Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	according_a	believe_v	church_n	3,281	5	4.5409	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42831	Some discourses, sermons, and remains of the Reverend Mr. Jos. Glanvil ... collected into one volume, and published by Ant. Horneck ... ; together with a sermon preached at his funeral, by Joseph Pleydell ...	Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680.; Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.; Pleydell, Josiah, d. 1707.	1681 (1681)	Wing G831; ESTC R23396	193,219	458

purest times those of the first three hundred nay six hundred years which assertions I have in this place particularly and largely made good and divers of our Learned Divines have in their writings fully proved it Nor is there any one thing which we condemn in the Roman belief or practice but what hath arose by the corruption of times long since the beginning and indeed in the the Church of Rome there is an eternal fountain of Innovations in the authority they assume of declaring that is in good earnest in making new Articles of Faith So that their people can never know when they have all new things may still be obtruded as necessary and essential without end On the other side the Character of Antiquity condemns the Sects also Among them there are some old Heresies received but their principles and practices as opposite to those of our Church of England were not in the first best times Presbytery Independency Anabaptism Quakerism may have been here and there of old in the brains of some particular conceited men but never were in any general practice any where the eldest not two hundred years ago and some have arose in our own time Their ways they pretend to be contain'd in the holy Scriptures and if so we would presently acknowledge them to be Primitive But they are in the Scriptures only as those are interpreted by their private Spirits that is not there but in the fancies of the Innovators and these being their guide in interpreting Lo here also is a fountain of perpetual novellizing And as long as the imaginations of men can frame novelties we shall never be at the end of new Sects We have seen the rise of some in our late times of confusions and if ever we should be so unhappy as to see such again which God forbid in all likelihood from the same Source other new yet unheard of Sects and Heresies would arise to the further dividing of the Chncurh ad scandal of Religion There is nothing so pregnant with Novelties as imagination and the Sectarian private Spirit is no better nor worse than Fancy I deny not but these all sorts of them do retain some of the Primitive Doctrines as the Roman Church also doth but their opinions and ways that are opposite to the Church of England are not such This our Church without fondness or overweening I may say doth profess and teach the Ancient Apostolical Primitive Christianity and hath admitted no new things that are contrary to it It was reformed according to the Scriptures the Scriptures as they are interpreted by the first General Councils and Fathers those next the Apostles who we ought to believe understood best what were their doctrines and ways This Church in its constitutions is therefore truly ancient so in every main every considerable thing and truly Protestant protesting both against Roman and Sectarian Innovations 2. Another Character of the Faith delivered to the ancient Saints is that it was pure 'T was delivered to the Saints and it made them such The wisdom that is from above is first pure It teacheth and produceth Purity Holiness and real Goodness in Heart and Life The business of it is to conform us unto God and to make us like him And the Lord our God is holy And by this Character also is Popery condemn'd For this teacheth some direct impieties and immoralities and by the consequence of some other of its Doctrines the necessity of Reformation of life is quite taken away the Reins are laid on mens necks and Gods Laws are made void by their traditions Of the first sort are their Idolatries and Invocation of Saints and Angels which God both in the Old Testament and the New hath so earnestly declared against as the highest dishonour to his Majesty and affront to his Glory and which he stigmatizeth as the greatest impurities and frequently calls Fornication and Whoredome they are spiritually so Likewise their doctrines and practices of deposing and murdering of Princes and absolving the people from their Allegiance their dispensing with Perjuries Rebellions and other sorts of wickedness are highest immoralities and most Antichristian that is most contrary to the Spirit Genius and designs of the holy Jesus which were to redeem unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Besides which direct and point blank oppositions to the Christian principles and Rules they strike at the root and main design of Christianity by those their doctrines that render repentance and change of life unnecessary For according to them the favour of God and eternal Salvation may be had upon easier terms Crossings Pilgrimages Ave Maries Whippings Fastings with Confession and Absolution will do the business There is no need of cutting off right hands of plucking out of right eyes and mortifying the body in our Saviours spiritual sence that is of subduing and rescinding all inordinate appetites and affections which are the great difficulties of Religion the bodily exercises will suffice we may be safe