Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	affirm_v	church_n	faith_n	2,551	5	5.0998	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31437	Diatribe triplex, or, A threefold exercitation concerning 1. Superstition, 2. Will-worship, 3. Christmas festivall, with the reverend and learned Dr. Hammond / by Daniel Cawdry ...	Cawdrey, Daniel, 1588-1664.	1654 (1654)	Wing C1626; ESTC R5692	101,463	214

this The Churches that retain these Feasts especially the Lutherans are not reputed the best Reformed Churches nor by the Doctor himself I beleeve thought fit to be compared with England some other Churches in Doctrine and Worship and so no fit presidents for our Reformation What private persons wish or say is not much to be regardded unlesse their reasons bee constringent However we are not alone nor the first in this dis-usage of this Festivall Some Protestant Reformed Churches are with us and afore us As for the Sermons given to Christmas day by some that now disuse it wherin The whole body of their publick devotions is falsely said now to consist their prayers being as good and as large as the Liturgies it will afford him no more succour than this That the Authority then in being commanding Vacation from work they onely took the opportunity to preach to prevent disorders in their people which attend such Festivities And the Authority now in force prohibiting they doe forbear to preach § 12.3 The laying down or disusing the observation of this Festivity is not an act of Division or separation from either the particular Church of England or from the Universall Church in all ages especially that of the first and purest times Not the latter for certain for we have proved afore the first and purest ages of the Church did not observe it Not the former unlesse he will yeeld that the Reformation of the Church of England in former times was a Division or separation from the Church of Rome or the Reformation in Luthers time was a division and separation from the Catholick Church as Papists say it was § 13.4 If Superstition and profaness may be ground sufficient to lay aside a Custome the complexion of the times have long since invited to the laying aside the usage of this Feast His pretences to the contrary are insufficient 1. The omission of Christmas sermons and services tends not to raze out of the minds of the ignorant sort the slender knowledge they have of the birth of Christ and consequent mysteries of Religion For the Gospell being read and preached on all the year long they cannot but often hear of the Birth Life Death Buriall and resurrection of Christ The Knowledge which the ignorant people learned by some mens Christmas Sermons Act 25 was slender indeed nothing but a Superficiall as he Notionall carnall knowledge of one Jesus as that Roman Deputie spake that was borne at that time to give men liberty to Feast be merry 2. This cannot as he charges it gratifie their worldly affections and assist Atheism c. but rather to keep it as usually they did in all Festivall delights like the Revells of Bacchus did both mote gratifie their Worldly lusts and tended to Atheism and profanesse 3. The Casuists whose great reason hee seemes to applaud affirming that the necessaries of beleefe for the vulgar sort are no more than the great Holy dayes of the year spake with as much that is as little reason as their fellowes the Jesuits who say and affirm that Images are the best laymens-books instead of the Scriptures 4. The ejecting of these Holydaies out of the Church will not any with dispatch the opinion of any necessity of beleeving the Articles of faith the Creed being still to be retained in and with the Catechisme for the Ministers preaching constantly of those Truths may helpe not onely in some degree as he but very much and more than the great Holydaies of themselves can doe And why not abundantly sufficient as it was in the first planting of Churches before these Festivalls were invented We have had enough experience that in those places Cathedrall Cities where those Festivalls have been most punctually and solemnly observed taking in there Chrystmas Sermons too there have been found lesse saving knowledge of Christ more Superstition and more Prophanesse than in any Country Villages where the Gospell hath been sinceerely preached § 14. The Impatience of sound Doctrine and readinesse to embrace what ever is novel is not to be found in those of dee per sound knowledge but in the ungrounded professors of former times made formal Christians by external Ceremonies outward Pomp of service But those that endeavoured to Reforme the abuses of Superstition and prophanesse are the men onely or chiefly that propugne and maintain sound Doctrine whereas those that were the greatest favourers of those Festvities some of them either are fallen into the propagating of error Arminianism c. or at least doe little appeare to maintain the truth As for Hospitality and charity at those times its observable in many strong pleaders for Christmas that they are willing enough to abate the charge of the Feast both then and all the year after yet no body hinders them from being Hospitable and Charitable § 15.5 What ever specious design was in the first institutors of this piece of Service to Jesus Christ as after it is called it matters not much Gideons design in making a Golden Ephod was very fair to leave a Monument of his Victory as a pious publik acknowledgement of his thankfullnesse yet it proved a snare to him and his house to all Israel Many of the Superstitions of the now Church of Rome had no doubt a pious design and a shew of wisdome but the issue hath been very mischeivous Even so it hath happened to this Institution now in hand § 16. There may indeed a threefold guilt and danger be charged upon the Institution and continuance of this observance 1. Of Will-worship because it is not commanded in scriptures 2. of Superstition in observing dates 3. Of Riot frequent in such Festivalls The two former he saies he hath spoken to else where viz. both in his Treatises of Will-worship and Superstition and also in his practicall Catechisme In the two former though something be said in generall or in thesi yet nothing that I observe in speciall or in hypothesi of this Festivall Indeed in his practicall Catechisme hee hath undertaken the vindication of it from all these three charges but more largely the two first there aad here more of the last that of Riot we shall consider what he saies in order First to free the Festivall from the charge of Willworship he proceeds two waies 1. In respect of those who retain the usage of it they observe it in obedience to the Lawes of the Church and so it proceeds from obedience to Superiours a duty of the 5 th Commandement This argument should not have had the first place but the second in a just method The Doctor should first have proved that they that instituted the Festivall had a lawfull power to do it before he proved them that observe the usage to be innocent For may not Papists plead the same argument for observation of not onely their Holydaies but of their invocation of Saints adoration of Images and the Masse it selfe They do it in obedience to

