies and appeases God whereas besides confession not to speak of its horridness a verseness to nature they hold as necessary all the other above mentioned Acts that if any one bee wanting their confessions become invalid and sacrilegious Above all their strangeness breakes out in their complaint of uneveness in their way as though it were such a matter to believe Christes merits who is the source and fountain of all worth or to have a confidence in God whose goodness trascends all that can be sinne and yet this is the very quintessence of their requisites to reconciliation with God albeit their sinnes should swell to drown in loudness the cryes of Sodome and Gomorrha CHAP. 13. Of the Spirit of Spiritists 1. THe spirit of God in God is as God every where I fill heaven and earth Jer. 23. So as in this sense none can be absent from his essence presence nor vertue But the question runs of the effects thereof which depending upon his will are confined within narrower limits This truth appears bright in St Iohn where he forbiddeth to give credit to every spirit Jo. 1.4 To deny that the spirit of God is active fruitfull in some were to fall into another extream and in effect to call Gods goodness mercy in question to know and discern who they be the onely way is to see their warrant and examine their works If their warrant prove that of Miracles and their workes good doubtless they have the favour of Gods spirit if otherwise they are at the best but pretence makers and ushers of innovation 2. This way must needes be true and sure because Christ and Saint Paul taught it and it stands with right reason for bare sayings without proof are sounds of want and emptiness and the capacity of every Agent being to produce effects like it self it is as impossible for the spirit of God that is all goodness to be the author of ill as for a reasonable creature to beget an unreasonable or heat to cause cold Whence it is plain that the spirit of Spiritists is a false imposture a meer figment and delusion in as much as it is destitute of Miracles and induceth to ill it perswading a disloyall defection from our Lords Prayer the Commandements and Church Bucer in Mat. 6. Calvin in Mat. 6. Luther de Moyse Zuinglius in explan art 16. Tindal in Fox his acts pa. 140. edit An. 1610. in the consonancy and dissonancy to which consist the goodness and badness of all Actions All actions being good or bad according as they are conform or difforme to Gods known will which is apparently manifested in the aforesaid Hereto adde that the spirit of Spiritists prompteth things contrary and imconsistent each with other Lutherans assert the reallity of Christs ' body Zuinglians maintain a bare figure Calvinists differ from both which cannot befall the spirit of God for so the spirit of truth might become the spirit of Errour and falshood 3. To say that God is no excepter of persons that his spirit being free may breath on whom he pleaseth is out of the matter in hand here being no dispute of Gods power what he may doe but of his will what he doth Their other ground for inspiration upon the assurance of Conscience St Paul and St Austin convinced long since of weakness and cozenage St Paul when for yielding to Conscience in persecuting the primitive Christians he acknowledged himself unworthy of the name of an Apostle 1 Cor. 15. St Austin when he sharpned his pen against Manichisme which before in obedience to Conscience he upheld and defended Conscience can have no greater certainty than the understanding that gave it being and the understanding experience teacheth to be so bad an aymer that in the search of truth it oftner misses than hits CHAP. 14. Of the Spiritists Rule of faith 1 THe Rule of faith may be considered in it self or in respect of us in it self it is Gods revealed truth in respect of us it is the same truth expressed to us Thus far Catholiques and Spiritists agree their difference is about the expression These holding that it is that of their private spirit joyned to that of Scripture onely Those that it is that of the Church Scripture bearing witness of her truth This latter is clear by what hath been already said in the third Chapter and will appear yet more by disproving the former Which for the first part that it is false and spurious Saint Peter gives evidence point-blank 2. Pet. 1. No interpretation of Scripture by private spirit Saint Paul speakes to the same effect where he wisheth 2. Cor. 10. to captivate the understanding to the obedience of faith And our Saviour confirms both testimonies obliging all under pain of damnation Mat. 18.17 to believe the Church If the Church be to sway every private spirit must stoop and obey for none can serve two Masters Luke 16. 2. For the second that it is deficient Scripture attesteth referring to the Church and reason makes it good For as much as the expression Faith requires ought to be as full and ample as the duty of Faith that is it must be able to informe the understanding in all it stands bound to give assent unto wherein the expression of Scripture alone is defective it not declaring sundry pointes Christians acknowledge themselves bound to believe To wit that those bookes of Scripture which are received for Canonicall are so indeed That some are Canonicall other some Apocryphall That they are determinately these or others That the Jewes Sabaoth is to be neglected and laid aside and the Sunday solemnized That the Creed is authenticke and truely the Apostles That it is lawfull to eate straâ—gled meates and blood But these men please themselves with onely talke of Scripture for were Scripture as they pretend the Rule of their beliefe though it containes divers truths yet those truths meeting and becoming one in Revelation they would all perfectly agree not onely Lutherans among themselves Calvinists among themselves but likewise Lutherans with Zuinglians and Calvinists with both it being the propertie of unity to unite and make one all that conforme to the same Whereas happening quite contrary it is a manifest signe that fancy under specious pretences of Scripture the Spirit is the great Idol they do homage to Lutherans to Luthers Zuinglians to Zuinglius and Calvinists to Calvin CHAP. 15. Of the Protestant Church Protestants cast a fairer shine than the Spiritists and certes were their Church as true as it is seeming they could not be justly taxed But all is not gold that glisters Satan is apt to transforme himselfe into an Angell of light 2. Cor. 11. Falshood it self is not seldome seen in the habiliments of truth and therefore this Chapter pretends to lay open the many