and Sainted without obedience to those hard sayings Or if the other things should be omitted 't is but going to Purgatory at last and if you have money to leave for Masses and Dirge's you are secure of being pray'd out thence So that here the greatest design of the Gospel which is real inward holiness and purity is destroyed And without holiness 't is here made possible to see God And this is the worst thing that any thing that pretends to Religion can be guilty of On the other hand the Sects whatever purity and spirituality they pretend do many most of them teach doctrines and walk in ways that are contrary to the purity of heart and life that becomes a Christian The Gnosticks who were some of the first Fanaticks in the Christian Church pretended that they were the spiritual the pure people and that all things to them were pure on which account they gave themselves up to all Immorality and filthiness Sensual saith the Apostle having not the Spirit They denyed there was any moral good and evils in the nature of things and estimate of God And this Heresie is received among some of our Sects God they think and say sees no sin in them his elect people He loves not for the sake of holiness and vertue but freely that is for no reason but meer unaccountable will and if so 't is in vain to amend our lives to live soberly righteously and godly in order to our acceptance with him Though we are the quite contrary in all manner of evil conversation we may yet be his beloved his chosen This hath the malignity of the worst of Popery or Heathenism And such a Principle is among some of the Sects I accuse not all others that do not affirm so much as this do in a manner make good works unnecessary Faith their airy Faith that prescinds from moral goodness is all All is believing receiving trusting relying which are great duties parts of Faith but this as

Doctrines both Christ and his Apostles continually appealed Here is the firm reasonable Foundation of the Christian certainty The truths we believed are confirmed by Miracles than which there can be no greater evidence But now the Roman Church destroys this ground of certainty by a multitude of lying wonders which they impudently obtrude upon the belief of the people for proof and confirmation of their false and corrupt Religion the immediate consequence of which is a suspicion thereby brought upon the true Miracles and here is way made for Scepticism and uncertainty in the greatest and most Sacred Christian Doctrines And besides the Church of Rome having introduced among these many doubtful uncertain and many certainly false opinions and imposed them upon the faith of its votaries under the same obligations as it doth the most fundamental Articles what can be the consequence but that those who discover the errour or uncertainty of some of those pretended propositions of Faith should doubt all the rest And indeed since the main assurance is placed in the Infallibility of that Church for which there is so no reason and so much plain evidence to the contrary Since themselves cannot tell where that boasted Infallibility is whether in Pope or Council if we should allow them any such it follows that their Faith is precarious and hath no foundation at all In like manner the Sects among us resolve all their assurance either into a bare belief or the testimony of a private Spirit for their ground of crediting the Scriptures is but this Testimony and consequently whatever they receive from hence bottoms here The Papists believe the Scripture on the Testimony of the Church and these believe them on the Testimony of the Spirit that is in earnest the suggestions and resolutions of their own viz. they believe because they will believe and they find themselves inclin'd unto it And upon the same reason when the imagination and humour alters they may cease to believe or believe the contrary And there is not any thing in the world more various and uncertain than the suggestions and impulses of a private Spirit Besides the Sects also have vastly multiplied Articles of Faith and made all their private opinions sacred calling them Gospel truths precious truths saving truths and the like when they are but uncertainties at the best and usually false and sensless imaginations by which way also they expose the whole body of Christian Principles to suspicion and so weaken the Faith of some and destroy the Faith of others But the Church of England secures the certainty of our Faith by resolving it into the Scriptures the true seats of Infallibility and the belief of that into the Testimony of the Spirit in the true sense viz. that Testimony that God gave by his Spirit to Christ and his Apostles in those miraculous works he enabled them to perform They did not only bear witness of themselves that as our Saviour argues with the Jews Luk. 11. 48. would not have signified much The Father bore witness with them John 15. 