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	whole_a	world_n	2,776	4	4.5382	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45831	Rome is no rule, or, An answer to an epistle published by a Roman Catholic who stiles himself Cap. Robert Everard and may serve for an answer to two Popish treatises, the one entituled The question of questions, and the other Fiat lux, out of which books the arguments urged in the said epistle against the authority of the Scriptures and the infallibility of the Roman Church are collected : in which answer, the authority of the Scriptures is vindicated and the arguments for the Roman infallibility refuted / by J.I.	Ives, Jeremiah, fl. 1653-1674.	1664 (1664)	Wing I1103B; ESTC R41015	38,546	134

mouth of the Pope or Chief Pastour then I querie whether it may not be possible for him to erre since many Popes have been Hereticks and have taught contrary to the Law of God as that Pope did that told King Henry the 8th he might marry his Brothers Wife Sixthly But suppose the Pope did not erre in giving me the true sense of Councils and their Decrees then I querie How every private person shall have his judgment informed in the Truth without going to Rome Seventhly If you say he may be resolved at home by the Pastours in several places then I querie whether those Pastours may not erre since it is manifest that the several Pastours and Churches of Asia did erre and then how can the members of this Church be sure they are under an Infallible conduct to Eternal Life and that these Pastours teach according to the Doctrine of the Infallible Church VIII Since you say that General Councils Lawfully Called by the Pope their chief astour cannot erre I querie How I shall be infallibly assured when Councils are so called Since sometimes the Pope may come in by Simony and Usurpation as Boniface the 3 did and sometimes be a Heritick as Lyberius was who subscribed the Excommunication of Athanasius in which cases they ceasing to be lawfull Popes I would then know how I can be sure of a lawful Council IX Since there must be alway a lawfull succession of Popes to make a lawfull succession of True Ministers How shall I know infallibly that the Minister that I heat did lawfully so succeed and this I would know because if he be not a lawfull Minister I may not lawfully hear him And since that sometimes Hereticks have been Popes and sometimes the Chair hath been Usurped and once a Woman was Pope and sometimes there hath been two at once How shall I that am to hear a private Pastour know whether his Ordination did succeed from a lawfull Pope and not from some of these X. How shall I know what Council I may infallibly adhere unto since one Council hath opposed another and some cleave to one Council and some to another the Roman Church they test in the Niceen Council the Greek Church they rest in the Council of Arminum both which are contrary to the other how shall any one be assured of the truth of all those things with a divine certitude And yet you make the world believe that all your wayes are so plain that a fool cannot erre in them and that the Scriptures are doubtfull guides when no Religion in the World is perplexed with more doubts then yours XI If your Roman Church be this Infallible Church and all her Doctrines Infallible then I querie if it be not sinfull to doubt of the Truth of what she teacheth XII If it be not a sin to doubt of what your Church teacheth then why do you blame us for questioning your Infallibility XIII But if it be a sin to question the Churches Doctrine then how came the Baraeans to be commended for searching the Scriptures to see if what Paul preached was so or not and whether might not their searching the Scriptures have run them upon all those inconveniencies of mistaking by false Pointings corrupted Copies false Interpretations to the multiplying of Sects and Hereticks if it might why are they commended for searching XIV How can the reason of the Jews erring be because they did not know the Scriptures if the knowledge of them would not have been a sufficient guide to the Truth XV. But if you shall say we cannot know the Scriptures but by the true Church then I querie how shall I know the true Church since there are as many different opinions about which is the true Church as there is about which is the true sense of Scriptures XVI If you say the Scriptures decide the question and guide us to the true Church then whether this be not to speak Daggers to prove the knowledge of the Scriptures by the Church and the knowledge of the Church by the Scriptures XVII But if you say we know the Church by universal Tradition then I querie whether your Church can be so known since a great part of the Christian World hath and doth disown her witness the Greek Church together with most of the Churches in Europe XVIII Whether then you can shew such an universal Tradition for your Pope and Church as we can do for the Scriptures to which we do well to take heed as to a light that shineth in a dark place till the day dawn and the Day-star arise in our hearts XIX Where was the Infallibility of the Roman Church in the time of Athanasius when he complained totus mundus Arianizat that the whole world Ariantized XX. I demand Where will be the Visibility and Infallibility of your Roman Church in the time of the great Antichrist which your Rhemish Annotators say shall come towards the end of the World and abolish the publick Exercise of all Religion wherein consisteth the worship of the true God and shall pull down all kind of Religious worship save that which shall be done to himself alone See Rhem. Annot on 2 Thess 2.4 How will your Church appear conspicuously and universally to be a guide to Fools infallibly in those days FINIS

