Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	command_v	forbid_v	vice_n	1,917	5	9.6001	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53945	Ancient and modern delusions, discoursed of in three sermons upon 2 Thes. 2.11 concerning some errors now prevailing in the Church of Rome / by Edward Pelling ...	Pelling, Edward, d. 1718.	1679 (1679)	Wing P1071; ESTC R13403	31,461	63

4. c. 5. acquiesce in the judgement of the Pope and though he should chance to err in commanding to that which is a vice or forbidding that which is a Virtue the Church is bound to believe vices to be good and virtues to be evil And so he saith elsewhere that Christ gave unto Lib. in Barklain c. 13. Peter and in him to his Successors full power to make that a sin which is not sin and to make that to be no sin which indeed is a sin I am very confident there never was a more devilish Principle taught by the most hellish Impostors that liv'd yet in any Age of the Church Yet this is the Principle which the Romanists do go upon and take for granted that let their Popes teach what they will it must be true let them forbid what they will it must be evil let them require what they will it must be good and let them dispense with what they will it must be lawful even in foro interno in the Court of Conscience Now do but observe what are the things which those precious Infallible Guides teach Why that men may be saved by the Merits of Saints and so need not work out their own Salvation that they are justified before God if they do but confess their Sins to a Priest and undergo a slight and a cheap Pennance when the Priest hath absolved them that if they die in the guilt of any Venial Sins they shall go no further than Purgatory and shall soon be sent thence into Heaven by a good Legacy by a few Masses and by the Popes indulgence and that the Pope hath Authority and Power to Pardon judicially the sins of all men past present and to come even to the Term of ten thousand years Again what is it which they do forbid Why to be in Charity with those whom they call Hereticks to hearken to their Counsels and Arguments to discourse with them about matters of Religion to look into their Bibles and to examine the ground of their own Faith and whatsoever else tendeth to the prejudice of the Roman Cause is utterly forbidden under the pain of a Curse But as the Old Hereticks forbore that which they might and ought to have done but were very earnest for whatsoever was utterly unlawful so these while they tye men up from things that are honest and laudable do not only let them loose but drive them also to things which the Laws of God and of Nature have severely interdicted They require them to resign up their Senses Reason and Consciences into their hands to persecute all that are not of the same Opinions though of the same Faith with them to subvert Kingdomes to compass Sea and Land to Poyson and Assassinate Princes and if by Providence they be detested to Lie strenuously and to forswear the Fact and to protest their Innocence with the most bitter Execrations even at the last minute when their Souls are immediately to appear before that righteous Judge who is is the searcher of the heart And of the same nature are those things which they allow and dispence with Witness that Liberty they give men instead of Marrying to Fornicate to act the greatest Cruelties that the most Savage Wits can invent to equivocate and dissemble and deal falsly to break Oaths though never so strict and sacred and if need require to deny their Faith and to take the Sacrament even against their Consciences and for no other end but to abuse and deceive the World Briefly witness those dispensations for Adulteries for Murders for Killing ones Father or Mother and for many unnatural and most horrid impieties of which we have Mr. Eganes Rates some account given us by one who was of their own Communion and a more full account may be seen in their Taxa Camera a Book publickly printed of which their own Espenaeus Cited by Bishop Taylor in his Disswasive part 1. sect 5. saith that it is a Book in which a Man may learn more wickedness than in all the Summaries of Vice published in the World and yet to them that will pay for it there is given to many a License and to all an Absolution for the greatest and most horrid Sins It is no wonder to me that the Romanists generally are such vile inhumane and more than Barbarous creatures having Consciences seared with an hot iron especially the Italians who live near the Receipt of Custome and under the Nose of that monstrous Head of the Church who can make Villany Nothing And I am confident that no Leviathans whether of former or later Ages have bred so many Atheists as that Church which calls her self Catholick and takes upon her to remove all boundaries of good and evil and either to command or to allow whatsoever is contrary to Eternal Reason repugnant to Gods Word injurious to all Civil Societies shamefull to Mankind scandalous to Religion and destructive of its very Being and Nature Certainly that Character did never better befit any other Sect which Saint Paul gave of the old Gnosticks that they had the form of Godliness but denied the Power thereof 2 Tim. 3. 5. 6. And yet lastly it is observable of those old Deceivers that they pretended Miracles and vied with the Apostles themselves in working Wonders thinking to make their Delusions plausible by the same means and methods which served at first for the confirmation of the Gospel All ancient Ecclesiastical Writers have observed that the first Impostors were Magicians and that by inchantments and the help of the Devil they did many things which past for Miracles We read of Simon the first Heretick and the Father of those Sorcerers that he did flie in the air that he made Statues to walk and Cyril Cat 5. Chrys Hom. 19. in c. 7. Mat. move like men and that he would cast himself into the flames and yet come off without being burnt And so we find of Marcus that he was wont to make a long Prayer at his consecrating the Cup and made the Wine to change its colour and to look of a deep red and then he pretended that some of Christs blood had dropt into Iren. lib. 1. c. 9. the Chalice And many more instances might be reckoned up had I but time to search into Antiquity It sufficeth what Saint Paul saith expresly of these Apostates that tho they taught Doctrines of Devils yet their coming was after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders in this 2 Thess 2. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostome notes with such wonders as either were Impostures or tended to confirm an Imposture Had not our Saviour Christ foretold Matth. 24. 24. That false Teachers should arise and shew such great signs and wonders as would if it were possible deceive the very Elect Had not Lodovicus Vives told us that in his time some counted it a piece of Piety to coin Lies for Religion and were not