8. and the works they performed by his power were the sure testimony Believe me for the works sake saith our Saviour Here is the ground of certainty And the Church of England entertains no Articles of Faith but those principles that have been so confirm'd that is none but what are evidently contain'd in the Holy Scriptures Whereas the Roman Church to mention no other have made the absurd Doctrine of Transubstantiation sacred though it is not only not contained in Scripture but contrary to the reason and even to the sound senses of mankind And if neither reason nor so much as our senses may be believ'd what assurance can we have of any thing A ground is here laid for everlasting Scepticism and uncertainty And the Sects have laid the same in their numerous silly tenents that are contrary to some of the most fundamental principles of Reason Nothing of which can with any shew be objected against this Church 6. The Faith delivered to the Saints was Catholick 'T was deliver'd to all the Saints entertain'd by all and was not only the opinion and belief of a prevailing Faction or of particular men in Corners The Commission given the Disciples was to go and teach all Nations and to preach the Gospel to every creature and accordingly it was widely diffused and all that profest the name of Christ were instructed in his Faith and Religion in all the articles and duties of it that were essential and necessary In these they joyn'd in holy love and communion till Sects came among them that introduced damnable Heresies contrary to the doctrine they had received These divided from the Unity of the pure Catholick Church and separated themselves from it gathering into select companies of their own under pretence of more Truth and Holiness After this manner the Church of Rome which had for some ages been eminent in the Catholick Church did at last corrupt and introduce divers unsound doctrines and usages unknown to the Ancient Catholicks and being great and powerful it assumed the name of the Catholick Church to it self and condemn'd all other Christians as Hereticks when it was it self but a grand Sect against whose depraved doctrines and ways there was a Church in all ages that did protest For the Greek Churches which are of as large extent as theirs never assented to them and divers other Christians in all times bore Testimony against those errours and depravations This Sect was large and numerous indeed but 't is not the number but the principles make the Catholick Principles conformable to those that were deliver'd to the Saints From these they have departed And the lesser Sects among us have done the same by the many vain additions that they have made to the Faith and their unjust Separation from that Church which retains the whole body of Catholick Doctrines and main Practices without the mixture of any thing Heretical or unlawful A Church that doth not damn all the world besides her own members as the Roman Church and divers of the Sects do but extends her Charity to all Christians though many of them are under great mistakes and so is truly Catholick both in her Principles and Affections I mean the Church of England as now established by Law which God preserve in its purity Amen FINIS A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF M r. Jos Glanvil Late Rector of BATH and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty Who dyed at his Rectory of Bath the fourth of November 1680. and was Buried there the Ninth of the same Month. By Jos Pleydell Arch-Deacon of Chichester LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and the White Hart in Westminster-Hall 1681. REVEL XIV Ver. 13. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their

He that is extreme in his Principles must needs be narrow in his Affections whereas he that stands on the middle path may extend the arms of his Charity to those on both sides It is indeed very natural to most to run into extremes and when men are faln Out with a Practice or Opinion they think they can never remove to too great a distance from it being frighted by the steep before them they run so far back till they fall into a precipice behind them Every Truth is near an Errour for it lies between two Falshoods and he that goes far from One is apt to slip into the other and while he flies from a Bear a Lyon meets him So that the best way to avoid the Danger is to steer the middle Course in which we may be sure there is Charity and Peace and very probably Truth in their Company Thus of my Directions FOr CONSIDERATIONS I 'le propose such as shew the Unreasonableness of our Enmities and Disagreements upon the account of different Opinions which will prove that our Affections ought to meet though our Judgements cannot My first is this I. Love is part of Religion but Opinions for the sake of which we lose Charity are not so The First I have proved already and for the other we may consider That Religion consists not in knowing many things but in practising the few plain things we know THE NECESSARY PRINCIPLES OF FAITH LYE IN A LITTLE ROOM This is Life Eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Saith he that best knew what was Eternal Life and what necessary unto it Joh. 17. 3. And the Apostle St. Paul draws up all into the same two Principles He that cometh unto God must know that he is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. St. Peter was pronounced blessed upon the single Profession that Jesus was Christ the Son of the Living God Mat. 16. 16. and the Eunuch was baptized upon the same Act. 8. 37. St. Paul reckons these as the only Necessaries to Salvation Rom. 10. 