Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	church_n	father_n	word_n	3,081	5	4.2090	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B02877	An answer to some queries in Mr. Whites notes	Franciscus a Sancta Clara, 1598-1680.	1660 (1660)	Wing D350B; ESTC R175907	4,729	26

AN ANSWER To some Queries in Mr. Whites Notes Most Honoured Sir NOw I receive a Present from you which finds me so much preingaged in a subject of greater concern that I can hardly dispence with so much time as diligently to peruse it you will accept this short answer to the most considerable doubts I observe dispersed in your Notes FIRST You say in your first Chapter that I Challenge the Fathers for my cause without alleadging any Whereas in that place being only praeliminary as to them I only refer the reader to St. John Damascen who exactly weighs them as also Gennadius doth being both Greeks to whom you may please to add since you are impatient to expect their due place great Athanasius in his questions to Antiochus where he propounds your very question gives the Churches answer also St. Cyril in his Mystagogical Catecheses where he comes home these you know are Greeks of whom you make most difficulty I wonder very much after when I drew out the pith out of St. Augustines Care of the dead which most perfectly speaks our Doctrine that you say as if you were in hast per transennam you agree to all whereas in truth you deny all The Reader will observe it You say in another place that he ad Dulcitium acknowledgeth this question of the souls relief to be never yet heard of the truth is he knew not how the Almighty would be satisfied whether by temporal punishments here as surely in some it is or whether hereafter as it is in others but he never doubted of that effect of prayers in order to each After you presse harder with more biting Language than I suspected Second You say you are surprized at my believing S. Iohn Damascens relation of the dead heads spaking against your doctrine of the soules relief in Purgatory I must confesse that I read the Saints with so great Reverence especially such whose Religion and learning are Solemnly Celebrated in the Church as he is for both that if I should find any seeming warts of humane infirmity as our learned Countryman Waldensis saith of Councels I willingly do not see them but with a Christian blush endeavour to cover their nakednesse with modest glosses and this I have learned in Athanatius toward Dionisius Alexand. St. Augustine to St. Cyprian St. Hierome to many rather then the Church should loose such great men for the slip of a pen against their own intentions But as to this passage of St. John Damascen I am not enforced to apply any such lenitives For why could not a dead Heathens skull answer in confirmation of a Christian truth in the name of the dead to great St. Macharius as St. John Damascen cals him though himself was not concerned in the cause as well as a Heathens skull answer in presence of all the people in declaration of our Holy Faith being asked by a holy Monk against Eunomius his rising Heresie wherein he was lesse concerned which without Controul is asserted in John Cassian others being publick cannot be denyed Saints have Priviledges above our reaches it was a more in credible businesse for Balaams Ass to speak unask'd Aristotle will deny this not St. Augustine I will not enter the lists to examine St. Cyrils παντῶν ἀπλῶσ when he saith they prayed in some suffrages for all sorts of dead its true according to Gods ordinary Laws there is no redemption in Hell But it is not so certain in somes Judgments that there may not be a relevation you know some have prayed that mitigatior fiat poena but I am not compelled to assert such Singularities only en passent remind your reading St. Gregories relation of Trajans soul is farr higher then this of St. Damascen yet it is Solemnly recounted by the Greeks in the Council of Florence and the truth not questioned I dare not therefore Aristachus like attribute so much to others Criticismes as to question the truth but rather with the Greeks acknowledge a great miracle in the effect of prayers for the dead No ingenious person who is conversant in St. John Damascens spirit stile and devotion can at all question the work to be his which was so acknowledged in the Coun. of Florence though Cooke Rivet are prodigal upon any terms to deny the Fathers works as St. Augustine tells us the Manichees did the Scriptures where they thwarred with their errours I wish you would not trust them for they will deceave you yet I am glad that you acknowledge St. Hierome to allow the History And truely though the Histories of Trajans delivery or of this dead mans answer were not true yet the solemne bringing them without resistance in the Council abundantly serve my design because they declare the sense of the Greek Church as to the Churches Tenet of easing souls before the great day Where you must also further observe that the Greeks in the council grant that the whole Greeke Church as well as Latins believed that ad nonnullorum peccatorum absolutionem mortuis preces supplicationesque pro apsis magnopere conducant And that they understand this absolution to be before the last day is cleare for afterwards weighing St. Gregories Dialogues they asse●t with him and most manifestly in his sense that after death th●●● is at the oblation o● the Churches suffrag●● their sins are remitted and they speak al●●ies in ●●e … e of the whole Greek Church so that as to this they agreed with the Latins therefore they durst not deny those examples which you so much undervalue but esteem Trayans and others delivery from Hell to be miraculous rather then question the efficacy of such holy Persons prayers or a relief before the last day I read these passages in the Orations of the Greekes in the Council published in Greek in Holland surely not to be suspected as to this But you admit not St. Gregories Dialogues to be his upon Photius his authority though St. Ildelphonsus almost contemporary with him in L. de viris illustribus and after St. Isidore of the same subject connumerate this with the rest of his Workes so venerable Bede St. John Damascen and all writes Geek and Latine Photius the truth is much esteemed these books and peradventure could gladly have attributed them to his Countreyman against the sense of all the world I have read him intirely heretofore but I remember not every particular in him As to the points themselves in St. Gregory I have given you the sence of the Greeke Church which is enough to my design Third Whereas you say that if the words of the Fathers by which they Attribute purging of souls to the ●ire of Judgement be not beyond contest I will yeild the whole cause This is not the question whether Fathers have asserted such a purgation but whether they have admitted no other which you assert and if they say this not I but the Church hath lost the cause which alone may suffice as answer