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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	earth_n	great_a	world_n	2,396	4	4.4621	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67100	A discourse of miracles wrought in the Roman Catholick Church, or, A full refutation of Dr. Stillingfleets unjust exceptions against miracles together with a large discovery of the Doctors unexcusable frauds, manifest in his many false, perverted, and impertinent quotations / by E.W.	E. W. (Edward Worsley), 1605-1676.	1676 (1676)	Wing W3614; ESTC R16804	246,745	416

Perseverance and constancy in any other Society but in the Roman Catholick Church only Most reasonably Therefore may we apply our Saviours sacred Words to this Church and say Had She not done greater Works had She not exhibited more glorious Miracles in the Open view of the world than any other those rebellious Spirits that oppose Her would not have committed so hainous à sin but having seen the palpable VVonders wrought in Her and by her their sin is supra modum peccans enormously great and unexcusable 13. Thus much said of true Miracles I would willingly know to what purpose doth Dr Still produce the Wonders of Infidels and Hereticks against the great Works of God Manifest in our Church Can he hope by these lesser Signs to extinguish the Light of great Miracles Or will he suppose the Heathens Miracles true and ours false If so he is above measure blamable unlesse he first prove their Records Authentick and ours forged Will he say that all the Miracles pretended by Gentils Hereticks and the Church are à like false and feigned He Speaks at random without proofe and dos open wrong to Manifest Truth You will better understand what I would An Instance Shewing that no comparison can be made between the Churches Mirucles and those done by Infidels Say by this one clear Example Imagin it were certainly known to us all that it pleases Almighty God for the ending of debates about Religion to have matters decided by à visible sight of Miracles in an open Contest between two men Suppose likewise that God should say these men shall appear among you to Morrow The one à false Prophet à great Magician The other my Servant commissioned to work in my name but none before hand shall distinguish between them save only by the Strength and greatnesse of their Signs Upon these make your Judgement The one having without violence set open à prison Gate fast shut endeavours to resuscitate à man stark dead but cannot The other by à Word only spoken recal's him to life The one after he had shown an Image walking up and down Offers to cure the born blind but in vain The other presently gives him perfect sight and thus the Strife goes on in exhibiting many like Wonders Is it not think ye as easy to distinguish the Magacian from the other in this contest as is to discern between à Blazing star and à glorious Sun The very like is our Case in the Comparison made between Miracles wrought in the Church and those other done by Infidels and Hereticks when Divels have à hand in them The Iudgement of Authors Concerning Miracles wrought by Christ's Adversaries 14. The ancient Irenaeus expresly denies Iren. lib. 2. cap. 56. Hereticks the power of working true Miracles Nec enim donare possunt saith he c. They cannot give sight to the blind nor hearing to the deaf nor cure the Infirm the Lame or Paraliticks S. Augustin S. Aug de unitat Eccles speak's more plainly Aut figmenta mendacium hominum aut portenta fallacium Spirituum They are either the Fictions of lying men or monstrous things done by Fallacious Spirits And elsewhere Aut falluntur aut fallunt Hereticks Aug. Hom. 13. in Joan. either deceive by their Miracles or are deceived Thanks be to God our modern Sectaries who pretend to no Miracles herein easily quit themselves of Fraud 15. Other Authors grant à Power of working some weak kind of Miracles to wicked men to Hereticks and Heathens and chiefly ground themselves upon several passages in Holy Writ presently laid forth and explained In the mean while 16. I say first God never wrought Miracles God Cannot work à Miracle to confirme false Doctrin by Heathen or Heretick in confirmation of any Doctrin opposite to his own revealed Verities which Christ the Apostles and the Church have delivered The reason given above is clear The first Verity cannot contradict himselfe but God would Do so could he by clear Signs establish à Doctrin Contrary to his own known and received Truths if as we now suppose he speak's as well by Signs as by words Hence it also followes that in case he permit à Miracle to