Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	ancient_a	doctrine_n	father_n	2,828	5	4.7388	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31245	The truth and excellence of the Christian religion, with the corruptions and additions of the Romish Church a discourse, wherein the pre-eminence of Christianity is demonstrated above the religion of Jews or heathens, and the contradiction of popery to its main articles : and that religion prov'd in many instances to be a mixture of heathenish superstitions, and Jewish ceremonies : with a short vindication of Christian loyalty, and a brief historical account of Romish treasons and usurpations, since the Reformation / by a hearty professor of Reformed Catholick Christianity.	S. C.	1685 (1685)	Wing C126; ESTC R22983	60,383	154

procurement Oh says the Cardinal those persons were disaffected to the Catholick Interest and these are my good deeds with which I intend to present my Saviour A story that needs no other invective than the bare relation But I would not willingly accuse all while some only are liable to this charge For many Romish Doctors mean no more by merit than that obligation God hath by promise laid upon himself to reward our good works And this I think none that understand the Nature of the Divine Promises can gainsay These men we accuse only for the use of a proud improper term tho once us'd by the ancient Fathers in an innocent sence 2. By their Doctrine of penance and Purgatory Whereas the Scripture tells us that Christ hath pai'd down a compleat Ransom for our sins and it is through his Blood alone we can expect a freedom from the punishments we have deserved yet this Church hath Coind new distinctions between the temporary and eternal punishments of sin as if tho the latter be remov'd by the Blood of Christ the former must be satissi'd for by our selves either in this Life or in Purgatory To this end they have given the Priests a commission to injoyn penances for sin as satisfactions to Divine Justice and preventive of surther punishment Penances so Ludicrous and Trifling that it is a sign of great infatuation in any that can believe by such cheap and easy performances to appease the anger of an offended Deity Penances consisting of little observances such as numbering their Prayers by their Beads saying so many Avemaries at some priviledg'd Altars in abstaining from Flesh for so many days in whipping their bodies in wearing hair-shirts and the cords of the particular Orders and numerous other little pieces of solly and superstition By these means do they take off sinners from their grateful love and duty to the Redeemer and earnest believing-applications to the Lord Jesus who is appointed by the Father as the sole Mediator of his Church and through whom alone we can expect deliverance from punishments whether temporal or eternal Of the same nature is their Doctrine of Purgatory a state of torments in the other world equal in degree tho not in continuance to those of Hell wherein those souls must sry who have not satisfi'd for their sins here till their friends give money to the Priest to pray them thence By this means the interests of the Clergy are advanc'd and the grandeur of that Church promoted This hath enrich'd their Abbies adorn'd their Chappels fill'd their Coffers and made good provision for all the begging Orders among them For while they scar'd the people with such a terrible Doctrine and yet pretended a power of Praying them thence who would not give liberally to those who were able to deliver them from such extremity of torment A Doctrine which the honester of their Doctors acknowledg is not to be found in cripture and these who pretend to prove it thence have brought such lame and farfetch'd pro●●s as are as easily refuted as mention'd the only Text that can with the least probability be stretch'd to this sense is that of 1 Cor. 3. 15. He himself shall be sav'd yet so as by fire But this is but a proverbical speech and by the context the meaning plainly appears to be that he who holding the essentials of Christianity shall corrupt it by additions of other disagreeing Doctrines is in a very hazardous condition and tho his salvation is possible yet it is but as a mans whose house is on fire about his ears extreamly dubious and very uncertain which how applicable to the Romanists hath been excellently showed by others and will further appear by this discourse But were there such a place as this what a derogation is it to the blood and prerogative of Christ to think that money can procure a Release from thence The Psalmist I am sure tells us that they who trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches none of them can redeem his brother or pay to God a Ransom for him Psal 49. 6. 7. But this is but Old-Testament-Divinity and Purgatory hath been built since that time or rather the infallible Head of the Church will not be guided by the Laws of the Bible For tho St. Peter would not sell the gifts of the Spirit for Money yet a fair purchase of eternal Life may be bought of his Successor if God would as willingly consent as he And we may invert St. Peters words and apply them to the Romanists 1 Pet. 1. 18. They are bought with corruptable things and redeem'd by silver and gold from the imaginary flames of Purgatory tho not from that vain conversation receiv'd by tradition from their Fathers But we have not so learn'd Christ Scripture mentions but two places Heaven and Hell if we lead Pious and Holy lives we may receive death with a joyful welcome and need not allay our comforts by the fears of an after-reckoning in another world And tho we may have been guilty of many venial sins in a Gospel-sense through infirmity surprise and sudden temptation or of any more mortal ones of a deeper die yet upon our sincere repentance the Blood of Christ without the fire of Purgatory will cleanse us from all these and present us pure and spotless to the Father But if we die in an impenitent state we shall be presently doom'd to endless remediless torments and all the wealth of the Indies will never procure us a deliverance thence I might further mention their practice of selling Indulgences for money which happily occasioned the reformation by Luther By this they they have made easy composition for sins and the Taxa Cameroe Apostolicoe a book publickly printed amongst them sets down at what easy rates an absolution may be obtained for the most unnatural vices Now what a direct tendency hath this to make men set light by their sins tread under foot the blood of the Son of God and account the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus perfectly unnecessary 3. By their doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass as a formal expiation of the living and dead Tho the Apostle to the Hebrews makes the great excellence of Christs sacrifice above those of the Levitical Law to consist in this That it was so full and compleat that it needs no repetition Heb. 10. 12 14. Yet the Romanists have made it a great part of their Religion to offer him every day in the Mass as a propitiatory proper sacrifice and thus make his former sacrifice on the cross incompleat and imperfect or rather wholly unnecessary for Christ instituted the Sacrament before his passion and if he then offer'd up himself as a propitiation for our sins what need was there at all of his bloody death and passion It is acknowledged that the Eucharist may be called a sacrifice in the same improper sense as our prayers and alms-deeds and repentances