out of the great St. Austine against Manicheus whose Words are these If thou shalt find any one who doth not as yet believe the Gospel what wilt thou do when he shall say unto thee I do not believe But neither had I believed the Gospel unless I had been thereunto moved by the Authority of the Catholick Church Those therefore to whom I submitted when they required me to believe the Gospel why should I not yield Obedience to them when they perswade me not to believe Manicheus Thus speaks Austine and more to the same purpose lo which I Answer That this Text out of Austine may be applyed to any Church as well as to yours And if the Church of England shall perswade any one that is a Jew to turn and become a Christian may he not say he did well to believe them when they perswaded him to believe the Gospel Why therefore should he not believe them when they perswade him not to turn Roman Catholick But to this Text I shall subjoyne Two Texts more out of the same Authour against the Donatists The Question saith he between Us and the Donatists is where is the Church This is the Question between the Protestants and the Romanists He Answers Let not these Speeches be heard among you This I say and this thou sayest but let us hear what the Lord sayes There are certain Books of God unto whose Authority we both consent There let us try our Cause There let us seek the Church And again in the Scriptures have we learned Christ In the Scriptures have we learned the Church Ep. 166. ad Donatift Whosoever shall compare these Texts out of Austine may easily satisfie himself What his Judgment was in the Question between You and Us viz. whether we should learn Christ and the Scriptures from the Church or whether we should learn Christ and the Church from the Scriptures To this purpose Epiphanius speaking of a Heritick Saith This Man is found differing from the HOLY SCRIPTURES as will appear to all Men that Read attentively If he then dissent from them he is altogether an Alien to the Holy Catholick Church Epiphanius Tom. 1. lib. 2. haer 48. It seems in his time all men were permitted to read the Scriptures attentively to inform iheir minds in the Truth whatever is now a dayes pretended to the contrary I proceed now to the Epistle it self In the beginning whereof Page 1. You give an account of the Reasons of its Publication which are To Answer Expectation to prevent the World from censuring and to manifest your charity to your late dear Brethren from whom you have received returns of Assection I did expect that among those Motives that prevailed with you to publish the grounds of your change I should have found you saying that the Glory of God had been the chief moving Cause But I finde not a word of that and therefore however you may have Answered the Expectations of others I am sure you have not answered mine But further you say you published your Epistle To prevent the World from censuring Sir whatever you promised your selfe in the beginning of your Book your heart failed for fear of obtaining when you had finished it And therefore you are forced to Ride Post after your Reader and pray him That he would not up-braid you As if you had some private ends of your own in your present change See the Post-Script in Page 40. Which plainly shews that you had some mis-givings of heart that all you had spoken throughout your Book would not Answer your end Viz. Keep the World from censuring And as for that other end which you pretend in the publishing of your Book Namely Charity to your late Brethren Truly whatever you pretend they will scarce believe you because in your Post-Script you uncharitably impute the Calumnies and Slanders that were cast upon his late Majesty and his Majesty that now is to the Presbiterians and Independens Indefinitly without exception Is this Charity And this uncharitableness of yours is grievously aggravated First Because it is basely remembred by you who were in the same Condemnation with others And Secondly Because it is mentioned after it hath been pardoned by the Kings Majesty And is this your gratefull return for that love which your late Brethren have manifested to you If so surely the charity of a Catholick and the mercies of the wicked are alike cruel You proceed like a Romane Catholick and in the latter end of page the 1. Sound a Trumpet in your own praise by saying That your carriage was alwaies such while you was in Communion with them meaning your late Brethren As gave them sufficient reason to believe that you was not