be done by any out of the Church as was by Balaams Asse no member I hope of the true Church that ever yeild's in worth and Greatnesse to his own glorious Miracles 17. I say 2. The Divel that brought in The Divels Power in doing wonders Limited this Confusion of Signs between false and true Miracles and would fain do something like God can work no wonder but either by dazling mans fancy or by à swift and subtle Application of natural Agents together in order to some unusual effect as is already noted All true essential Transmutations therefore All Generations of perfect living Creatures as of men horses and the like not subject to any Magick are above the Divels Power hence saith Medina cited above what some Write of men changed into Wolves is to be accounted feigned and fabulous The Divel you know is called the Prince of the Air and can as Ludovicus Vives tom 2. lib 2 de unit fidei pag. 379. Vives well observes afflict men with Infirmities speak in an Idol Assume an Airy Body and exhibit himselfe visible c. God permit's no more Good I am sure he never did to any without à Cheat at the end 18. I say 3. No Passage in Holy Writ Nothing in true Ecclesiastical History or in any approved Author ascribs the like Power of working real Miracles to faithlesse men assisted by the Divel as have been wrought by Christ the Apostles and in the Church 19. Some Argue out of Scripture and too Thessalon 2. v. 9. Apocaly p 13. v. 13. much extolling Antichrist's Signs produce the Apostles words concerning that false Prophets appearing in all Power and lying Wonders S. John point's at these Signs as bringing down fire from Heaven and seducing the Inhabitants on the earth I Answer if we speak of the great Antichrist Antichrist's wonders no true Miracles that shall appear before the end of the world his Wonders will be great but far from the worth of true Miracles whence it is we are forewarned of his lying Prodigious Signs and one Lowd Lye is That he will deny JESUS the Son of MARY to be true Christ and consequently endeavour to enervate the Truth of the whole Gospel He will come saith Holy Scripture in his own name showing himselfe as John 5. 45. if he were God yea extolled above all that is called God or that is worshipped But that man 2. Thes 2. 4. losses all reason that can be brought by à sight of foreknown lying VVonders to deny the true God JESUS CHRIST and the Gospel when he has at hand not only more but far greater Miracles registred in Scripture and evidently wrought in the Church to confront the Divels pride Vanting by Antichrist 20. In this weighty matter therefore when

upon Scripture Miracles the whole Story of Samson for example or of Eves conference with à Serpent render those in like manner contemptible Nothing seem's more easy than to flout it is the Dr's Usual strain where there is no gain-saying Truth 3. I Say the Dr waves S. Dominicks great Sanctity and choisest Miracles and never tell 's you of his fasting à whole Lent together with bread and water only of his admirable Charity of his desire of Martyrdom of his profound Humility in rejecting Ecclesiastical Dignities three Bishopricks one after another He Saith nothing of the blessed mans Patience in enduring the affronts of those wicked Albigenses when they spit upon him cast dirt in his face and tyed straw upon his back to make him Contemptible But did he Therefore repine No he went away as the Apostles did rejoycing in being thought worthy of suffering these reproaches for his Lord and Master Christ JESUS Not à word have we from the Dr of the Saints admirable Power over Divels though by making only the Sign of the Crosse he cast seven unclean Spirits out of one woman that afterward consecrated herselfe to Almighty God Not à word The Dr Waves the greatest Miracles ●rought by S. Dominick of his ardent zeal for the Conversion of Souls not à word of his great Austerity when most frequently he made choice of the bare ground for à bed to lie on Finally you have nothing of his stupendious Miracles though it pleased God to make the Saint renowned by raising three dead Persons to life again 4. These and innumerable other certain Surius de de S Domin 4. Augusti Wonders Authors of great credit have recounted of S. Dominick and are faithfully collected by Laurentius Surius but our Dr neither daring to deny the greatest nor to discover fraud in any for that 's impossible guilfully waves all and content's himselfe with breaking á few Iests upon the Divel who as the Dr will have it Twice Still page 491. vexed S. Dominick in the shape of à Sparrow while he preached to Religious women