Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	faith_n	prove_v	3,810	5	6.3590	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51177	The coppy of a letter sent from France by Mr. Walter Mountagu to his father the Lord Privie Seale, with his answere thereunto also a second answere to the same letter by the Faukland.	Montagu, Walter, 1603?-1677.; Falkland, Lucius Cary, Viscount, 1610?-1643.; Manchester, Henry Montagu, Earl of, 1563?-1642.	1641 (1641)	Wing M2472; ESTC R6266	23,462	40

providence and goodnesse which Saint Augustine affirmes for his opinion directly in his Booke de vtil cred. cap. 16. saying if divine providence does preside over our humane affairs it is not to be doubted but that there is some authority constituted by the same God upon which going as upon certain steps we are carried to God Nor can it bee said hee meant the Scripture onely by these steps since experience shewes us by the continuall altercation about the right sense of severall of the most important places of it that what is contained there cannot be a competent rule to mankind which consisteth more of simple then learned men and besides the Scripture must have supposed to have beene kept in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of them which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved the Scripture free from all corruption then that it hath maintained it selfe in a continua●● 〈…〉 isibility which Saint Augustine concludeth to be a marke of the true Church in these words in his booke contra Cecill 104. The true Church hath this certain signe that it cannot bee hid therefore it must bee knowne to all Nations but that part of the Protestant Donatist is unknown to many therefore cannot bee the true No inference can be stronger then from hence that the concealment of a Church disproves the truth of it Lastly not to insist upon the allegation of the sense of all the Fathers of the Church in severall ages which seemed to mee most cleere that which in this cause weighed much with mee was the Confession and Testimony of the approved Doctors themselves of the Protestant Church as Hooker in his booke of Eccles. Pol. pag. 126. God always had and must have some visible Church upon earth And Doctor Field the first of Eccle. cap. 10. It cannot bee but those that are the true Church must be knowne by the Profession and further the same Doctor saies how should the Church bee in the World and no body professe openly the saving truth of God And Doctor White in his defence of the way cap. 4. pag. 790. The providence of God hath left monuments and stories for the confirmation of our Faith and I confesse truly that our Religion is false if a continuall descent of it cannot be demonstrated by these monuments downe from Christs time this appeareth unto mee a direct submission of themselves to produce those apparent testimonies of the publique profession of their faith as the Catholikes demand but this I could never read nor know of any that performed For D. White himself for want of proof of this is fain to say in another place in his way to the Church p. 520. The Doctors of our faith have had a cōtinual succession though not visible to the world so that he flies from his undertaking of a conspicuous demonstration of the monuments of his faith to an invisible subterfuge or a beleefe without appearance for hee saith in the same Book in an other place pag. 4. All the externall government of the Church may faile so as a locall and personall succession of Pastors may be interrupted and pag. 40● We doe not contest for an externall succession it suffiseth ●hat they succeed in the Doctrine of the Apostles and faithfull who in all ages did embrace the same truth so as here hee removeth absolutely all externall proofes of succession which before hee consented to be guided by I cannot say I have verbally cited these Authors because I have translated these places though the Originall be in English yet I am sure their sense is no way injured and I have chosen to alleadge Doctor Whites authority because he is an Orthodox professor of the Protestant Church the reflection of the state of this question wherein I found the Protestants defend themselves onely by flying out of sight by confessing a long invisibility in their Church in apparence of Pastors and Doctors left mee much loosened from the fastnesse of my professed Religion but had not yet transported me to the Catholike Church for I had an opinion that our Divines might yet fill up this vacuitie with some more substantiall matter then I could meet with so I came back into England with a purpose of seeking nothing so intentively as this satisfaction and to this purpose I did covertly under another mans name send this my scruple to one in whose learning sufficiencie I had much affiance in these termes Whether there was no visible succession to be proved in the Protestant Church since the Apostles time downe to Luther and what was to be answered to that objection Besides the confession of invisibilitie for so many ages to this I could get no other answer but that the point had been largely and learnedly handled by Doctor White and many others of our Church upon this I resolved to informe my selfe in some other points which seemed to mee unwarrantable and superstitious in the Ceremónies of the Church of Rome since I had such an inducement so little satisfaction in a point which seemed to mee so essentiall and in