Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	church_n	read_v	tongue_n	2,635	5	7.5388	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54850	The primitive rule of reformation delivered in a sermon before His Maiesty at Whitehall, Feb. 1, 1662 in vindication of our Church against the novelties of Rome by Tho. Pierce.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1663 (1663)	Wing P2192; ESTC R28152	31,193	45

a kind of Revenge upon Aquinas though held to be the Ang●lical Doctor he needs will inf●r 't is as Impossible and equally implies a Contradiction for any one body at once to be so much as Sacramentally in more Places then one And therefore it cannot now be wonder'd concerning Transubstantiation if so long ago as in the time of Pope Nicolas the Second either the Novelty was not forg'd and hammer'd out into the shape in which we find it or not at all understood by the Pope Himself For one of the two is very clear by the famous Submission of Berengarius wherewith he satisfied the Synod then held at Rome and in which were 113. Bishops though not at all unto a Trans but rather a Consubstantiation Which divers Romanists themselves have not been able not to Censure though it was pen'd by a Cardinal and approved of by a Council and very glibly swallow'd down by the Pope himself 4. 'T is very true that their withholding the Cup of blessing in the Lord's Supper from the secular part of their Communicants hath been in practice little less then 400 years But from the beginning it was not so For in our Saviour's Institution we find it intended for every Guest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word Drink ye all of this Cup. Mat. 26. 27. And S. Paul to the Corinthians consisting most of Lay-men speaks as well of their drinking the mystical blood as of their ●ating the Body of Christ. ● Cor. 11. 26 27 28 29. Nay 't is confest by learned Vasquez as well as by Cassander and Aquinas Himself to be a Truth undeniable That the giving of both Elements in the Roman Church it self until the time of Aquinas did still continue to be in use 5. The Church of Rome for several Ages hath restrain'd the Holy Scriptures from the perusal of the People But from the beginning it was not so For Hebrew to the Iews was the mother-Mother-Tongue and in that 't was read weekly before the People It pleased God the New Testament should be first writen in Greek because a Tongue the most known to the Eastern world And to the end that this Candle might not be hid under a Bushel it was translated by St. Ierome into the Dalmatick Tongue by Bishop Vulphilas into the Gothick by St. Chrysostom into Armenian by Athelstan into Saxon by Methodius into Sclavonian by Iacobus de Voragine into Italian by Bede and VVicl●f into English And not to speake of the Syriack Aethiopick Arabick Persian and Chaldee Versions which were all for the use of the common people of those Countries the Vulgar Latine was then the Vulgar Language of the Italians when the Old and New Testament were turn'd into it 6. The publique Prayers of the Romanists have been a very long time in an unknown Tongue I mean unknown to the common People even as long as from the times of Pope Gregory the Great But from the beginning it was not so For 't is as scandalously opposite to the plain sense of Scripture as if it were done in a meer despight to the 14th Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians especially from the 13. to the 17. ver Not to speak of what is said by the Primitive Writers Aquinas and Lyra do both confess upon the place That the common Service of the Church in the Primitive times was in the common language too And as the Christians of Dalmatia Habassia Armenia Muscovia Sclavonia Russia and all the Reformed parts of Christendom have the Service of God in their vulgar Tongues so hath it been in divers Places by Approbation first had from the Pope himself 7. Another Instance may be gi●en in their Prohibiting of Marriage to men in Orders which is deriv'd by some from the third Century after Christ by others from the eighth and in the rigour that now it is from Pope Gregory the Seventh But from the beginning it was not so For Priests were permitted to have wives both in the Old and New Testament as Maximilian the Second did rightly urge against the Pope And the blessed Apostles many of them were married men for so I gather from Eusebius out of Clemens Alexandrinus and from the Letter of Maximilian who did not want the Advice of the learnedst persons in all his Empire and from 1 Cor. 9. 5. where St Paul asserts his liberty to carry a VVife along with him as well as Cephas And 't is the Doctrine of that Apostle that a Bishop may be an Husband although he may not be the Husband of more then one Wife 1 Tim. 3. 2. Tit. 1. 6. Besides the Marriage of the Clergy was asserted by P●phnutius in the Council at Nice and even by one of those Canons which the Romanists themselves do still avow for Apostolical And the forbidding men to marry with Saturninus and the Gnosticks is worthicall'd by God's Apostle The Doctrine of Devils 1 Tim. 4. 1. 3. 8. I shall conclude with that Instance to which our Saviour in my Text does more peculiarly allude I mean the Liberty of Divorce betwixt Man and Wife for many more Causes then the Cause of Fornication For so I find it is decreed by the Church of Rome with an Anathema to all that shall contradict it But from the Beginning it was not so For 't is as opposite to the will of our Blessed Saviour revealed to us without a Parable in the next verse after my Text as if they meant nothing more then the opening of a way to rebel against him For besides that in the Canon of the Council at Trent a Divorce quoad Torum Totum ob multas Causas was decreed to be just in the Church of Rome although our Lord had twice confin'd it to the Sole Cause of Fornication Matth. 5. 32. 19. 9. And besides that the word Totu●n was constantly reteined in four Editions particula●ly in That which had the Care and Command of Pope Paul the Fifth Let it be granted that the Council did mean no more then a meer Sequestration from Bed and Board to endure for a certain or uncertain time and not an absolute Dissolution of the Conjugal Knot yet in the Judgment of Chemnitius yea and of Maldonat Himself who was as learned a Iesuite as that Society ever had it would be opposite even so to the Law of Christ. For he who putteth away his VVife for any Cause whatsoever besides the Cause of Fornication commits Adultery saith the Iesuit even for this very reason because he makes Her commit it whom he unduly putteth away Nay Chemnitius saith farther That the Papal Separation from Bed and Board is many ways a Dissolution of the Conjugal Tye. Nor does he content himself to say or affirm it only but by a Confluence of Scriptures does make it good