and once in the guife of à Monky The sparrow pitifully abused and insulted over by S. Dominick had all his feathers pluck't off and the Monky that play'd some Monky Tricks before the Saint when he wrote late at night was nodded at to hold the candle till his Toes began What things the Dr picks out And laughs at to burne With these two Stories merrily told the Dr sport's himselfe and his jocular telling them must be thought an ample confutation of all S. Dominicks Miracles Though he can neither blame the Saint for using the Divel hardly much lesse evince that such matters of Fact are false or forged I wish the Dr would peruse the life of the great S. Antony January the 17. Written by S. Hierom where he will find what different Shapes the Divel assumed to vex the Saint with 5. It is time meerly lost to follow the Dr through the rest of his senceless and weak Efforts against S. Dominick For your Satisfaction here is one All Authors recount that his Mother near the time of her Travel had à Vision that She bore à whelp holding in his mouth à Torch which set the world on fire à true Presage as the real effects Shewed of his illuminating the world with the light of his Doctrin and burning Charity No saith our The Dr's virulent words uttered against S. Dominick virulent Dr misconstruing all that Authors Write S. Dominick was à true Fire-brand having not near so much light as heat in him And thus he misinterpret's others that call the Saint à Lyon upon the account of his undaunted courage in preaching boldly Christ's Doctrin to those pernicious Albigenses and how effectual his Preaching was manifestly appear's by the innumerable Conversions wrought upon them This Truth confessed by all Writers is à clear Testimony of the Saints light and ardent Zeal prognosticated by that burning Torch which his Vertuous Mother saw before his Birth 6. Again saith our Dr Lewis of Granada Lud. Grana Con. 1. de S. Domin recount's that S. Katharine of Sienna had by Revelation or saw in some Vision the eternal Father producing his Son out of his mouth and S. Dominick out of his Breast and said the one is my Son by Nature the other by Adoption The most Blasphemous comparison of all other saith wise Dr Stillingfleet Yea horrible blasphemy to se à Firebrand compared with the Son of God Answ The most ignorant Cavil that ever came from Dr. Pray you tell me when Divine Wisdom the Second Person of the B. Trinity The First begotten before all Creatures avouches of it selfe Ego ex ore Altissimi Prodivi I came out of the mouth Eccl. 24 5. of the Highest and the most learned Expositors upon this Passage teach with Lyranus that by The Dr's ignorance discovered Os the mouth of the Highest is meant Mens Divina the Divine understanding whereby the Eternal Word is produced as our sensible words are by the mouth Tell me I say what blasphemy lies here Now that the word Mouth according to the Phrase in Scripture properly signifies Mens or the Intellectual faculty is manifest Psal 39. 30. by the Royal Prophet The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom id est The mind or understanding Meditates not the mouth that only speak's what the mind conceives Neither is there the least shadow of Blasphemy in the other Part of the Vision where S. Dominick is said to be produced out of the Breast or charitable heart of the eternal Father Answerable Hier. 31. 3. to that of the Prophet Charitate perpetua dilexi te I have loved thee with everlasting Charity and the manner is signisicantly expressed by S. John Sic Deus dilexit mundum c. So God Joan. 3. 16. loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for us If the Dr tell us God hath neither Breast nor heart he bewrays his ignorance and knowes not that even Scripture it selfe and so may Saints often speak Anthropapathw̄s For example Cor meum ad Moab saith Jerem. 4● v. 36. God Tactus dolore cordis with à hundred like Expressions O But the comparison between the Divine word and S. Dominick seem's horrid Pitiful Adopted Children by Grace are rightly called filii Dei Sons of God and the increated Rom. 8. 17. Word is also called the Son of God Filius meus es tu Ego hodie genui te Doth this comparison offend No Because there is no comparison between Infinit and Finite Eternal and temporal Know therefore Mr Dr that the Generation of the Divine Word was is and ever will be Infinite necessary natural to God and Eternal The Filiation or Generation of No comparison between the eternal Generation of the Divine Word and the filiation of adoptive Children by grace God's adoptive Children by Grace is quite contray purely free to