Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	faith_n	grace_n	justification_n	1,459	5	9.0615	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A16161	The Protestants evidence taken out of good records; shewing that for fifteene hundred yeares next after Christ, divers worthy guides of Gods Church, have in sundry weightie poynts of religion, taught as the Church of England now doth: distributed into severall centuries, and opened, by Simon Birckbek ...	Birckbek, Simon, 1584-1656.	1635 (1635)	STC 3083; ESTC S102067	458,065	496

renowned among the Northerne English and one that was well acquainted with Bishop Tonstall his kinsman and Diocesan saith I remember that Bishop Tonstall often tol●e me that Pope Innocent the third had done very unadv●sedly in that hee had made the opinion of Transubstantiation an Article of Faith seeing in former times it was free to holde or refus● that opinion The same Bishop tolde me and many time ingenuously confessed that Scotus was of opinion that the Church might better and with more ease make use of some more commodious exposition of those words in the holy Supper and the Bishop was of the minde that we ought to speake reverently of the holy Supper but that the opinion of Transubstantiation might well be let alone This thing also the same Bishop Tonstall was wont to affirme both in words and writings that Innocent the third knew not what he did when hee put Transubstantiation among the Articles of Faith and he said that Innocentius wanted learned men about him and indeed saith the Bishop if I had beene of his councell I make no doubt but I might have beene able to have disswaded him from that resolution By this that hath beene sayd it appeares that Transubstantiation was neither holden nor knowne universally in the Church before the Lateran Councell twelve hundred yeares after Christ and that when it began to be received as a matter of Faith it was but beleeved upon the Churches authoritie and this Church virtually and in effect was Pope Innocent in the Lateran Councell twelve hundred yeeres and more after Christ before which time there was no certaintie nor necessity of beleeving it and the Councell might have chosen another sence of Christs words more easie and in all appearance more true there being no scripture sufficient to convince it Of Images and Prayer to Saints HOnorius of Authun in France saith There is none that is godly wise who will worship and adore the Crosse but Christ crucified on the crosse Roger Hoveden our native historian who lived in the beginning of this age condemned the adoration of Images for speaking of the Synodall Epistle written by the Fathers of the second Nicen councell wherein Image worship was established he tells us that Charles the King of France sent into this Isle a Synodall booke directed unto him from Constantinople wherein there were divers offensive passages but especially this one that by the joynt consent of all the Doctors of the East and no fewer than 300 B●shops it was decreed that Images should be worshipped quod ecclesia Dei execratur saith he which the Church of God abhorres Guilielmus Altissiodorensis saith that for such and such reasons many doe say that neither we pray unto the Saints nor they pray for us but improperly in r●spect we pray unto God that the merits of the Saints may h●lpe us Of Faith and Merit THomas Aquinas saith that workes be not the cause why a man is just before God but rather they are the execution and manifestation of his justice for no man is just●fied by workes but by the Habit of Faith infused yea just●fication is done by Faith onely And Aquinas in his commentary on the Galatians in the place alleadged tho at the first he mention such workes as are performed by the power of nature yet afterwards he speakes also of workes wrought by the power of grace and of such as Saint Iames mentions Chap. 2. saying Was not Abraham justified by workes but these were workes of grace and yet Thomas excludes from justification workes done in the state of Grace and saith Iustification is done by Faith onely Bonaventure saith that by onely Faith in Christs passion all the fault is remitted and without the faith of h●m no man is justified Velosillus in his animadversions upon the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church observeth that Scotus held not merit of Condig●ity And Vega saith that Thomas Aquinas the flower of the Schoole-Divines constantly affirmeth that a sinner can not merit his owne just●fication either of congruity or of condignity and thus have these men given in their verdict but now let us heare themselves speake There is no action of ours saith Scotus that without the speciall ordinance of God and his divine acceptation is worthy of the reward with which God rewardeth them that serve him in respect of the inward goodnesse that it hath from the causes of it because alwayes the reward is greater than the merit and strict Iustice doth not give a better thing for a thing of lesse value And againe hee saith That speaking of strict Iustice God is bound to none of us to bestow rewards of so high perfection as hee doth the rewards being so much greater in worth than any merits of ours The Prophet David saith