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	roman_a	4,619	5	7.9310	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53985	The true mark of the beast, or, The present degeneracy of the Church of Rome from the faith once delivered to the saints a sermon on November 5, 1681 / by Edward Pelling ...	Pelling, Edward, d. 1718.	1682 (1682)	Wing P1106; ESTC R1620	19,445	35

alter'd that will undeniably prove the Possibility of that thing And because this is the main point in debate which if proved will at once take away all their pleas of an Infallible Spirit all their pretences to Antiquity all their Arguments against our Reformation and all those Insinuations whereby they beguile Ignorant and Unwary men I must desire your patience while I insist somewhat largely and particularly upon it And for proof hereof I might take notice of one Modern Principle in the Church of Rome which doth plainly Intimate and Argue a Confession out of their own mouths that they have alter'd the Old Faith for the Principle is this That it lies in the power of their Church not only to Declare New Articles of Faith but to Make and Constitute New Creeds and to Impose them as necessary to Salvation The most Learned Bishop Taylor hath shewed this against them in his Excellent Disswasive from Popery wherein he observes too that when Pope Leo the Tenth issued out his Bull against Martin Luther and condemned him he condemned him for teaching this among other things That it is not in the power of the Church or Pope to make Articles of Faith Now saith my Learned and Judicious Author rightly It is not Credible they would publish such Invidious and Ill-sounding Doctrine to no purpose and to serve no End therefore it may without further Evidence be believed by all Discerning persons that they have Need of this Doctrine or it would not have been taught and that consequently without more ado it may be concluded that some of their Articles are parts of this New faith But I shall wave this for Brevity-sake and so I shall wave also many Testimonies of some of the Ancients which are usually and with good Reason brought to prove the plain Innovations in Religion which are now Taught and Practised in the Roman Church I am willing to take a shorter course and that which will bring me very home to them to demonstrate that they have alter'd and adulterated the Primitive Faith even of their own Church and this I shall shew by men of their own and by using some Testimonies out of and by making some Remarks upon some of the most considerable men whom they own to have been Bishops of their Church in the Primitive ages 1. First then St. Peter and St. Paul are believed by them to have founded and built their Church Nor can it well be denied but they were both of them at Rome and we may suppose the One to have been the Apostle of the Jewish the other of the Gentile-Church there But now when the One calls the Scripture a sure word of Prophecy and requires us to take heed thereunto 2 Pet. 1. 19. and when the other tells us that The whole Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine 2 Tim. 3. 17. for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be Perfect throughly furnisht unto all good works How can we reconcile this with the late pretended Authority and Necessity of Tradition When St. Peter requires us To be ready alwayes 1 Pet. 3. 15. to give an answer to every man that asketh us a Reason of the Hope that is in us and when St Paul's manner was To Reason with men out of the Scriptures Act. 17. 3. opening and expounding the meaning of them How can we reconcile this with those Doctrines touching the Necessity of Hiding the Scriptures from the Vulgar and the Excellence of a Blind and Implicite Faith When St. Peter affirms That there is no Salvation Act. 4. 12. in any other but in Christ only and no other name under heaven given among men whereby we can be saved and when St. Paul tells us That Christ was by his sufferings consecrated to be our High Priest that He intercedeth for us and is the One onely Mediator how can we reconcile this with that Doctrine touching the Invocation of and trusting in the Intercession and merits of Saints When St. Peter tells us That Christ Suffered Once 1 Pet. 3. 18. Heb. 7. 27. c. 9. 28. 10. 10. for Sins and St. Paul agrees to it That Christ offered up himself a Sacrifice Once that he was Once offered and that That offering of his body was once for All How can we reconcile this with the Doctrine touching the daily Sacrificing of Christ in the Mass When St. Peter taught That through the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved and St. Paul argued in this very Epistle to the Church of Act. 5. 11. Rom. 11. 5. Rome That if by Grace then it is no more of works How can we reconcile this with that Doctrine about Earning and Meriting Heaven by the intrinsick value of our performances When St. Peter would have us to call upon the Father and St. Paul would have us Pray with the Spirit and with the understanding also How can we reconcile this with that Doctrine of Praying in an Unknown Tongue A thing so directly repugnant to the Apostles order as if it were done out of meer spight against 1 Cor. 14. When One Apostle tells us That we are redeemed not with corruptible things as Silver and Gold How can it consist with that Doctrine about redeeming Souls out of pain by Eight-penny Offerings and a Lusty Legacy as if our Saviour's Vae were to be removed and the Gospel were to run thus Wo unto you that are Poor And when the other Apostle so often calls the Solid Element in the Sacrament Bread how can it be Natural and Real Flesh and when he commands all men to eat of that Bread and to drink of that Cup how can we reconcile it with the Doctrine of Half-Communion which they themselves have confest to be contrary to the Institution Licet Christus post coenam instituerit suis discipulis administraverit sub utraque specie panis vini hoc venerabile sacramentum tamen hoc non obstante c. Concil Constant Sess 13. Et similiter licet in Primitiva Ecclesia hujusmodi Sacramentum reciperetur à fidelibus sub utraque specie tamen c. ibid. of Christ and against the practice of the Primitive Church Briesly when St. Peter teacheth That the King is Supream is it not New Doctrine that He hath a Superior yet this is a Popish Principle whosoever they be that believe it that the King hath any above him whether it be Pope or People And when we hear both these Great Apostles preaching up the Necessity of Obedience to the Government the one peremptorily requiring us to Honour the King and to submit our selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lord's sake and the other pressing this very home particularly to the Romans as if he had foreseen that in after-ages men of the Romish Faith would prove Traytors and to prevent it if it were possible we find him charging Every soul no

