Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	christian_a	church_n	profess_v	3,448	5	8.0722	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47046	Of the rule of faith a sermon at the visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God, William Lord Bishop of Lincolne, holden at Bedford August 5, 1674 / by William Jackson ...	Jackson, William, 1636 or 7-1680.	1675 (1675)	Wing J95; ESTC R16801	18,948	43

make it our necessary duty to teach what they prescribe Otherwise we can never answer it to God who hath made us accountable to them nor can we give them any security that their people shall be brought up Orthodox in the Faith or obedient and peaceable in the State And it proves the better defence of the Faith the more eminent they are whose tender years are well seasoned as those of the best strength of naturall parts and quickness of wit and inclination to learning Those that are naturally disposed to be religious lest they prove Zealots in a wrong way Those that are likely to become Ministers of holy things and Stewards of this Faith Those that are of more then ordinary quality even in worldly respects as Birth Riches or Favour especially the families of Grands and Princes What advantages the Iesuits above other Orders have made of this is not unknown and any one may see that so long as these are made sound and resolute for the Faith there is the less danger of error in the rest 5. The fifth means is by conflicting with and suppressing all Hereticks and Dissenters from the Faith and extinguishing their Heresies and Errors This is properly to Contend because it is against the adversaries of the Faith And is done three ways especially I. By confutation of their errours And that first by Personall Congress and disputation This way our adversaries have of late been a little shy of having found that neither their art nor their zeal will maintain a bad cause before Iudges who are not afore-hand at their devotion which they of Rome are not to expect in a Reformed Church and I hope the rest will no longer find in the Church of England And secondly Their writings are to be answered with writings And this way their Arguments have been so sifted and run so far that controversies are on both sides drawn to the very dregs of opposition and nothing new hath been objected of late that is materiall Yet so long as they continue their batteries we are not to sit down in silence but to stand upon our Guard lest we should betray that Faith to their importunity which hath been so well defended against their arguments II. The second way to suppress Heresies is by acts of Convocation and solemn Censures of the Church This was the way of old The Fathers met in Synods or Generall Councils as the cause required to make provision against Heresies as they rose and infested the Church But the late Disciplinarians have it seems thought the preservation of the Faith an easier work and not of such Publick and Catholick concernment and have therefore in their new Model ordered Heresie to be Iudged in the Kirk-Session or Consistory where are no more then the Minister of the place and one Lay Elder or two As if Heresie were so small a crime as to be fit for the cognizance of two or three no better Iudges Or as if any but the Clergy had power to Iudge of it This is utterly a great mistake and miscarriage for Heresie being at least a perversion and so in effect a denial of some point of Faith is a crime of the highest nature as striking at the Churches foundation And the Ministers alone are the Guardians of the Faith And the Clergy in Convocation next to a Generall Council of the whole Church are the supream Iudges of all Controversies about it So God himself ordained in that Church which of all the Churches of the first Plantation was most troubled with Hereticks and that was the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 14. 32. The Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets That is the doctrines of private Teachers in every Church are to submit to and so to be allowed or condemned by the concurrent Iudgement of all the Pastors of that Church which is not to be had but in a Council of that Church or a Convocation As in all sciences and callings the concurrent Iudgement of those whose proper employment and study they are is the most likely the most legall and authentick and the derniere determinations The King onely calls the Clergy together and proposes to them leaves them to debate and determine And though the Statute-Law set the temporall penalty for Heresie yet it takes from the Iudgement of the Church what Doctrines are Hereticall A prudent and a Christian constitution For should the secular Power undertake without the Church to Iudge what is Heresie it would give the People Iust reason to suspect that it was not matter of Faith but reason of State that swayed the determination which is the next way to cast all Faith and Religion out of their minds Whereas on the other hand a publick condemnation of Heretieall doctrines by the Ioint voices of them whose cure and calling it is must in reason have the most universall influence in any Christian Church that is not neer its Apostasie What is the cause why nothing hath of late been this way done against the many Sects and Heresies that trouble us I may not say but I must needs think that the want of it is a main reason that they are not lessened but rather increased And if this want continue long will be followed with a diminution and decay of the Churches power of the purity and stability of the reformed Religion professed in the Church of England and in fine if not redressed with the ruine of both III. The third way for the suppressing of Heresie is the making and executing of good laws for the silencing of Hereticks and Dissenters from the Faith and hindring their practices And herein the secular Arm is to interpose as the nursing Father of the Church and Defender of the Faith For though the Church solely denounce Hereticks yet she hath no power now to punish them temporally but what the Civil Magistrate invests her with who is therefore constantly to assist her And this not without absolute necessity for they are a sort of People that have obstinacy in their very Nature and definition and are generally insensible of spirituall coercion In this work the Godly Emperors of old were very diligent as appears by severall of the ancient Laws especially in the first book of the Code And how the rules of Government come since to be so much changed that the giving liberty to the inveterate and avow'd enemies of the Church and Religion established shall be now thought the best and onely way to make them obedient and fit to be trusted in the Church deserves well to be considered Certainly had their practises been as well obstructed by the execution of good laws as their opinions have been fully confuted by the writings of learned Men there had been by this time no pretence for a debate about Indulgence to Dissenters And what ever event may in point of prudence be expected from this It cannot be thought but that the many extravagant and blasphemous fancies so freely published in

