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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A40082 Libertas evangelica, or, A discourse of Christian liberty being a farther pursuance of the argument of the design of Christianity / by Edward Fowler ... Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714. 1680 (1680) Wing F1709; ESTC R15452 145,080 382

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in Controversie by when the truth of this Text is questionable upon the same grounds that the truth of the Scriptures in general is Again When they say that the Testimony of the Church is the Ground of this our Faith they tell us that by the Church they mean the Church of Rome and that She onely is the True Church We reply that there are a many Societies of Christians in the World that hold no Communion with the Church of Rome and Each of these calls it self a True Church and therefore how shall we know that they are none of them so but that the Church of Rome alone is They tell us that this Church alone hath the Notes and Characters of the True Church We ask again how it doth appear that those Notes and Characters they give are true and genuine and if they are that their Church onely hath them Here they are forced to fly again to the Scriptures and produce us some which they would have us believe are very pertinent to the purpose though none but those who see by their Light are able to discern any such matter But whether they be to the purpose or no is no part now of our Enquiry but this is that which we shew from hence how still they are intangled in their own Net and Run round in a Circle Yet once again these People would perswade us that there is no knowing the Scriptures to be of Divine Authority but by the Testimony of their Church whenas 't is impossible to know that there is any such thing in being as a Church but by the Scriptures And thus you see what prime Christians these Romanists are what Worthy Catholicks If there were no better Champions than these for the Authority of the Scriptures or the Truth of Christianity Atheists and Infidels long since would have filled all Places As it is well known how they abound in the Popish Countries and most of all in Italy and of all Italy most in Rome And but for Old Mother Ignorance whom they have a marvellous Fondness for as well they may their Holy Mother the Church would by this time have had but a very small number of Children or Friends But I would this had been the worst on 't as alas it is not For Multitudes among them being well aware that they are merely imposed on and being Acquainted with no better than an Implicit Faith and thinking that no more is to be said for Christianity than they learn from them shake off both their Popish and Christian Faith together But we must not let that forementioned Text wholly pass on which is laid such mighty Stress for the proving of the Infallibility of the Roman Church which gives her such a plausible Pretence for the Enslaving of Mens Minds and Understandings The whole Verse runs thus with the Verse foregoing Th●●e things write I unto thee hoping to come unto thee shortly But if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the House of God which is the Church of the living God the Pillar and Ground of Truth According to Episcopius his reading of these latter words it is not the Church that is here called the Pillar and Ground of Truth but God manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit c. in the next Verse For he makes that 15. Verse to conclude with living God Verses and Pointings being arbitrary and The Pillar and Ground of Truth to begin the next Verse thus The Pillar and Ground of Truth and without controversie the great Mystery of Godliness is God manifested in the flesh c. But there is no need of using any artifice to make these words unserviceable to the design of proving the Infallibility of the Church of Rome for all that can be gathered from them is no more than this That the Church is the support of that Truth which is necessary to Salvation viz. the Doctrine of the Gospel That which preserveth it in the world is the Churches constant profession of it and standing up for it That is this is the External and Visible means whereby this Truth is kept from perishing and being lost Or according to Grotius The Church doth uphold and lift up the Truth it causeth it not to slip out of mens minds and also to be beheld far and near For the Testimony of many good men who all say that they received these Doctrines and Precepts from the Apostles must needs have great force and efficacy upon those who are not obstinate and contumacious So that First This Great man seems to understand by the Church in this place onely that which was most Ancient But Secondly There is no reason at all to understand by the Church here onely the Church Representative but the whole Body of Christians must necessarily be meant It being called the House of God but the Apostles Bishops and Pastors are called the Builders of the House and Governours never the House it self And besides the Church which is here called the Pillar and Ground of Truth is that over part of which Timothy presided That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the House of God c. that is as a Bishop and Pastor in it Thirdly If it should be understood of the Church Representative 't is however intolerable impudence to make it onely the Roman But Fourthly This Text makes nothing to the purpose of Infallibility in the Church of Rome's sence understand by the Church of the living God which Church you please especially if you do not limit it to the First Age As is plain from what hath been said and it needs no more words to make it plainer Now how can we have greater assurance that the Church of Rome is an Arrant Impostor than this one thing gives us viz. That She will not allow us the Liberty of judging for our selves The Great Apostle S. Paul allowed this Liberty to the Corinthians in those words I speak as unto wise men judge ●e what I say 1 Cor. 10. 15. And dare they say that he overshot himself in that saying or passed a mere Complement upon the Corinthians 'T will not be at all strange if they do considering how many worse things several of them have said of this Apostle But I say this Church will not permit us to see with our own Eyes but we must take the whole of our Religion upon trust that is upon her bare word pin our whole Faith upon her Sleeve and receive the most Fundamental Articles upon her Warrant and Authority Nay though she would seem to give us leave to use our Reason in the choice of our Church yet neither doth she this really but what she gives with one hand takes away again with the other in that she will not suffer us to judge of the sence of Scripture and consequently not of those Texts whereby she pretends to prove her self the onely true Church For if we be