all these scruples I found mine owne mistake in the belief of the Tenets of the Roman Church gave me the onely occasion of scandall not the practice of their doctrine and to confirme mee in the satisfaction of all them I found the practice and authority of most of the ancient Fathers and in the Protestant Refutation of these Doctrines the Recusation of their Authorities as men that might erre so that the question seemed then to me whether I would rather hazard the erring with them then with the later Reformers which consequently might erre also in dissenting from them since then my resolution of reconciling my selfe to the Roman Church is not lyable to any suspition of too forward or precipitate resignation of my selfe my judgment may perchance be censured of seducement my affection cannot bee of corruption Upon these Reasons I did soone after my returne last into England reconcile my selfe to the Roman Catholike Church in the belief and convincement of it to be the true ancient and Apostolicall Church by her externall marks and her internall objects of faith and doctrine and in her I resolve to live and die as the best way to salvation when I was in England I did not studie dissimulation so dexterously as if my fortune had read it to me nor doe I now professe it so desperatly as if it were my fortunes Legacie for I doe not believe it so dangerous but it may recover for I know the Kings wisdome is rightly informed that the Catholike Faith doth not tend to the alienation of the subject it rather super-infuseth a reverence and obedience to Monarchie and strengtheneth the bands of our obedience to our naturall Prince and his grace and goodnesse shall never finde any other occasion of diversion of them from the naturall and usuall exercise of themselves upon

THE COPPY OF A LETTER Sent from France by Mr. Walter Mountagu to his Father the Lord Privie Seale with his answere thereunto ❧ Also a second answere to the same Letter by the Lord Faukland Imprinted 1641. My Lord AFter much debate concerning the fittest expression of my duty to your Lordship whether I ought by silence seeke to suspend the beliefe of the declaration of my self I have made here or by a cleere profession of it assure you of what I may onely feare to present you with as apprehensive of a mis-interpreted affection I concluded what was most satisfactory to my first and immediate duty to God was most justifiable to my second and derivative to Nature therefore I resolved so soone to give you this ingenuous account of my selfe The greatest part of my life capable of distinction of Religions hath been employ'd in places and conversant with persons opposite to the faith I was bred in therefore it had been strange if naturall curiositie without any spirituall provocation had not invited mee to the desire of looking with mine own eyes upon the foundation I stood upon rather there holding fast blindfold by my education to agree to be carried away alwayes after it insensible of all shocks I met to unfasten me and besides I was solicited with the reproaches Protestants press upō Catholikes that they blindly believe al the impostures of the Church without any illumination of their judgements this me thought enjoyn'd the cleerest information of my self of the differences betweene us I could propose to my capacity So at my last journey into Italy I did employ all my leasure to a more justifiable settlement of my belief as I then imagined to a cōfirmation of my judgment in what had been introduced by my birth and education I began with this consideration that there were two sorts of questions betweene the Catholikes and Protestants the one of right or doctrine the other of fact or story as this whether Luther were the first erector of the Protestants Faith whether it had a visible appearance of Pastors and Teachers before his time I resolved to begin my enquiry with the matter of fact for these Reasons first because they were so few and so comprehensible by all capacities and the controversies of doctrine intricate and so many as they required much time and learning for their disquisition onely and I found my self unprovided of both those Requisitions for this undertaking and for the decision of the other I needed not much presumption to believe my selfe a competent Judge when it consisteth onely in a perusall of authentike testimonies Secondly I considered that there was no one part of controverted Doctrine whereon all the rest depended but that this one question of fact was such as the decision of it determined all the rest for if Luther could be proved to be the Innovator of the Protestants faith it was necessarily evicted of not being the true ancient and Apostolicall Religion therefore I began with this enquiry which Protestants are bound to make to answer this Objection to find out an existence of some Professors of the Reformed Doctrine before Luthers time for finding the Catholikes were not obliged to prove the Negative it was my part to prove to my selfe the Affirmative that our Religion was no Innovation by some Pre-existence before that but in the perusall of all the Stories or Records Ecclesiasticall or Civill as I could chuse I could finde no ancienter a dissention from the Roman Church then Waldo Wickliffe and Huffe whose cause had relation to the now-professed Protestancie so as I could find an intervall of about 800 yeers from the time that all Protestants confesse an unitie with the Church of Rome downe to those persons without any apparent profession of different faith to answer my selfe in this point I read many of our Protestant Authours who treated of it and I found most of them reply to this sence in which I cite here one of the most authentike Doctor Whitaker in his Controversie 2. 