the learned Archbishop of Armagh hath fully cleared this case in that one sentence Psalm 62.12 With thee Oh Lord is mercy for thou r●ward●st every man according to his workes Originally therefore and in it selfe this reward proceedeth meerely from Gods free bounty and mercy but accidentally in regard that God hath tyed himselfe by his word and promise to conferre such a reward it now prov●th in a sort to be an act of Iustice in regard of the faithfull performance of his prom●se For promise amongst honest men is counted a due debt but the thing promised being free and on our part altogether undeserved if the promiser did not performe and proved not to be so good as his word hee could not properly be sayd to doe us wrong but rather to wrong himselfe by impayring his owne credit And therefore Aquinas confesseth That God is not hereby simply made a debtor to us but to himselfe in as much as it is requisite that his owne ordin●nce should be fullfilled William Bishop of Paris treating of prayer giveth us this Caveat Not to leane on the weake and fraile foundation of our owne merits but wholly denying our selves and distrusting our owne strength to relye on the sole favour and mercy of God and in so doing sayth hee the Lord will never faile us Cassander saith That both ancient a●d moderne with full consent professe to repos● themselves wholly upon the meere mercy of God and merit of Christ with an humble renunciation of all worthinesse in their owne workes and this doctrine Cassander derives through the lower ages of the Schoole-men and later writers Thomas of Aquine Durand Adrian de Trajecto afterwards Pope Adrian the sixth Clictoveus and delivers it for the voyce of the then present Church THE FOVRTEENTH CENTVRIE From the yeere of Grace 1300. to 1400. PAP WHat say you of this fourteenth Age PROT. In this Age learning began to revive for so it came to passe that divers learned men among the Greekes abhorring such cruelty as the Turkes used against their Countrey-men the Grecians left those parts and fled into Italy Now by their meanes the

wont to say In old time there were golden Prelates and woodden Chalices but in his time woodden Prelates and golden Chalices knowledge was now decayed Princes Prelates and others were now more busied in building or beautifying materiall Temples and Chappels than in the gathering together of living stones and reedifying Gods spirituall Temple so that in this time of Monkery many religious Houses were erected either out of voluntary Devotion or enjoyned Penance Now insteed of the right administration of the Word and Sacraments came in the dumbe guize of the Masse and the people instead of the pure milke of the Word were intertained with feigned Liturgies Legends and Miracles their consciences loaden with a number of unprofitable Ceremonies and unwarrantable Traditions now there was great con●idence put in holy Graines hallowed Beades Agnus Dei's and the like Babies and the honour due to the Creator was given to the crea●ure Now the people made many fond vowes went many merry Pilgrimages and beheld many garish Processions now they were taught that ab●tinence from meates and drinkes was Meritorious that the opus operatum the worke done was sufficient in their Sacraments and their Devotions and much of this service performed in an unknowne tongue Now the crownes of Martyrdome wherewith the first Bishops of Rome were honoured were changed into a Triple Crowne and the Pastorall Staffe beganne to quarrell with the Princely Scepter and all these things were carried by the name of the Church the People many of them beleeving as the Church beleeved and this Church was the Roman and this Roman Church was the Pope Concerning the Church in the next 500. yeares even to these our times the Church began to recover her strength● and the light of the Gospell was notably discovered by Waldus in France and his followers Wickliffe in England Iohn Hus and Martin Luther in Germanie Now also by the benefit of Printing which was found out in the fifteenth Century the Tongues came to bee knowne Knowledge increased Bookes were dispersed and Learning communicated the Scriptures were perused the Doctors and Fathers read Stories opened Times compared Truth discerned and Falshood detected Now because there hath already and will hereafter be occasion to speak of Antichrist I will therfore heere point out his severall Ages About the yeare 607. Antichrist began in part to appeare and show himselfe rising by degrees untill he came to the height of impietie for as other things so Antichrist also was to have his rising growth height and fall even as monstrous and huge Beasts goe with their young ones many yeares as other creatures doe many monthes The maine strength of the Romish Antichrist consisted in those two Swords the Spirituall and Temporall now the Pope did not at once attaine to the managing of these two Swords but by degrees he came to usurpe this two-handed Sword The first step that hee made to the throne of pride was about the yeare 607 when Pope Boniface the third by the grant of that murderer Phocas tooke to himselfe the Title Authoritie and Supremacie over the whole Church The next time that he notoriously shewed himselfe was