9. If thou confess with thy Mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be save And St. John to the same purpose Whosever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God This Faith indeed must suppose the general Principles of natural Religion and produce the Real Fruits of Righteousness to make it effectual to its end and these supposed the Apostles speak as if it contain'd all that is essentially necessary to be believed and known in order to our Happiness Thus the Fundamentals of belief are few and plain For certainly the Divine Goodness would not lay our Eternal Interests in Difficulties and multitudes things hard to be understood and retained The difficult work of Religion is not in the Understanding but in the Affections and Will So that the Principles in which Religion consists are the clearly revealed Articles in which we are agreed For the others about which we differ and dispute though some of them may be consequences of those and good helps to the practice of Religion yet I should be loth to make them a necessary and essential part of it For he that saith they are concludes all men under a state of Ruine and Damnation who either do not know or are not able to receive them An uncharitableness that is as bad as Heresie if it be not one it self The sum is Religion lies in few Principles I mean as to the Essence of it and that principally consists in Practice So the Prophet reckons Mic. 6. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do Justice and love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And St. James gives an Account of Religion like it Jam. 1. 17. True Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to Visit the Widow and Fatherless in their Afflictions and to keep himself unspotted from the World Religion is an Holy Life and Charity is a main branch of that But Opinions are no vital part nor do they appertain to the substance of it And shall we lose a Limb for an Excrescence or an Ornament An Essential of Religion for that which is but accessary and extrinsick Charity for an Opinion I think 't is not reasonable and I hope you think so likewise But I offer to your Consideration II. Charity is certainly our Duty but many of the Opinions about which we fall out are uncertainly true viz. as to us The main and Fundamental Points of Faith are indeed as firm as the Centre but the Opinions of men are as fluctuating as the Waves of the Ocean The Root and body of a Tree is fast and unshaken while the Leaves are made the sport of every Wind And Colours sometimes vary with every position of the Object and the Eye though the Light of the Sun be an uniform Splendour The Foundation of God standeth sure but men often build upon it what is very Tottering and uncertain The great Truths of Religion are easily discernable but the smaller and remoter ones require more sagacity and acuteness to descry them and the best sight may be deceived about such obscure and distant Objects And methinks 't is very strange that men should be so excessively confident of the Truth and Certainty of their Opinions since they cannot but know the Weakness of Humane understanding in general and cannot but often have found the Fallibility of their own The Apostle tells us that we know but in part 1 Cor. 13. 9. and makes Confidence an Argument of Ignorance 1 Cor. 8. 2. If any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know And Solomon reckons it as an argument of Folly The Fool rageth and is confident and there is nothing that discovers it more For let us consider The Scripture hath not been so clear and express in defining lesser Points and the words in which they are thought to be Lodged are many times figurative and obscure and of various meaning spoken only by the by or agreeably to forms of speech or customs that we do not know or by way of condescension to common Apprehension And therefore we see that Interpretations are infinite and there is no sort of men less agreed than Commentators All Opinions plead Scripture and many pretend to reason and most to Antiquity The Learned and the Prudent Churches and Councils Confessors and Fathers the former and the latter Ages the Vertuous and the Devout the Credulous and the Inquisitive they have all differ'd in the lesser matters of Belief And every man differs from almost every other in some thing and every man differs often from himself in many things Age hath altered our Judgements or we are children still Our Affections change our Thoughts and our Imaginations shift the Scene

thee saith the Psalmist ver 9. are faln upon me Those that despise the Church and its Servants first despised God and Religion And 't is the interest that his Glory hath in its contempt that makes them in the Text so sensible and so earnest When men hate and contemn their Prince and his Government they will scarce dare to vent their spite immediately against him but do it against his Ministers and Favorites in like manner the contemptuous enemies of God carry themselves to him and to his Messengers and Servants they give him a little formality of complement and respect but pour all possible scorn and reproach upon them But 't is for his sake they are thus slain all the day long and He knows where the contempt and enmity begins so that when we are scorn'd on the account of Religion we may resent it and ought so far as to be earnest with God for deliverance because his honour is concern'd with ours But this will be matter of particular Application and Address and therefore I say no more of it in this place but descend to apply the discourse for our Instruction and Practice I Infer First That no Church upon Earth can secure it self from contempt This of the Jews was Gods own constitution a Church of his framing not only in the essentials but in the circumstances of it A Church inlightned by Prophets founded on Miracles and incouraged by the more than ordinary presence of God with them and yet even They were a reproach to their neighbours a scorn and derision to them that were round about them Psal 79. 