Byassed by world interests and selfish considerations But if any body believes so they may erre because they do not believe as the Church believes In the Second Page you tell us how you came to be acquainted with a Lay Gentle-Man of the Catholick perswasion and how he interrogated you about the grounds of Christian Religion The substance of his Questions was to this purpose Whether you were sure the Christian Religion in General was more true then the Religion of Turks Jews or any others c The Reason he gave for this question was that if neither your self nor those that taught you that Christianity was the only safe way to Salvation was infallibly certain or were capable of any mistakes or errour in this thing Then it followed that Christianity was but probable and not certain From Page second to the eighth you recite what Arguments your Catholick Friend used to prove these things to you Viz. That we could not convince a Turk or a Jew of the certainty of Christianity but by the Churches Infallibility Which I forbear to make a reply unto partly because it is but a Narrative of a private Conference between you and that Catholick Gentle-Man And chiefly because I shall have occasion to speake to the very same things in my following Answers to your Arguments to which I refer the Reader You come in the latter end of the 8. Page to tell us what Effects this Conference had upon your understanding as that thereupon You resolved to have Recourse to Almighty God by Prayer for his Divine assistance and to make it your businesse according to your skill and understanding to take a full view of the Catholick Faith and of Christianity and laying aside all Prejudices Pride and Humours You Resolved to embrace by the assstance of God whatsoever you should understand to agree to his most Holy Will and Pleasure Hereupon let me aske you a few questions First how are you sure you had a Divine Assistance in this choice as an Answer to your Prayers since when you made these Prayers you were not a member of your pretended Catholick Church Secondly How are you sure since the heart of Man is deceitfull that your heart did not deceive you when it inclined you to Popery Thirdly

it is ineffectual and so you must die without absolution or else you must grant that others beside a lawful Priest may remit sins But if none can do it but a lawful Priest Then Thirdly How shall you be infallible of those things that are necessary to make a true Priest as first that he was lawfully baptized with due matter and due form of words and that the Bishop which Ordained him a Priest did Ordain him compleatly with due matter form and intention You must know that the Bishop that made him a Priest was a Priest himself But suppose these doubts were assayled which cannot be and that you are certain he that is to absolve you were a true Priest yet still the doubt will remain whether he will do you that good he can and whether he will pronounce the words of absolution with an intent to absolve you For perhaps he may bear you some secret grudge and project your damnation for a revenge He may for ought you know be a secret Jew or Anti-Trinitarian and so far from intending your forgiveness of sins and salvation by this Sacrament that in his heart he laughs at all these things and thinks sin nothing and salvation but a word All these doubts must be clearly resolved before you can upon your Roman Catholick grounds assure your self that this man that absolveth you is a true Priest and that he giveth you true and effectual absolution or else when you have done all this for your salvation you may have the ill luck to be damned which makes salvation a matter of chance and not of choice and if so what are you the nearer for being a member of a pretended infallible Church Much more to this purpose might be urged and yet you cry out that the Salvation of Protestants relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds Whoever would be further satisfied in this matter I shall desire him to read that learned Treatise of Mr. Chillingworth Intituled The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation Your next instance is The Contradiction that seems to appear in Scriptures which you say argues them to seem untrue and for this you instance 2 King 8.26 compared with 2 Chron. 22.5 and Mat. 1.17 compared with Luke 3.35 36. which places you say seem to contradict each other I Answer First If they are but seeming contradictions then they do not weaken the reputation of Scriptures Secondly The resolving those seeming contradictions are not necessary to salvation because it is not necessary to salvation to know when Ahazia began to Reign not whether there were 41 or 42 Generations between David and Christ and therefore those Objections weaken not the guidance of the Scriptures in all things necessary to salvation which is the thing in question But lastly why doth your Church put her candle under a Bushel why doth not she set forth an infallible translation of the Bible For it may be those seeming contradictions in those fore-cited places was occasioned by the errour of the Scribe or the errour