besides her Authority She will have your Assent to their being of Divine Authority to depend wholly upon her Testimony Notwithstanding that God Almighty hath vouchsafed to the World marvellously full and plentiful Evidence thereof and such as is adapted to the capacities of all those who have the use of Reason but never once mentioned this as a part of that Evidence and therefore much less can it be thought the Whole How infinitely ill hath this Corrupt Church deserved at the hands of all Christians although this were the onely Abuse she had put upon them For to say nothing of her Horrible Pride and Uncharitableness in making the truth of the Scriptures dependent on her Testimony that her Pretence supposing her making her self the onely true Church this is the greatest injury imaginable to Christianity nor can she take a surer course than this to make all men Infidels And that upon these two Accounts First This Pretence of hers is immediately founded upon a Precarious and most Evidently false Principle viz. That of her Infallibility I dare appeal to those of her own Sons who have studied the Controversie whether there was ever a more shamefully baffled Cause in the World than this is Whether by their Infallible Church they mean with the Iesuits the Pope alone or with others the Pope with his General Council that is a pack of Bishops and Priests of his own Faction As the Psalmist saith If the Foundations be destroyed what shall the Righteous do So if this be the Foundation of our Christian Faith and that be proved to be a Rotten Foundation as nothing was ever proved if this be not then what shall we Christians do We must then acknowledge our selves a Generation of most Credulous Fools and that our Faith is vain If the Foundation be tottering the whole Superstructure must fall to the Ground But so fond is this Unsatiably Covetous and Ambitious Church of her Great Diana Infallibility by the Pretence whereof she hath raised her self to such a Height and Grandeur that she is well content if that must fall that our Saviour and his Apostles both the Old and New Testament should fall with it And she hath done all that lies in her to make it necessary that those who shall have the wisdom to reject her Ridiculous Doctrine of Infallibility should at the self-same time renounce Christianity If Popery were Chargeable with no other Crime as it is with innumerable others and many of them intolerable I say were it Chargeable with no other Crime but the making our Belief of the Authority of the Books of Scripture to be founded on the Infallibility of the Romish Faction we ought to be as zealous for the Preventing its Reestablishment in this Nation from whence it hath happily been twice Expelled as we are desirous to Preserve the Christian Religion Secondly The Romish Churche's making her Authority the sole Foundation of our Belief of the Scriptures makes the Testimony of the Spirit to the Truth of Christianity in our Saviour when on ●arth and in the Apostles and others in the Primitive Ages to be now perfectly Insignificant I think it makes them to be so as to the Church Representative for she pretends to her Infallibility and consequently to her Infallible Assurance of the Truth of Christianity as an immedi●te Gift of the Holy Ghost therefore what need hath she of the Testimony of Miracles But as to Private Christians I can by no means understand in what stead they stand them for if the Churches Authority be necessary to their believing the truth of the Scriptures and therefore to their believing that there were those Miracles really wrought which the Writings of the Apostles tell us of then why may they not without any more ado make her Authority the immediate ground of their Assent to the truth of Christianity It is said that the truth of the Matters of Fact are not knowable at this distance such as whether there were such Persons as our Saviour and his Apostles whether they performed such Miracles and the Apostles wrote such Books c. but by the Tradition of the Church because no such Matters are to be known at any considerable distance but by Tradition To this it is Answered that it is one thing to believe the Matters of Fact upon the Churche's Tradition and another to believe them upon her Authority founded upon her Infallibility Now this latter we reject but adhere to the former as a Ground of our belief of those things But then by the Tradition of the Church we are far from meaning that of Rome onely We mean the Catholick Church or the whole Collective Body of Christians throughout the World from the Apostles times down to this present Age of which the Roman Church is but a Part and therefore does Impudently in appropriating Catholicism to her self and that a very Vitiated Part too and that Church Representative an exceedingly small Part. And we receive the Tradition of the Catholick Church as a Ground as I said of believing these Matters not as t●e Ground because we take in another Tradition viz. that of those who are out of the Church and Enemies to Christianity the Iews especially In short we believe those and the like matters of Fact upon the same ground that we believe all other wherein Religion is not concerned but there are Circumstances which give the Tradition of Christian matters of Fact a mighty Advantage above other Traditions as unquestionable Assurance as these give men when they are General and Uninterrupted But 't is well known to all who are not strangers to the Popish Writers what lamentable work they make in proving the Testimony of the Church to be the foundation of our Faith concerning the Authority of the Scriptures This Proof they fetch out of the Scriptures themselves and their main Text for this purpose and for the Infallibility of their Church is those words of S. Paul 1 Tim. 3. 15. where he calls the Church the Pillar and Ground of Truth But what a manifest Circle is this We ask them how it appears that the Scriptures are the Word of God They answer it appears from the Testimony of the Church We ask again how it appears that the Testimony of the Church is true They reply it appears from the Scriptures And so they prove the Authority of the Scriptures by the Testimony of the Church and then wheel about again and prove the Authority of the Church by the Testimony of the Scriptures But again We can either be certain of the truth of these words of S. Paul setting aside the Authority of the Church or we cannot be Certain If we can be Certain why then not of the truth of the whole Scripture as well as of this single Text If we cannot be certain of the truth of this Text without the consideration of the Churche's Authority what Folly or rather Knavery is it to make this Text an Argument to prove the thing