change a piece of Bread into God and by virtue of such a strong fancy to give it Divine Worship is an instance of such egregious folly as exposes Christianity to the scorn of infidels and hardens them in their unbelief a Doctrine that would make a Monster of our blessed Redeemer and give him 10000 bodies at once A Doctrine that subjects our Saviour to the will of every Priest and daily renews his humiliation A Doctrine that makes the Covenant of Grace much more severe than the Law of Innocence while it threatens damnation to all that will not disbelieve the agreeing sences of the whole world of Animals A Doctrine that destroys the very Foundations of human Converse and tends to the most unreasonable Scepticism imaginable For if our Senses are deceiv'd in so plain an instance how know we but that we may be all very Phantasms and a bundle of Accidents without any substance A Doctrine that hath a natural tendency to Infidelity and is the ready road to the most damnable unbelief For the miraculous Works of our Saviour were the great convincing Evidences of the truth of Christianity What we have seen and heard as one speaks was the Apostles Logick and an appeal to Miracles the surest Demonstraion of the Spirit So that if our Senses deceive us in this instance our Religion it self may be false The Resurrection of Christ and all his wonderful Works might for ought we know be Impostures and Deceits Thus we see how naturally the Papist lends his Assistance to the Atheist and Unbeliever A Doctrine that calls God himself a Deceiver for he plainly tells us by the most certain kind of Demonstration to our Senses That here is bread when if this be true there is really none at all In a word A Doctrine so full of unreasonable Contradictions that had not an infallible Council curs'd all deniers of it I am perswaded it would have long ago been renounc'd A Doctrine contradictory to Sense inconsistent with Reason and overthrown by express words of Scripture For St. Paul expresly calls it Bread after Consecration 1 Cor. 10. 15 16. 11. 26 27. A Doctrine bottom'd only upon one Metaphorical Expression This is my Body Which how it can prove this prodigious Transmucation is not very easie to imagine for did not Christs natural Body speak this while sitting at the Table And could his Disciples apprehend they eat the same Body or that the substance of the bread was vanish'd and only the Accidents remaining Did they so hardly believe his Resurrection and would they without one question about it digest this miracle far more amazing Doth he not say Do this in remembrance of me And if the Popish Comment were true would it be sense to say Eat me in remembrance of me Are not the terms Metaphorical in one part of the Sacrament This Cup is the N●w Testament in my Blood And why should this rather than the other be taken according to the literal meaning Besides the same word is us'd concerning the Passover to which the Eucharist succeeds And the Jews had no term more proper to express signifie by than this word is It is the Lords passover Exod. 12. 11. i. e. a Memorial and Signification of the Lords passing over the houses of the Israelites when he destroy'd the first-born of Egypt and why should not the same Sense be given of this Sacrament of the new Covenant It is a Memorial of that Body of Christ which was once Offer'd for our Sins Thus we see how unreasonable the Roman Exposition of this Text is and yet they cannot pretend any clearer proof of this great absurdity but it is the great design of this Church to conquer those three mischievous Enemies Sense Reason and Scripture and when they have once done that they may impose what they will upon those reasonable Beasts their followers Sense they continually represent as subject to many Illusions and unfit to be trusted to in any weighty matters Reason they Tragically exclaim against as a dangerous Weapon and the mortifi'd Father Cressy somewhere tells us That it is the Wit and Judgment of Catholicks to renounce their own Judgment and depose their own Wit Scripture setting aside the Authority of their Church is of no more Validity with them than Aesops Fables or Mahomets Alchoran And tho they pretend the unanimous consent of the Fathers to their Doctrines yet because the Testimonies of Irenaeus Justin Martyr Theodoret Pope Galasius are so plain against them they pretend that the Fathers being obscure the present Church must be the Judg of their meaning but if we joyn issue here also and agree to be judg'd by the majority of Votes in the Christian World then they very charitably damn all the World but themselves and assume the proud title of Catholick and Universal so that the result of all is this If we will not upon their bare Affirmation swallow this heap of Contradictions we must infallibly fall under the Council of Lateran's Anathema and be ipso facto excommunicate But it is better to bear their curses here than by our sinful compliance with their grossest Idolatry to endanger our Salvation for ever For if there be no Transubstantiation of what tremendous Idolatry are they guilty who pay Divine Honour to a piece of Bread and give that Adoration to a Waser-cake which is due to God alone who outdo the grossest Idolatry of the Heathens and justifie the most ridiculous Superstitions of the Infidel world They only believ'd that some invisible Deity incorporated it self in the Creature they worshipp'd but never imagin'd that the whole substance was chang'd into God A Metamorphosis more strange than the most poetical Invention could ever contrive nor can they save themselves harmless by pretending they believe the Bread to be God and therefore if they err it is the fault of their Judgments not of their Wills For when men will maintain such an Error in spite of their own Sense and Reason and Scripture and the plain Doctrine of the Ancient Church they are certainly guilty of not only material but wilful formal Idolatry But supposing this Doctrine sometimes yet so many contingencies happens that it is impossible to know whether this particular Bread be Transubstantiated or not For if the Priest have not a right Intention and be not duly ordain'd the Miracle will not follow so that it is confessed by Bellarmine that no man can have any other than a conjectural certainty that he receives the Body of Christ because it depends upon the Priests intention which no man can know And now can it consist with our duty as Bishop Taylors speak certainly Disswas page 149. to give Divine Worship to that thing which we cannot certianly know to have a Divine Being But further if we should suppose by virtue of a strong faith such as is able to swallow Mountains that this miracle were always perform'd yet will not this justifie our Adoration For we are not bound