of the Translatour But hath not greater inconveniences attended the keeping the Canons of your Church If they have not how comes it to pass that there is contradictions in Scripture and none in Councils It seems your Church hath faithfully preserved all things uncorrupted for the benefit of posterity but the word of God You proceed pag. 25. to a seventh Reason Why the Scriptures are not a sole guide because then they would have been so in the Apostles dayes and if they had then the Authority of the Apostles you say must have ceased so soon as they had made an end of writing I Answer That it doth not follow that the opinion of the Scriptures being the sole guide should exclude the Apostles from being guides when they were living May not a Man as well say that Peters being the sole head of the Church as you pretend did exclude Christ that gave him his Authority from being head while he was yet living on the Earth and that a man that directs and solely guides you by Epistles how to negotiate your affairs should thereby cease to be a guide if he were present with you or that he should thereby be rendred unable to resolve any doubtfull word in that direction No more doth it follow that the Scriptures being held to be the sole guide should exclude the Pen-men from either being guides or giving an infallible interpretation of their own words while they were yet alive But what is all this to the Romane Church being an infallible guide The Apostles might be guides to the Churches while they lived both by their words and writings But since they are deceased we know no furer guide then their words to which to do well to take heed as to a light that shineth in a dark place And for those other things that you say follow in probability upon the Scriptures being our guide I shall say nothing to them because they are but probable conjectures of your own brain Your last reason which you urge why the Scripture is not a sole Judge is Because you say in effect it is to make it no judge at all but to make every man and woman to be their own judge to take upon them to read and understand them May you not as well say that your Church is not the judge because every man and woman must judge for themselves whether she be so or no before they joyne in Communion with her As say the Scriptures are not so because a man must judge for himself whether he rightly understand it or no Is there not as great a controversie in the World which is the true Church among all the pretenders to it as there is which is the right sense of Scriptures among the various readings and interpretations thereof Now how doth a mans judging for himself after he hath weighed Arguments and compared Text with Text render the Scripture to be no guide any more then your hearing and examining all the Arguments and Reasons which are alledged for the True Church among all pretenders to it and afterward according to your understanding judge which is true renders your self and not your Church the true guide And yet this is your Argument Every man judgeth for himself which is the true sense therefore the Scriptures are in themselves no judge at all In the close of this Argument p. 26. You conclude That if God loved the souls of Men he would have provided some sure means by which they might have been assured of the true faith c. without leaving them to the Scriptures to be interpreted by each one as he thinks best May not I reply as before That if God loved the souls of men he would have left them some sure means to finde the True Church among the many false pretenders to it and not have left it to themselves to choose which Church in their private Judgement they shall think is the true one Having done with

your negative positions viz. That the private spirit Reason and Scripture is not the sole Judge you come to infer from the whole That the Catholick Church is this judge and that God had alwayes such a Church This you endeavour to make good by saying God had such a Church Two Thousand Years before any Scripture was written And to demonstrate this you say Circumcision was brought in by Abraham and practised by the Church without Scripture to try it by c. I Answer first If the Pope will bring in any new Law or Canon with that Authority as Abraham brought in Circumcision we will believe him without a Council or desiring him to prove it by Scripture But Secondly It seems here is some other Rule and Guide beside Reason Scripture the private Spirit and the Church for here is no Council to decree Circumcision nor private spirit to suggest it nor reason to contrive it But here is God appearing to Abraham and commanding it by an immediate voice from Heaven So that this was Gods way of guiding his People then and not by General Councils and of this opinion is Chrysostome Hom. 1. in Mat. who conceives God might use other means and this agrees with that saying Heb. 1.1 God in sundry times and in diverse manners spake to our Fathers by the Prophets Lastly If the Scriptures are lyable to many exceptions as you say by which they are rendred uncapable of being our infallible Guide then I demand how you know what was