OF THE Rule of Faith A SERMON At the Visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God WILLIAM Lord Bishop of Lincolne holden at Bedford August 5. 1674. By William Iackson D. D. CAMBRIDGE Printed by Iohn Hayes for Henry Dickinson in Cambridge And are to be sold by R. Chiswel at the Rose and Crown in S t Pauls Churchyard in London 1675. S t Iude verse 3. Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common Salvation it was needfull for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints OF how fatal consequence to the Peace of the Church and the Purity of our Christian Faith the Licentious Preaching of Dissenters hath been we have had a late and a wofull experience Warning enough surely not to trust them again Having seen not onely the Government and Discipline of the Church broken down and all the Articles of our Creed batter'd by whole Legions of Heresies But also the first Article the very foundation of all Religion taken away too That it hath been by wise men of late thought a necessary work to prove that there is a God and to resume the Primitive Employment of writing Apologies and defences for the Truth and Excellency of Christian Religion as if we had been reformed into the Heathenism of our Fore-fathers And though by the mercy of God and the presence of his Anointed we have for some years had the Government of the Church restored and the Solemn Worship of God returned to our Publick Assemblies yet we do not see that the minds of the People generally are resetled upon that firm basis of the Ancient Catholique and Holy Faith from which they were once so tumultuously removed Those contrary winds of Doctrine that raised that heavy storm are not yet laid and so long as men take so much liberty of Indulgence God knows when they will But till then it can never be unnecessary or improper especially in such an Assembly as this to make use of this verse of St Iude with the variation of one word onely Beloved when I gave all diligence to preach unto you of the common Salvation it was needful for me to preach unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints The Text is plain enough to the meanest capacity onely some that think they have a peculiar interest in the word Saints may be mistaken for by that word is meant in plain English Christians those that are baptized into the faith of Christ for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of persons in this life generally signifies in the new Testament and in the Text being used in the plural number seems to denote the Collective body of them the Church And then faith being taken Objectivè for the matters or things to be believed The faith once delivered to the Saints is those Doctrines which it pleased God in one set time to reveal and to deposite as a standing Rule of Faith in the Church for ever There are in the words three things generally observable I. The nature and immutability of the Rule of Faith the Faith once delivered unto the Saints II. The way and means to preserve this as it was first delivered that ye should earnestly contend III. The Importance and necessity of so doing Beloved when I give all diligence to write unto you of the common Salvation it was needfull for me to write unto you and exhort you 1. For the Rule of Faith This must needs be the word of God in what manner soever revealed by what means soever made known to us to be such as might easily be proved to any that do believe there is a God And therefore it is 1. A word that is some Doctrine or Divine truths that we are to believe For it is an Intellectuall Rule or a Rule to the understanding which is to suspend or give assent to the Doctrines of Religion so far as they disagree or accord with this Rule Now seeing there is no belief but of something that is affirmed or denied there can be no Rule of this but onely some Doctrines or propositions presupposed as true and taken for granted before hand And this is the way of all Arts and Sciences which contain such diversity of objects for our belief and understanding Every one of them hath some fundamentall Maxims or Propositions upon which the whole body is afterward raised and in Contradiction to which nothing is to be taken for true in the respective science Now the Doctrine of Christian Religion being the most reasonable Doctrine in the world is questionless also the most regular and Methodicall hath in it as much certainty and evidence of a regular Method as is in any science and more and would so appear to us had we as clear a comprehension of it as we have of other doctrines And therefore agreeably this Phrase The Rule of Faith is not to be taken Causally or Formally as if we sought for a Measure antecedent to the fundamentall points of our Belief to try them by but it is to be taken SubIectivè or Materially that is a Rule consisting of the fundamentall points of Faith and a formall Rule to determine controversies and to condemn Heresies by This was the sense of it both name and thing when it came first into use among the Fathers in the Primitive Church as may be seen by Irenaeus Tertullian S t Austin Epiphanius Nazianzen Leo and the rest of them that treat of the Christian Faith Till of late upon the Popes pretensions to an infallible Iudicature the words have been wrested from their primitive sense to signifie the arguments and motives that perswade us to entertain the Christian Doctrine it self in gross or more especially the chief parts of it for this seems to be the meaning of them in the Controversie at this day But these Arguments or Motives whether from Reason or Authority are antecedent to this Rule the ground and means of coming to it not the Rule it self otherwise we should have as many Rules of Faith as we have arguments from reason or authority why we believe Indeed if we take the word Faith for our Act of believing a Christians Faith hath this in Common with all other belief that the Rule and the object matter of it are the same thing For the immediate limit and measure of all belief is and must be the apparent truth of the thing proposed beyond which our assent cannot go without Error or believing a falshood nor can it fall short of it without infidelity or want of due belief these two properties make a Rule in the most adaequate and exact sense But then nothing can have this apparent truth rightly and Regularly farther then as it is consonant to those propositions on which the truth of it depends and