3. pag. 479. Where they aske of us where our Church was heretofore for so many ages Wee answer that it was in secret solitude that is to say it was concealed and lay hid from the sight of men and further the same Doctor Chap. 4. pag. 502. Our Church alwayes was but you say it was not visible doth that prove that it was not No for it lay in a solitary concealment To this direct sence all the answers were that ever I could meet with to this objection I repeat no more those places being so positive to our point this confession of Invisibility in our Church for so many ages did much perplex me it seemed even to offend naturall Reason such a derogation from Gods power or providence as the sufferance of so great an ecclipse of the light of this true Church and such a Church as this is describ'd to be seeming to mee repugnant to the mayne reason why God hath a Church upon earth to be a conserver of the doctrine of Christ and his precepts and to convey it from age to age untill the end of the World therefore I applyed my study to peruse such Arguments as the Catholikes brought for the proof of the necessity of a continuall visibility of the true Church down from the Apostles time in all ages and appearance of Doctors teaching and administring the Sacraments in proof of this I found they brought many provisoes of Scripture but this Text most litterall of the fourth of the Ephesians Christ hath placed in his Church Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the Saints till we meet in the unitie of the faith and next the discourse upon which they inferre this necessary visible succession of the Church seem'd to me to be a most rationall and convincing one which is to this effect Naturall reason not being able to proportion to a man a course that might certainly bring him to a state of supernaturall happinesse and that such a course being necessary to mankind which otherwise would totally faile of the end it was created for there remayned no other way but that it must be proposed unto us by one whose authoritie wee could not doubt of and that in so plain a manner as even the simplest might be capable of it as well as the Learned This work was performed by our Saviour from whose mouth all our faith is originally derived But this succeeding age not being able to receive it immediate from thence it was necessarie it should be conveyed unto them that lived in it by those that did receive it from Christs own mouth and so from age to age untill the end of the World and in what age soever this thread of doctrine should be broken it must needs be acknowledged for the reason above mentioned that the light which should convey mankind through the darknesse of this world was extinguisht and wee left without a guide to inevitable ruine which cannot stand with Gods

ready to shew our visibility in this question men are to consider that there is a double splendor of the Church which makes way for the visibilitie of it The proper splendour of a Church consists in puritie of doctrine The common splendour of a Church consists in the outward accommodations which appertain not to the being but the well being of the Church as temporall peace multitude of professors locall succession of Pastors yet persecution may interrupt this succession of Pastors it may cut off the multitude of professors heresie may so far prevail as to make the Orthodox Church pull in her head witnesse the time of Arianisme when few but godly Athanasius and some with him were faine to keepe in corners and of this our Divines are to be understood when they speake of our latencie that for this outward splendour it suffered a great obscuritie for divers hundred yeeres yet when it was at the lowest the doctrine was visible and some professors still in the eye of the World I would wish you well to consider the things which I shall tell you The state of the Church is so ordered by our great Master Christ that she is to expect her times of obscurity as well as her times of splendor hee hath made her estate militant and appointed her to a passive condition as well as an active designed her to vicissitudes of obscurity as well as luster and shews her no lesse glorious in her obscurity then in her triumph as Tertullian saith of vertue Extruitur duritia destruitur mollitia 2 This visibilitie represented by an innumerous multitude locall Succession Secular estate these were not considered in the first times when the Church stood sound nor in the later times when she got some recovery only in the intermediate when she lay under the crosse and were these the probats of Faith it had bin ill with the Israelites Church in the time of Elias worse with the Apostolicall Church when the Scribes and Pharisies sate in Moses Chaire worst in the time of Arianisme and in times of Antichristianisme which shall come as most Writers say 3 This glorious succession which Rome so much brags of is a deceitfull medium whereby to measure the truth of a Church because a Church may be a true Church without it and be also a false Church with it Non colligitur ibi necessariò esse Ecclesiam ubi est successio saith Bellarmine