after the thousand yeare when Gregory the ●eventh claimed and usurped both the Swords that is a Soveraigne and Universall Iurisdiction not onely Ecclesiasticall over the Clergie but also Temporall over Kings and Emperours unto this second Soveraigntie they had long aspired but never attained untill the time of this Hildebrand in whom Antichrist came to his growth yea the Pope was discovered to be Antichrist by those Catholike Bishops the Bishop of Florence and Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincolne and others Vpon this discovery of the Man of Sinne sundry of Gods people refusing the Marke of the Beast severed themselves from the Papall Communion whereupon the Pope and his Faction raised grievous persecutions against the servants of God To speake yet more particularly the degrees of Antichrist may thus be reckoned He had his Birth or rising in Boniface the third who tooke to himselfe that Antichristian title of universall Bishop which his Predecessor Gregorie so greatly condemned Hee had his growth or increase in the time of Pope Adrian the first and the second Councell of Nice who jointly agreed to set up the Adoration of Images and the practice therof to be generally received in the Church Hee came to his Kingdome and reigned in Pope Hildebrand who excommunicated and deposed Henry the fourth the lawfull Emperour and gave away his Empire to Rodulph and after his death to others He was in his jollitie and triumphed in Pope Leo the tenth and his Lateran Councell s●ewing himselfe a God in pardoning sinnes delivering soules out of Purgatorie defining Faith setting himselfe above a generall Councell controuling and judging all men himselfe to be judged by none professing for so it is recorded of Gregory the seventh That he was a God and could not erre In a word as my learned kinsman hath deciphered him when he usurped an universall authoritie over all Bishops the Pope was but Antichrist Nascent when he maintained the doctrine of Adoration of Images he was Antichrist Crescent when hee exalted himselfe above all Kings and Emperours hee became Antichrist regnant but when he was made Lord of the Catholike Faith so that none must beleeve more nor lesse nor otherwise then hee prescribed hee became Antichrist Triumphant Thus did the Pope in processe of time become a perfect Antichrist playing the Hypocrite and Tyrant both in Church and State exalting himselfe a● a Monarch over Gods house making his owne word and definition of equall authoritie with holy Scripture usurping temporal Iurisdiction over Civill States murthering Christs servants that yeelded not to his becke His last Age is his declining age wherein the Lord by the spirit of his mouth 2 Thess. 2.8 that is by the Ministerie of his Word Shall consume this Man of Sinne and this is come to passe in part For hee is already fallen into a Consumption whereon he irrecoverably languisheth notwithstanding all the help that can be made him by his Colledge of Physicians Canonists Schoolemen Priests and Iesuits but for his finall Destruction wee must expect it at the glorious comming of our blessed Saviour The summe of all is this the Pope having pearkt himselfe above his fellow Bishops it grieved him to be subject to Kings and Emperours not to exalt himself above them he distracted both Church and State in the point of Image-worship which occasioned much bloodshed in Christendome and then having weakened the Empire he became superior to Kings and Emperours there being nothing now but the Church in his way he preuailed over it by his Lateran Flatterers who set the Pope above a generall Councel that is aboue Gods Church a Generall Councell being indeed the Representative Church of God here on earth and the Pope himselfe being the Vertuall Church for so Gretser confesseth that by the Church

signifying mystery● rei veritas the truth of the thing as it is opposed to significans mysterium a signifying mystery simply excludes the reality of the thing for it is all one as if he had sayd that it is there onely in a signifying mystery as also in saying it is there suo modo after a sort onely he implieth that it is not there truely or in the truth of the thing visibly or invisibly So that these words of Gratian drawne from Saint Austin and Prosper seconded by the Glosse and inserted into the body of the Cannon law confirmed by Pope Gregorie the thirteenth make strongly against the reall presence of Christ's body under the Accidents of Bread and Wine as my learned friend Master Doctor Featly made it appeare in his first dayes Conference with Master Musket touching Transubstantiation Besides there were divers in this age who employed both their tongues and their pennes in defence of this truth Zacharias Chrysopolitanus saith that there were some perhaps many but hardly to bee discerned and noted that thought still as Berengarius did whom they then condemned scorning not a little the ●olly of them that say the appearing accidents of Bread and Wine after the conversion doe hang in the ayre or that the sences are deceived Rupertus saith It is not to be concealed that there are diverse though hardly to be discerned and noted which are of opinion and defend the same both by word and writing