transacted in the World the first 2000 Years and whether there was any Church at all in those times If you say you are by the Hystory of the Scriptures guided to believe what was done 2000 Years before the first Pen-man was born I demand how you can believe this since they are so fallibly and subject to so many exceptions as you say But further may I not with more certitude believe what Moses and all the Pen-men of Holy Scriptures writ of things they were eye-witnesses of then you can be of what Moses writ the first 2000 Years that were expired before he was born You come in pag. 27 to a second Argument Namely That the Church of the Jews were so the Jews I suppose you mean an infallible guide after the Scriptures were written and for this purpose you cite Deut. 17.8 The man that will do presumptiously and will not hearken to the voice of the Priest or unto the Judge that man shall dye I answer The Scripture saith Pro. 16.10 A divine sentence is in the lips of the King his mouth transgresseth not in judgement Doth it follow from hence that all Kings are infallible in their judgments But how and by what Rule were these priests to judge whom the People were to obey upon pain of death Ezekiel tells us Chap. 44.24 And in Controversie they shall stand in judgement and they shall judge it according to my Judgement they shall keep my Lawes and Statutes in all their Assemblies and hollow my Sabbaths But did these Priests and Judges always judge according to Gods Law were they always infallible in their Sentences How comes it to pass then that Aaron sinned in hearkening to the voice of the People when they required him to make them a Calf Exod. 32.2 and v. 7. It is said They had corrupted themselves Where was this Churches infallibility at this time and v. 8. They turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them And again where was the infallibility of the Priest when he appointed them v. 3. To break off their earing which were in their eares to make a Calf Surely in this they were an excellent type of the Romane Church who were quickly corrupted from their Primitive Purity Again Ezek. 22.26 It is said The Priests have violated my Law they have prophaned my Holy things they have put no difference between the Holy and Prophane neither have they shewed difference between the Clean and the unclean and have hid their eyes from my Sabbath and I am prophaned among them Neither was this the fault or a few but the Text tells us v. 30. That God sought for a Man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before him for the land but he found none Where was the Priest and the infallible church all this while whom the People were to hear upon paine of death So that the Text by you cited Deut. 17. is abused for they had plain Laws written which were to be a guide to Priest and People which if the Priest did not judge accordingly as many times they did not the People were not to hear them Your other Text is Mat. 23.2 3. the Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chair all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do I Answer If by sitting in Moses's chair you understand their teaching the People according to Moses Law we are of your mind for so it appears in the forecited Text in Ezekiel and in all such things the People were to hearken to them But if by sitting in Moses Chair you understand their Publick Authority and that whatsoever they so taught was infallible This I deny for they did sometimes like the Pope Mark 7.7 Teach for Doctrines the Commandments of men and v. 8. Laid aside the Commandments of God as you do the Scriptures that they might hold the traditions of men and v. 13. Made the Word of God of none effect by their traditions But if the Church of the Jews which was represented in the great Synedrion could not erre then it followeth that all Christian Religion must be discarded For if she was infallible in that judgment she made of Christ and his Doctrine then there remains nothing but that we renounce both him and it and turn either Jews or Pagans But lastly It appears that Christ himself had not this opinion of the infallibility of the Jewish Church which you have because then he should have referred all he taught to be decided by them whether it were true or no. But instead thereof he appeals to the Scriptures and offers Himself and his Doctrine as we do at this day to stand or fall by their verdict and to their Authority of the Church he opposeth that of the Scripture to which he knew the other ought to give place John 5.39.46 Mat. 22.42 43 44. Luke 24.27 You come in the third place in p. 27.28 to prove that there shall be an infallible Church under the New Testament your Texts are Esay 2.23 3. Esay 35.8.54.3.13 17. Esay 59.21 Esay 60.10 12. To which I answer First Why are these Texts brought to prove an infallible Church when the Texts themselves you say are no infallible guide how then can they guide us to your infallible Church But 2. How doth it appear that these Texts are to be applied to the Church of the New Testament Much less doth it appear that they are to be applyed to your Roman Church 3