though Stapleton be of another minde Alexandria challengeth succession as well as Rome the Church of Constantinople takes her pedigree from Saint Andrew the Apostle and brings it down to our times A false Church may have succession and a true Church may want it otherwise you will grant that Rome is no true Church the Church of Rome hath sometimes lyen empty sometimes it hath carried double and both of them have bin deposed these broken links marre the chaine of that succession But because this rather concernes the persons not the thing It is otherwise to be cleerly shewed that it may be a true Church that hath not this uninterrupted succession for else no Church at all could be true in her first plantation For successions are by descent descents have no place in first originals whereas the orthodox faith doth the very first day put her in possession of Apostolical succession as Tertullian well saith That Churches wch have not their original descent from the Apostles are Apostolicall propter consanguinitatem doctrinae The place which you cite out of the fourth to the Ephesians proves cleerly the necessity of orthodox Pastors not of locall Succession you may hereby see how in the informing of your selfe in this particular you are overtaken this thing also much troubles me that your Letters said that when you last came back out of Italy you sought nothing so attentively as satisfaction in these points of controversie especially that touching the visibilitie of our Church in all ages but could receive none Could you never in all the while of your last being in England find the time to acquaint me with your desire doubtles I must say you did in this time study the dissimulation of your intention otherwise I must have known it I was heretofore more indulgent towards you for God knows it Walter the sonne of my bodie was never so deare unto me as the salvation of my sonne Walters soule your yonger yeers can witnesse how I shewed you the way which I my selfe took to settle mine own salvation for though it was my happinesse to be derived from vertuous and religious parents yet I tooke not my Religion meerly by discent but studied and examined the ground on which I was to found my faith I read both Papists and Protestants I found both confident and contradictory Et quoties palpitavit mihi tremulum cor before I setled either way sometimes thinking safest to mean well and to keep unsetled either way yet I saw a necessity laid on mee to be one of the two Churches but how to find out which of them was the true Church whereof I must be a member if I would secure my salvation hic labor hoc opus est I easily resolved there was not two Churches whereof a man might chuse which to be of and after long study I found cleerly that to be the true Church which constantly held the common faith which faith had the Scripture for the rule this known and resolved which is undoubted then I was not scared with that fearfull censure of the Roman Church which pronounced all damned that are not of that Church But how much am I distasted to finde severall arguments made in the Letter all to insinuate that the Scriptures are not a competent rule of faith and first varietie of interpretation secondly obscuritie of some places thirdly inauthentiquences of themselves fourthly their authoritie dependent on the Church fiftly the puritie of them warranted by the visibility of the Church sixtly made Authentike by the Churches authoritie strange assertions as if the true Church were not to be tried by the true faith but the true faith by the Church I know my self bound to believe the authoritie of that Church which makes Scripture the rule of faith but as for the act of any Church though it be a fit Ministry to shew me the way yet it is not of authority sufficient of it selfe to secure me of my salvation from true faith the true Church is inferr'd and which is the true Church when all is done must be tried by the Scripture but it is now with us as it was in the time of Chrysostome when there was so much question which was the true Church and men were of so many different opinions about it as none could tell what Church to bee of or what Religion was safest to trust to so saith the Father of the Scriptures which in matters of faith necessary to salvation speak so truly so fully so plainly as it is but a shift for a man

all the rest and not onely so to us but to all men whereas this though granted necessarie determin'd to his wish would indeed conclude against us but not for them since the Greek Church would put in as good plea upon the title of visibilitie as that of Rome and hee would be to begin anew with them when he had ended with us Fourthly He gives his reason If Luther could be evicted to be the Innovator his Religion was then evicted of not being the true Ancient and Apostolicall To this I answer by confessing the consequence but hee might be the Renovator and not the Innovator and then no such consequence follows Fifthly He saith we are bound to find an existence of some Professors of the Reformed Religion before Luther which requiry is grounded upon his supposition of the necessity of a continuall succession of a visible and no wayes erroneous Church Now I will first examine the sence of his tearmes By the first I conceive by a place hee cites out of Saint Augustine that he means visible to all Nations but I pray hath his been always so I mean at least for many Centuries to