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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	age_n	church_n	time_n	2,142	5	3.6322	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50252	A defence of the Protestant Christian religion against popery: in answer to A discourse of a Roman Catholick Wherein the manifold apostaties, heresies, and schisms of the chruch of Rome, as also, the weakness of her pretensions from the scriptures and the fathers, are briefly laid open: by an English Protestant.	Mather, Samuel, 1626-1671.	1672 (1672)	Wing M1278; ESTC R217670	45,074	64

Thyestaean Feasts and Nuptials at which you have drank more Blood than Wine The barbarous Spanish Butcheries in the Netherlands And with how much blood your Romish Faith was planted in the West-Indies to the infinite scandal and dishonour of the Name of Christ even in the blood of Nineteen Millions of poor innocent Natives as Acosta the Jesuite a Bird of your Nest as some have Noted Relates the story But to come nearer home there were near about Three hundred slain and burnt alive in England in Queen Maries time And in the late Massacre and Rebellion here in Ireland there were about Three hundred thousand English Protestants murthered by you whereof above one half above One hundred and fifty thousand in the first six Months of that Rebellion most perfidiously and treacherously in a time of Peace without ever declaring War and without any provocation given These be some of the Heresies and false Doctrines of your Church Rev. 17.3.5 some of the Blasphemies written in the Forehead of Mystical Babylon which she owneth and maintaineth in an open and avowed manner 8. But I have not here mentioned her consequential Errors because they are innumerable For thus there is no sound part in her but from the sole of the foot even to the crown of the head there is nothing but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores Thus she is at defiance even with common sense and reason she will not believe the report of three senses in the business of the carnal presence For as the Apostle calls it This bread this bread this bread three times after the Consecration 1 Cor. 11.26 27 28. So the eye saith it is bread the taste the touch say the same she sees it feels it and tastes it but yet she believes there is no bread there which is to lay aside the use of reason and to turn Sott and Sceptick The madness of which delusion did so scandalize Averroes the Arabian Philosopher that when they asked him upon his Death-bed What Religion he dyed in He gave this Answer Quia Christiani manducant Deum suum adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis Because the Christians eat their God with their teeth and worship that which they eat let my soul be with the Philosophers But having heard of the glorious Name and Fame of Christ and Christianity it had been his Duty and would have been his Happiness to have made a thorow search into the Fountain of that Religion which is the Scriptures of Truth and there he might have found that this abominable Idolatry is no part at all of the Christian Religion but of the Antichristian Apostasie of the Mother of Harlots yea there is hardly any Article of the Christian Faith which she doth not some way or other by evident and unavoidable consequence corrupt and subvert As for instance she denies by consequence that Christ is come in the flesh which is one of the Characters of Antichrist 1 John 4.3 She denies the Reality of the Humane Nature of Christ by her Transubstantiation for she leaves him only a Phantastick or Imaginary body having not the true Nature and dimensions of a body yea she doth impugn and subvert by true and sound consequence of Reason that great Fundamental of One God As was ingeniously made out by an English Gentleman a Protestant in discourse with a Roman Catholick thus That is not the true Religion that doth not acknowledge One God but Popery doth not acknowledge One God For did you not pray to the Virgin Mary this morning The Roman Catholick replyed Yes To which the Protestant made this Return And did not Five thousand pray to her at the same time The Papist answered Yes doubtless From whence the Protestant inferred Then either you prayed like a Fool or else she heard you all and knows all your hearts but this is to make her a God These therefore are some of the Roman Heresies Her dethroning the Scripture The Popes Infallibility Conversion by Free-will Justification by Works Idolatry and Superstition Her seditious Principles Her sanguinary Principles Her consequential Errors Yet this is but a general and brief induction of them But now do you ask Who ever testified against her Proh pudorem tuum Although if no man had yet that is no sufficient evidence of her Innocency the cause doth not depend upon this But yet withall you know if you know any thing of the Histories of the Church in former times That the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome have been testified against all along by faithful men whom God hath raised up from Age to Age to be the Witnesses of his Truth for the Lord gave his two Witnesses light and grace and power to prophesie in sackcloth 1260 dayes Revel 11.3 There was a Woman in the Wilderness when Antichrist was upon the Throne Revel 12.14 There were Saints whom the Beast did persecute and war against during all the time of his Reign Revel 13.7 Would you know their names 〈◊〉 you may see some of them in divers of our Divines and Writers who have taken the pains to present you with Instances and Catalogues of some of the chief and most eminent And common Reason will easily suggest unto you That if there were so many left upon Record there must needs be many more whose names the Histories of former times have not preserved and delivered down to posterity But you may see a competent number of Witnesses against you in the Centurists of Magdeburg in Flacius Illyricus his Catalogus testium veritatis Morney his History of the Papacy or Mystery of Iniquity Fox his Book of Martyrs Raynolds his Conference with Hart. Sundry of our Expositors on the Revelation See Mr. Arthur Dent on Chap. 11. White 's way to the Church Vsher against Maloone And of the Religion anciently professed by the Irish and British and de statu successione Eccles Brittanicarum Yea your own Bellarmine giveth some account of those that have even from the primitive times opposed and impugned the Primacy of the Church of Rome though he doth it briefly and defectively enough for he omits besides other things all the African Bishops and Councils Bell Praefat. in libros de Pontif. This may suffice at present as to the Errors and Heresies of your Church Your next endeavour is to defend her from the charge of Schism Let us proceed in the strength and grace of Christ to consider that also CHAP. V. Of the Nature of Schism and of the Schisms of the Church of Rome both within her self and from other Churches DISCOURSE SChism is a departure or division from the Vnity of the Church whereby the band and communion held with some former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided Her self by Schism from any other body of faithful Christians or broke communion or went forth from the society of any elder Church I pray satisfie your self and me in these particulars