the Canon of the Fourth Session of that Council the Roman Church was made to differ as well from her ancient and purer self as from all other Churches besides her self in that there were many meerly humane I do not say profane VVritings and many unwritten Traditions also not only decreed to be of equal Authority with the Scriptures but with the addition of an Anathema to all that should not so receive them This I say being consider'd aud laid to heart by our Reformers by our Kings and our Clergy and Laiety too met together in their greatest both Ecclesiastical and Civil Councils they did not consult with flesh and bloud or expect the Court of Rome should become their Physician which was indeed their great Disease but having recourse unto the Scriptures and Primitive Fathers of the Church they consulted those Oracles how things stood from the Beginning And onely separating from Them whom they found to have been Separatists from the primitive Church they therefore made a Secession that they might not partake of the Romane Schisme And whilst they made a Secession for fear of Schism which by no other practice could be avoided they studiously kept to the Golden mean neither destroying the Body out of hatred to the Ulcers with which 't was spred nor yet retaining any Ulcer in a passionate dotage upon the Body One remarkable Infirmity it is obvious to observe in the Popish Writers they ever complaine we have left their Church but never shew us that Iota as to which we have left the Word of God or the Apostles or the yet uncorrupted and primitive Church or the Four first Generall Councils We are so zealous for Antiquity provided it be but antique enough that we never have despised a meer Tradition which we could track by sure footsteps from as far as the times of the purest Christians But this is still their childish fallacy be it spoken to the shame of their greatest Giants in Dispute who still vouchsafe to be guilty of it that they confidently shut up the Church in Rome as their Seniors the Donatists once did in Africk and please to call it the Catholick Church not formally but causally saith Cardinal Peron because forsooth that particular doth infuse universality into all other Churches besides it self The learned Cardinal forgetting which is often the effect of his very good memory that the preaching of Christ was to begin at Ierusalem So it was in the Prophesie Isa. 2. 3. Mic. 4. 2. and so in the completion Luke 24. 47. Nor was it Rome but Antioch in which the Disciples were first call'd Christians Act. 11. 26. At Antioch therefore there was a Church before St. Peter went thence to Rome Nay 't is expresly affirm'd by Gildas an Author very much revered by the Romanists themselves that Christianity was in Britain in the latter time of Tiberius Caesar some while after whose death 't is known that St. Peter remain'd in Iewry So that Rome which pretends to be a Mother can be no more at the best then a Sister-Church and not the eldest Sister neither Neglecting therefore the pretended Universality of the Roman that is to say of a particular Church let us compare her Innovations with what we find from the Beginning For this I take to be the fittest and the most profitable Use that we can make of the subject we have in hand And first consider we the Supremacy or Universall Pastorship of her Popes which is indeed a very old and somewhat a prosperous Vsurpation an Usurpation which took its rise from more then a thousand years ago But then besides that it was sold by the Emperour Phocas at once an Heretick and a Regicide the Devillish Murderer of Mauritius who was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Royall Image or Type of our late Royall Martyr of Sacred Memory I say besides that it was sold by the most execrable Phocas that is to say by the greatest Villain in the world excepting Cromwell and Pontius Pilate and besides that it was sold to ambitious Boniface the Third whose vile compliance with that Phocas was the bribe or price with which he bought it and besides that it was done not out of reverence to the Pope but in displeasure to Cyriacus of Constantinople who from Iohn his Predecessor usurpt the Title of Vniversall before any Pope had pretended to it I say besides or without all this it is sufficient for us to say what our Saviour here said to the ancient Pharisees That from the beginning it was not so For looking back to the Beginning we find The Wall of God's City had Twelve Foundations and in them were the names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb. Rev. 21. 14 Paul was equal at least to Peter when he withstood him to the face and rebuked him in publick for his Dissimulation Gal. 2. 11 12 13 14 Nay St. Peter himself as well as Iames and Iohn who were his Peers although he seemed to be a Pillar yet perceiving the Grace that was given to Paul gave to Barnabas and Paul the right hand of Fellowship Gal. 2. 9. And reason good For S. Peter was but one of the many Apostles of the Iewes whereas St. Paul was much more the great Apostle of the Gentiles to whom the Iewes were no more then as a River to an Ocean Saint Peter was commanded not to fleece but to feed the flock Nor was it ever once known that he did lord it over God's heritage which himself had so strictly forbid to others 1 Pet. 5. 3. Indeed a primacy of Order may very easily be allow'd to the See of Rome But for any one Bishop to affect over his Brethren a supremacy of Power and Iurisdiction is a most impudent opposition both to the Letter and the Sense of our Saviour's precept Mark 10. 42 43 44. Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and their greaton●s exercise authority upon them But so shall it not be among you But whosoever will be great among you shall be your Minister and whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be the servant of all That the Apostles were every one of equal power and authority is the positive saying of St. Cyprian Pari consortio praediti honoris potestatis And St. Ierome is as expresse That all Bishops in all places whether at Rome or at Eugubium at Constantinople or at Rhegium are of the very same merit as to the quality of their Office how much soever they may differ in point of Revenue or of Endowments Nay by the Canons of the Two first General Councils Nice and Constantinople every Patriarch and Bishop is appointed to be chief in his proper Diocese as the Bishop of Rome is the chief in His And a strict Injunction is laid on all the Bishop of Rome not excepted that they presume not to