those Nations which Columbus hath not long since discovered By the second tearm Church I suppose he means a company of Christians holding neither more or lesse then Christ taught for in a more large sence no man denies the Church to have bin always in some degrees visible and in this sence I not onely deny it necessary that it should always be visible but that it should alwayes be for I doubt whether there be or for a long while have bin any such Next that such a one as hee meanes appeares because when catalogues have been brought of some who in all ages have differed from them in things which wee hold his side would not accept of them because they agreed not with us in al things yet when Campian intends to prove all the Fathers to be his hee useth onely this course of instancing in some wherein they agree with him though sometimes not so much but rather the contrary ought to be inferred as in the instance of Polycarpus for comparing his words with the History it will appeare that he concluded him a Papist for not being perswaded by the Pope though they differed from them in many other as indeed all the notable Fathers doe in more then one point I will therefore say that if this be required to shewing that a Church hath been ever visible it is more then either part can doe and therefore I hope they will come upon better consideration to confesse that not necessary for us to doe which is impossible for themselves For let any man look into Antiquitie I will not say without all prejudice but without an absolute Resolution of seeing nothing in it that contradicts his present beliefe and if he find not some opinions of the Church of Rome as unknown to Antiquity as either hee or I as the Popes Indulgenges having power to deliver out of Purgatory confest by Bishop Fisher and Alphonsus de Castro where they treat of Indulgences if hee finde not others at first unknown after known but not held de fide which are yet so at Rome as prayer to Saints their enjoying the beatificall vision before the day of Judgment the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and her being free from all actuall sinne If he find not some wholly unknown absolutely condemned which wee condemne as the lawfulnesse of picturing of God the Father whereof the first is confest by Baronius in the margent to an Epistle of a Pope which sayes the same and the latter is to be found in many places of Saint Austine Lactantius and others nay if he find not that all the Doctors Saints and Martyrs of the two first ages I mean as many as are now extant and speak of it held something which both parties condemned as the opinion of the Chiliasts if I say he finde not this or I shew him not that he might have found it I professe I will be ready to spend my life for the Church against which I now employ my pen So that this will be the end neither of our Churches have been always visible onely this is the difference that we are troubled to shew our Church in the latter and more corrupt ages and they theirs in the first and purest that wee can least finde ours at night and they theirs at noon And whereas hee expects that D. White should stand to this to confess his Religion false if a continual descent of it could not be demonstrated if hee himselfe please to grant as much as he exacts if he but continue in this Resolution and in this search I doubt no more but that hee will soone leave to be a Papist then I should doubt if I saw him now receiving the Communion in the Kings Chappell that he had done it already Sixthly his reason for the necessitie of the visibility follows because the cōtrary were a derogation from Gods power or providence I answer to say he could not keep the truth exactly in mens beliefe were to derogate from Gods power to say he had not given sufficient means to finde the truth and yet damned men for error the first would be a derogation from his providence the second from his Justice but to say hee suffers men to erre who neglect the meanes of not erring and that he damnes none for a meere errour in which the will hath no part and consequently the man no fault derogates from none of the three but sayes hee this is repugnant to the maine reason why God hath a Church upon earth to be the conserver of the doctrine of Christ and to convey it from age to age I answer to conserve it is every mans duty but such as they may all fail in and is indeed rather the forme of the Church then the end of the Church an exact conservation making an exact Church as a lesse perfect conserving a lesse perfect Church As for conveyance of doctrine the whole Church conveyes none whereof many if his be it have had but little convey'd to them Particular Christians especially Pastors teach others which it is every mans duty to doe when he meets with them who want instruction which he can give and they are likely to receive yet is not the instruction of others every mans mayne end But I know Master Mountague perswades himself that some body of men are appointed to convey this doctrine which men are to receive onely because they deliver it and this I absolutely deny for we receive no doctrine from the Church upon the Churches authority because we know her not to be the Church till we have examined her doctrine and so receive rather her for it then it for her Neither for the conveyance of the Truth is it necessary that any company of men in all times hold it all because some may convey some truths and