They had learned to say our father Jacob as well as you can say Saint Peter John 4.12 So in like manner the Church of Rome though She hath not Renounced the very Name and Title of Christianity yet She is deeply guilty of Apostasie from God divers other wayes both in her Head and Members She is and may be called an Apostate Church as having fallen away from the Faith and Doctrine of the Gospel by fundamental Unbelief Ignorance and Herefie and from Gospel obedience by the most abominable profaneness of life by the grossest kind of sins and scandals against all the Ten Commandments concerning which you prudently forbear to say any thing but concerning the former head viz. Apostasie from the Faith Your Defence is this CHAP. III. Of the Nature of Heresie DISCOURSE Heresie is an adbesion to some private and singular Opinion or Error in Faith contrary to the general and approved Doctrine of the Church If Rome did ever adhere to any such Opinion c. By what General Council was it ever condemned Which of the Fathers ever wrote against Her Or by what Authority was She ever Reproved ANSWER This Description of Heresie and the Queries grounded thereupon as they are not agreeable either to the Scriptural or Ecclesiastical sense and use of the Word so they are indeed no better than a begging of the thing in question between you and us For you know we hold That the Rule whereby to judge of Heresie is the Scripture and not the Opinions of Churches of Fathers Mr. Gales Idea of Jansenism Histor dogmat Part. 2. Sect. 28. p. 157. or Councils Tertullian makes it the Badge of an Heretick to decline the Scriptures he saith They are Noctue Lucifugae Scripturarum Night Owls that do not love the light of that Sun yea some of your own Church who are the pars sanion thereof if yet they be of you have said That it is an Herefie to judge of Heresies without the Word of God So the Jansenists And the Reason why the generality of Papists are so desirous to derline the Scripture is because they are conscious to themselves that it is against them as Mr. White hath well observed 〈◊〉 of Brisom White 's way to the Church Sect. 7. Numb 8. Bristow Motiv ult Canus loc lib. 3. cap. 3. Confil. Episc Bononi Congreg Anno 1553. De stabilienda Roman Eccles Fol. 5. who teaching his Scholar how to deal with a Protestant 〈…〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proud Heretick out of his weak and false Castle of unely Scripturs into the plain field of Traditions Miracles Councils and Fathers and then like Cowards They shall not stand Another Papist saith There is more strength is confine Hereticks in Traditions than in the Scriptures yea all Disputations with them must be determined by Traditions Those Reverend Fathers of your Church that met at Bononia by the Popes appointment to consult of the means for establishing of the Church of Rome or healing the Wound of the Daughter of Babel in the counsel they gave to Pope Julius the Third They do confess Certè vix umbram quandam retinemus in nostris Ecclesus ejus Doctrinae Disciplinae quae Apostolorum temporibus floruerunt prorsùs aliam accersivimus The truth is we searce retain a shadow in our Churches of that Doctrine and Discipline which flourished in the Apostles times but we have brought in altogether another There was no mention Fol. 2. say they for we may confess the Truth to your Holiness but it must he kept close either of Popes or Cardinals in the Apostles times nor of some years after There were no Monasteries nor Priors nor Abbots much less were there these Doctrines these Laws these Customs no nor that Empire which now we enjoy over several people and Nations They say further That the not studying the Canon Law and Sophistry and Metaphysicks c. Fol 5. But learning the Greek and Hebrew Tongues and examining Translations by the Greek and Hebrew verity hath been the cause and fountain of the late decay of the Church of Rome and of the deplorable state and condition of her Affairs at this day And finally which they reserve to the last place as the weightiest of all their ghostly counsels They advise That as little as may be of the Gospel Fol. penult be read amongst the people in their vulgar Tongue For hic ille in summa est liber qui praeter caeteros hasce nobis tempestates acturbines conciliavit quibus prope abrepti sumus For this is in brief That Book which above all others hath raised and brought upon us these storms and whirlewinds by which we are almost carried away headlong Thus speak they It appears by all this wherefore it is that you love not the Scripture even because it restifies against you For he that doth evil hateth the light and cometh not to the light lest his deeds should be reproved John 3.16 20. As to the word Heresie for your mistakes call upon me to open it a little if we look at the notation of it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 capio eligo so it signifies any thing of choice or option as Galen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Methodical and the Empirical way of Physick when applyed to matters of Religion it imports in the largest signification any Sect or way of Religion that a man makes choice of whether true or false So the Sect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Sadduces Acts 5.17 the Sect of the Pharisees Acts 15.5 called the most exquisite Sect of our Religion Acts 26.5 the Sect of the Nazarens Acts 24.5 the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herefie in all these places But it is frequently restrained by a Synecdothe to signifie a false Religion as some other words ex gr Tyrannus magnus c. which are commonly taken in deteriorem partem Thus Epiphanius seemeth to take it in his Book of Eighty Heresies where he numbers Barbarism Seythism Stoicism Platonism c. amongst Heresies But it is commonly restrained yet more by a further Synecdoche to such Errors as overthrow the Foundation and are obstinately maintained against Conviction by persons pretending in part to the True Religion and so we do not call Pagans Hereticks but Infidels This sense of the word seems to be grounded on 1 Cor. 3.10 11. and 2 Pet. 2.1 and Titus 3.10 11. where the Apostles do distinguish of Doctrines comparing some to Hay and Stubble yet retaining the true foundation But there is another sort which they call damnable Heresies or Heresies of perdition Soul-destroying Heresies the Assertors whereof are subverted or overturned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from off the true foundation and self-condemned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sinning against their own light Now the written Word of God being the onely Rule of True Religion hence nothing ought to be rejected under the Notion of Heresie but what the Scripture doth