that the Fathers under the Law did eate and drinke the very Bread and Wine which wee receive in the Sacrament of the Altar And hee saith they grounded their opinion upon that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 10.3.4 They did all eate the same spirituall meate and did all drinke of the same spirituall drinke for they dranke of the spiritual rock that followed them and the rocke was Christ. and the same Rupert addeth that the Church tollerated this diversity of opinion touching the sacrament of the Eucharist for so he saith in his seaventh booke whence we may observe that forsomuch as the Fathers under the Law did eate of the same Christ in Manna that we doe in the Sacrament of the Supper and yet did not nor could not eate him carnally who was not then borne nor had flesh we also in our Sacrament can have no such fleshly communication with Christ as some imagine And whereas Bellarmine replyes that the Fathers received the same among themselves but not the same with us Christians he is controlled by Saint Austine who saith it was the same which we eate the corporall food indeed was diverse but the spirituall meate was the same they eate of the same spirituall meate Of Images and Prayer to Saint Nicetas Choniates a Greeke historian reports in the life and reigne of Isaac Angelus one of the Easterne Emperours that when Fredericke Emperour of the West made an expedition into Palestina the Armenians did gladly receive the Almaines because among the Almaines and Armenians the worshipping of Images was forbidden alike Claudius S●yssell and Claudius Coussord both which wrote against the Waldenses reckon up this among the Waldensian errours that they denyed the placing of Images in Churches or worshipping of them Gratian saith that question is mooved whether the deceased doe know what the living heere on earth doe and withall he addeth how that the Prophet in the person of the afflicted Israelites saith Abraham our father is ignorant of us and Israell knoweth us not Esay 63 16. and h●rein Gratian followed Saint Austine who maketh the same inference upon that place of Scripture Gratians resolution in this point is farther layd downe by the Glosse in those termes Gratian mooveth a certaine incident question whether the dead know the things that are done in this world by the living and he answereth that they doe not and this he proveth by the authority of Esay viz. Esay 63.16 the Master of the Sentences saith It is not incredible that the soules of the Saints that delight in the secrets of Gods countenance in beholding the same see things that are done in the world below Hugo de Sancto victore leaveth it doubtfull whether the Saints doe heare our prayers or not and rejecteth that saying of Gregorie brought to prove that they doe qui videt videntem omnia videt omnia hee that seeth him who seeth all things seeth all things hee confesseth ingenuously saying I presume not to determin this matter ●arther than thus that they see so much as it pleaseth him whom they see and in whom they see what soever they see and he saith it is a hard taske to decide these points and withall thus debateth the matter Yea but thou wilt reply If they heare me not I doe but waste words in v●ine in making intercession unto them that doe neither heare ●nor understand Be it so Saints heare not the words of those that call unto them well nor is it pertinent to their blessed estate to be made acquainted with what is done on earth admit that they doe not heare at all doth not God therefore heare If he heare thee why art thou sollicitous then what they heare and how much they heare seeing it is most certaine that God heareth unto whom thou prayest he seeth thy humility and will reward thy pietie and devotion so that in effect Hugo makes it not any materiall thing or of necessity to pray unto Saints Rupertus upon those Words of our Saviour Whatsoever ye shall aske the Father in my Name he will give it yo● Iohn 16.22 sa●th that it is the wholesome custome and Rule of the Catholicke Church to direct her prayers to God the Father through Iesus Christ our Lord because there is no other way nor passage but by him and againe we need no other chariot save onely the name of Iesus to carry and convey our prayers into heaven Claudius Seyssel saith the Waldenses held that it was in vaine to pray to the Saints and that it was superstition for to worship and adore them Of Faith and Merit SAint Bernard beleeved Iustification by Faith alone saying Let him beleeve in thee who justifiest the ungodly and being justified by Faith onely he shall have peace with God Rupertus saith that the obstinate Iew sleights the Faith of Iesus Christ which alone is able to justifie him and seekes to be saved by his owne workes Rupertus saith that God hath freely called us by the ministery of his Word unto the state of Salvation and justified us by the gracious pardon of our sinnes not upon any precedent merits of ours Saint Bernard likewise held as we have showne that our workes doe not merit condignely and herein he is most direct and punctuall The merits of men are not such saith he as that eternall life is due to them of right or as if God should doe wrong if he did not yeeld the same unto them