and Wine is not abolisht in the Sacrament for ' tisfrom that Principle that received and common Principle that he argues against those deceivers So that if We are Hereticks for denying the doctrine of Transubstantiation Pope Gelasius himself was an Heretick also for Teaching that which is the Faith of all Protestants But indeed neither was he nor are we to be blamed for it was the Faith not of Pope Gelasius alone but of all the Primitive Catholicks 10. Should I now tell you that the same Gelasius condemned the administration Comperimus autem quod quidam sumpta tantummodo corporis sacri portione à Calice Sacri cruoris abstineani Qui proculdubio quoniam nescio quâ superstitione docentur obstringi aut Integra Sacramenta percipiant aut ab integris arceantur quia divisio unus ejusdemque mysterii sine Grandi Sacrilegio non potest provenire Papa Gelas. in Gratiani Decret de Consecrat distinct 2. c. 12. of the Sacrament in one kind only as contrary to the usage of the Church of Rome it self in his time that Leo the first condemned all Adoration of any Creature that St. Gregory disclaimed the worshiping of Images and Pictures and overthrew the Doctrine of Purgatory and so go on searching into the times of old and making such other Collections as 't is no very hard matter to Leo ser 2. in Nativit make I should soon return more than a Full Jury of the Primitive Bishops of Rome and those good Greg or Ep. ad Seren. men and true in comparison to try and clear this grand point that the Errors of the modern Romanists Et in 7 Job l. 8. c. 8. which we have rejected are such as are not to be reconciled with the Primitive Faith of the very Roman Church which was the third thing I undertook to show 4. But we will forbear to walk further among the Monuments of the dead Instead of that we will in the next place take a short view of the vanity of their Pretences who charge us with Noveltie Heresie and Schisme for imbracing and sticking to that Reformation which by the wonderful good Providence of God hath been wrought in many parts of the Christian world and more especially here in this Realm Had we broached any Doctrines which are really New we had been guilty of Innovation Had we violated the integrity of the Apostles Creed we had been guilty of Heresie or had we bid defiance to the Communion of the Catholick and Apostolick Church we had been guilty of Schism and our condition would be sad But the old Sages of the Church and our own Consciences do bear us witness that in every of these respects we are not only Innocent but Righteous for our Faith beareth the same date with Christianity and we have forsaken the Church of Rome in no material point but where she hath for saken the Ancient Church and indeed her own Primitive self And how are we to blame if we have done this tho it be against her humour Is it not very hard that the Governours of a Family shall not be permitted to cleanse their own house from filth and cobwebs because the next Neighbour will chuse to let his habitation ly like a Dunghill or is it not unreasonable that one Church must not be allowed to be a cleanly Matron because another is resolved to be a dirty Slut why thus stands the case between us and our Imperious and Unconscionable Neighbours Our Bishops as to their just Authority stand upon the same Level with the Bishops of Rome and so do all the Bishops in the world beside And this is according to the 34th Apostolick Canon Now if he will not suffer a Beesome to come near his door the fault is not ours and much good may his stye do him so he do but ly in it quietly but neither ought it to be an offence to him if our Prelates have taken the first and fairest opportunity they could take to sweep our Church and set it to rights as all the Churches of God were of old They commonly ask us where our Faith was before Luther and we say 't was in the Creed which our Ancestors before Luther's time believed as well as we do Now and as far as they believed that so far they were Christians and Catholicks and so far we allow our Adversaries to be Christians and Catholicks too For this is the necessary and common Faith of all Christians But before the Reformation many Errors did bear this Faith company and made the Table fowl wherein the Creed was written and when we took it down to cleanse it we only brusht off the dust from it so that still our Faith was and is the same though our Errors in other matters are thrown out of doors They ask us where our Church was before King Hen. the 8th and we tell 'em 't was here in England where it is still But before King Henry's time 't was abused and fill'd with superstition and Legends and a great deal of Trumpery and unlawfull Stuff which either the ignorance or the knavery and secular designes of some Priests hadfoisted in and which we hope God in mercy did pardon to our fore-fathers who did not know the unlawfullness of those Wares And when in King Henry's dayes a Reformation was begun and after was compleated we did not pull down the Church over our heads but only flung out of it such things as had been amiss in it so that our Church is the same still only then it was Nasty and now it is Neat We neither destroyed the old fabrick nor built a New one but we cleansed that which was and purged the Sanctuary from its Pollutions letting the Pillars and the Walls the Creed the Commandements and the Pater Noster and what else was necessary or fitting for God's Worship to stand still as they did and indeed better Now if this was a Crime truly it might have been laid to our Saviour's own charge when he went about to Reform those abuses and innovations which had crept into the Jewish Church by the Artifice of the Pharisees as these did into our Church by the help of the Priests Did he not tell them that from the beginning it was not so and did he not thereby direct them to Primitive practice as the Rule of Reformation and would it have been a good plea against him should the Jews have said Thus we have formerly believed and done from the days of yore therefore to teach otherwise is to be guilty of Novelty and Schism and to set up another Church or would it have been a sufficient plea against his Disciples those great Reformers of the world should the Pharisees have demanded of them where was your Church before Christ is it not a Mushrome of yesterday and had not the answer been easie that they had brought Religion to that purity which God anciently intended why this is our case that we have Restor'd