4. Their souls were filled with the scorning of those that were at ease and with the contempt of the proud And the Christian Church that succeeds into all their priviledges and hath the addition of more and greater That also hath undergone heavy burdens of contempt ever since it appear'd in the world The Author of it was the Son of God God blessed for ever the brightness of his Fathers Glory and express image of his person and yet He was despised and rejected of men Isa 53. 3. they hid their faces from him and esteemed him not as Isaiah Prophesyed and the event made good He came unto his own and they received him not yea they rejected him with contempt They reproach'd him in his Life as a Wine-bibber a Glutton a friend of Publicans and sinners In his Doctrines as a Deceiver and Blasphemer In his Miracles as a Conjurer and Magician and one that cast out Devils by Belzebub in his Declarations and rightful claims as an ignominious Impostor And at his Death they loaded him with all the marks of contempt and reproach imaginable Seiz'd him with Swords and Staves like a Murderer or a Thief condemn'd him by a publique cry as one not fit to live upon the earth Away with him Crucifie him crucifie him Buffeted him Spit upon him hung him up on an infamous tree as a vile person between two notorious Malefactors And if the Master had such usage what were the servants to expect If He be call'd Belzebub what must they look for Matth. 10. 25. They could expect no other than contempt and reproach and they had it in full measure The Apostles and immediate Messengers of the holy Jesus were accounted as madmen bablers deceivers of the people and setters forth of strange Gods their way and Doctrines foolishness cunningly devised fables every where spoken against Their persons treated infamously with Whips and publique scorns And the disciples that were made by their Ministry and endeavours had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings bonds and imprisonment and were forced to wander about in Sheep-kins and Goat-skins destitute afflicted tormented as the Apostle speaks to the Hebrews Heb. 11. They suffered reproach from the carnal proud their enemies without Jews and Heathens and from the spiritual proud that pretended to be within the Gnosticks those vile Fanaticks of the first times who boasted that they were more knowing and more spiritual than all others that they better understood yea only understood the mysterie of Religion they spoke swelling words of vanity had mens persons in admiration heap'd up teachers crept into houses led captive silly women despised dominions spoke evil of dignities caused divisions separated themselves as they are described by the Apostles These despised the true Church and all the sober members of it as people of a low Form and utterly unacquainted with the heights and spiritualities of the Gospel and therefore they scorn'd their company and communion and went out from among them I need not further prosecute the relation of the Churches usage in those old times These last accounts lead my thoughts to our own and perhaps there have been none from the beginning which more sadly prove that no Church can be secure from contempt than these By the blessing of God we enjoy a Constitution Apostolical in its Doctrine Primitive in its Government decent in its Ceremonies grave and pious in its Liturgy We have the Scriptures the Creeds the Sacraments the main Ordinances and Duties of the first and purest times we are freed from Idolatries Superstitions and other corruptions of the Roman Church on this hand and clear from the vanities and Enthusiasms that have overspread some pretended Protestants on that our Church hath rejected the painted bravery of the one and provided against the sordid slovenliness of the other Her cloathing is decent and not gaudy Hath all that which may assist reverence without any thing that can directly minister to vanity or superstition It is a Church reformed by grave Councils and not by popular Tumults fram'd to primitive patterns and not to modern phancies conducted by Reverend Prelates and not left to the pride and ignorance of Novices or factious multitudes And now one would think that such a Church as this might escape the contempt of the Proud and that it would be rever'd at least among the professors of the same Faith and Religion But alas how much otherwise is our case we are exceedingly contemn'd our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the conptempt of the proud Never any Church had more just reason to take up this sad complaint of the Text than this For its Government the most Apostolical and most Catholick is decryed by the spiritual proud as Antichristian and Tyrannical Its worship the purest and most primitive reproach'd as Idolatrous and avoided by them as the Plague Its Liturgy the best in the world loaded with contempt and made a common Theme of derision Its discipline made void by every one that pleaseth observ'd by very few out of Conscience and by none out of Fear Its penalties the greatest its Excommunications that were so justly terrible heretofore slighted and despised as if they were but meer Buggs and Scare-crows Its Ceremonies those few comely Rites it enjoyes declam'd against with loud outcries as superstitious and abominable and its