who bring them into the Church On the other side it will not follow the Apostolical Church had a custome to observe the Sabbath of the Jews when they came amongst them to circumcise sometimes to abstain from blood c. to avoyd offence and winne the Jews ergo they that go about afterwards to lay down these are contentious this will no wayes be admitted The reason is because the Apostles afterwards repealed those Jewish customes Two cautions therefore must be added to make the Affirmative constringent 1. That the custome which is pleaded for be brought into the Church by the Apostles themselves for Gospel worship For he saies We we have no such custome nor the Churches of God The Gospel Churches by us planted 2. That the custome pleaded be grounded truly if not so clearly upon the Word of God For this is no good argument against a rational Disputant The present Church of Rome suppose or any Church some centurie or more of years after the Apostles hath such or such a custom ergo we must receive it unless we will be counted contentious But this is thought a good inference The Apostolicall purest Church had a custom to observe the Lords day the first day of the week Act. 20.7 1 Cor. 16.1 2. instead of the old Sabbath ergo that day was instituted by the Apostles and they that reject it or prophane it are more then contentious even sacrilegious And upon these considerations fiderations the Doctor hath consulted ill to his own cause to produce this Text for his Festivall For hee dare not say it was instituted by the Apostles nor can prove it was observed by the prime and purest Church though he oft assert it then the inference is strong against him The Apostle prime Apostolicall Church had no such custom as the observation of Christmas ergo they are contentious who plead for its continuance It matters not then what the ancient usage of the Church of England hath been if it began not with the Apostles in the first Churches Which of the Feast of Christs Nativitie cannot I think be proved I am sure is not performed by the learned Doctor Nor yet that the Church of England was extant in the Apostles times or if it were that this custome of Christmas was from the begining of the plantation of the Gospell amongst us which yet he undertakes to manifest § 2. The latter he first begins with And that it is thus ancient he will prove By one objection against viz. the retaining of some heathen usages in the observation of it which are undeniable Testimonies of the Antiquity and un-interrupted continuance of this practise even from the time of our first conversion For otherwise it is not imaginable how any heathen usage should be found adherent to it But this is no way constringent For they might bee added together with the Festival it self some good while after the first conversion of some part of this Island the better to winne the rest to a liking of Christian Religion by conforming to them in celebration of Festivals as the like was done to winne the Jewes in observing the old Sabbath Pentecost c. The Apostles saies the Doctor to attract the Jews to the Christian Religion Sect. 71. did gratifie them in retaining many of their customs That was for a time but after cast them off And this Festivall being substituted instead of the old Saturnalia in the same Month as is confessed by many Sect. 63. and the Doctor himselfe no marvaile if some heathen usages stuck close to it and could not since be gotten out For those heathen usages continued by the ruder multitude and others too though they have been no part of the office of the Feast yet doe they fully hold out these two things 1. How easie a thing it is for such ill usage to creep into humane Ordinances 2. How hard it is to get them out when once got in being ready to plead prescription Seeing after so long a time as fifteen or sixteen hundred yeares continuance as the Dr. thinks they still attend the Festival people being more tenacious of customs received by the Tradition of their Fathers 1 Pet. 1.18 then of the very Institutions of God § 3.4 For the former that the conversion of England was early is very likely but not so early as is pretended but not proved For as the Histories and Monuments are very obscure and doubtfull differing much one from another so the Doctor himself is very uncertain where to place the beginning or who was the Instrument of our conversion It may be beleeved either Apostolical or very near the Apostles times Faine would hee have us think it was by some Apostle if he knew how to make it out Some affirm it was Simon Zelotes Sect. 6. And there was some colour for the affirmation of Simon Metaphrastes That St. Peter stayed in Britaine sometime converted many and constituted Churches ordained Bishops in the twelfth year of Nero's reign But he slurs his Author thus The authority of this Writer is not great He might have said Nothing worth being contradicted by so many others and by the Doctor himself by and by Yet it might be near the Apostles times by some Apostolicall men some say rather by Joseph of Arimathea for so Mr. Camden reports from as ancient Records and credible as any we have for we have none very ancient or very credible That Joseph of Arimathea planted Christianity here coming out of France Belike Crescens sent him hither to convert she Britains if he did not come and doe it himself For so the Doctor would have it and proves it out of Scripture 2 Tim. 4.10 Crescens sent by St. Paul was gone into Galatia where Galatia may signifie France as some Authors take it and the Doctor is willing to beleeve it For presently though others contradict hee takes it for granted when he sayes What is so early affirmed in Scripture of the communicating of the Gospell to France i. e. by Crescens which is so near to us removes all improbabilitie from those Histories which record the plantation of the Gospel in these Islands in the Apostles times It s easie to beleeve that Crescens if he were in France might quickly step over into Engl. but the former is yet to prove For the Doctor knows very well that very learned men deny that Galatia was there taken for France but for a part of Asia which is far enough from England Yea they demonstrate it as they think that it was not meant of France for which I referre him to Estius on the place 2 Tim. 4.10 However whether Crescens were ever in France or no sure he was not in England to convert the Nation Hear the Doctors own words This which he had said before is an evidence that neither Peter nor Paul nor Crescens nor any of those that usually accompanied either of those two Apostles did bring the Christian Faith to