Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	begin_n	faith_n	uniform_a	24	3	16.6426	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34972	I. Question: Why are you a Catholic? The answer follows. II. Question: But why are you a Protestant? An answer attempted (in vain) / written by the Reverend Father S.C. Monk of the Holy Order of St. Benedict ...	Cressy, Serenus, 1605-1674.; Cressy, Serenus, 1605-1674. Why are you a Catholic?	1686 (1686)	Wing C6900; ESTC R1035	63,222	76

wilfully misinterpret Scripture to their own destruction especially in Points Fundamental which are so clearly set down in Scripture that no sober Enquirer can be mistaken in them Cath. Well Sir I have at present done asking Questions and now better enabled by what you have said will endeavor to give you a fuller Answer to the Question you proposed in the begining viz. Why are you a Catholick §. 11. First then Sir I am a Catholick because I believe that Christ the Author and Finisher of our Faith is infinitely both good wise and omnipotent His goodness inclined him to come down into this world to save mankind by establishing a Church upon earth which should remain till the end of the world and in which the way to Heaven should be so taught as not only the Wise and Learned but the Poor Simple and Ignorant also should by Faith and Obedience be made partakers of Eternal Happiness Now his goodness having designed this his wisdom enabled him to appoint ways and means proper to effect that his blessed Design and omnipotence to make those means successful § 12. The general efficacious means to accomplish this are first The revealing his whole will to his Church which we acknowledg to be sufficiently done in Holy Scripture as to all points absolutely necessary to Salvation though in all those points not so clearly to every one that without a Teacher their sense may not be mistaken Neither doth Scripture make an express discernment of what points are necessary And secondly The assisting of this his Church with fidelity and a constant performance of her duty in declaring all necessary Divine Truth manifested to her to her Subjects with a command that all Christians should obey and submit to what she shall teach or enjoyn them God having thus revealed his whole Will to his one Catholic Church it necessarily and evidently follows 1. That Ignorance or Error in any Points of Christian Doctrine necessary to Salvation is damnable 2. That a Seperation from this one Church is damnable also upon what pretence soever the separation be made §. 13. Now to avoid eternal Misery thus threatned by Error or Schism only one of these two ways is possible 1. By ones own light to penetrate into all Mysteries so as to be most firmly assured of a right understanding of all necessary verities revealed by God in Holy Scriptures 2. Or out of a distrust of our own abilities to submit our Reason and internal Assent to Authority The former of these ways all Sects divided from the Roman Church and among themselves do uniformly take being forced hereto by denying any visible Society of men to have any authority obliging the Consciences of their Subjects and by conseqence they have all if any an equal Title that is indeed equally none at all to challenge belief one as well as another neither can they rationally without deserting their common Ground condemn or excommunicate one another The latter way we Catholics only take and as we think prudently and surely §. 14. For Sir I beseech you to consider what a busy laborious task you have undertaken by being a Protestant of what Sect among them soever you are Before you can promise to your self any rest of mind in the Peculiar Fundamental Doctrines of your Sect your Conscience must satisfy you that you have not embraced a Religion by hazard but after a diligent sincere and effectual examination of all the Reasons and arguments not only of Catholicks submitting to Authority but also of other Sectaries who proceeding your way of interpreting Scripture by a private light do condemn your Doctrines or whose Doctrines you condemn To be able to do all this how many Volums of Controversy are you obliged to read and examine Besides this it will be absolutely necessary that you be perfectly studyed in all the Books of Scripture with the best Commentaries on them both Ancient and Modern since you ground your Religion upon a sense of Scripture which perhaps not any of them will allow and then in equity you are to examine their reasons for it Now what one mans age will suffice for all this business though but in one or two Points controverted and though the party were learned and had never so much leasure What then shall ignorant persons do who yet make up the greatest number of Christians What shall Trades-men and Day-Labourers do who can scarce allow from their necessary Vocations any time at all dayly even to say their Prayers yet it concerns all these upon the venture of Eternal Happiness or Misery not to forsake or embrace a Religion without a sufficient Examination made by themselves of the grounds of it since they are told and believe it that they must trust to themselves only because no external Authority upon Earth can require from them a submission of their judgment inasmuch as according to their general fundamental Positions no Authority is infallible §. 15. Now whereas you said That all Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity are so clearly set down in Scripture that no sober Enquirer can be mistaken in them If this were true yet since neither the Scripture nor you your selves do clearly express which and how many Doctrines are fundamental every tittle of Scriptures must be read and examined by every one of you for fear a necessary Doctrine should chance to escape you But to demonstrate the groundlesness of that your Assertion I desire you to reflect on the prodigious multiplicity of Sects swarming in this age all which ground their Belief upon pretended clear Texts of Scripture alone you will then scarce find one Article of Christian Faith exempted from their Disputes There are not wanting who deny the Mistery of the Holy Trinity the Divinity and Incarnation of our Lord the Divine Personality of the Holy Ghost Some absolutely deny Freewill whilst others exalt the power of it so high as to affirm Divine Grace unnecessary to its best Operations Some affirm our Nature to be so incurably polluted by Original Sin as that all the best actions of the Regenerate are Mortal Sins Others will acknowledge no Original Sin at all Some affirm Baptism necessary to Salvation even of Infants Others reject Infant-Baptism and Calvinists assert that Infants without Baptism are sanctified by their Parents faith and that some Infants dying though baptized may be damned Some believe mans Soul to be mortal and that it perisheth with the Body not having any Knowledg or Sentiment after death Some confine God to a determinate place in Heaven and also deny his Prescience of future Contingents Lastly some deny an Eternity of torments in Hell Surely you will not deny most of these to be contrary to Fundamental Doctrines of our Faith yet all who maintain these Tenets and all Sectaries who contradict them do ground themselves upon express Scripture which to you seems so clear You cannot be more confident that you have light on the true sence of Scripture than they of a

the very challenging of such a Right which belongs only to the truly Catholic Church is a strong proof that She alone is that Church which hath a Right to challenge it and would prove her self a false Church if She did not challenge it But because perhaps you cannot easily induce your mind to consider her otherwise than as a particular Church I confidently believe that if the Eastern Church were united in one Body with the Western you would not find any difficulty to think your self obliged to yield an entire Obedience to so great an Authority Prot. This I willingly acknowledg §. 32. Cath. Be pleased then to reflect on some Age when these two great Churches were united for example in the days of St. Gregory the Great Then there was a perfect agreement through the whole World excepting only the Societies of Ancient Heretics acknowledged for such by Protestants Then both Doctrine and Discipline was uniform every where What St. Gregory taught was accepted through the whole Church Yea those parts of his Writings which are most opposite to your Doctrines as his Dialogues c. have presently after his time been translated into the Greek tongue and with veneration received by that Church Whence will follow that what he hath taught us in his Writings touching Points of Religion and which you most mislike was then esteem'd true Catholic Doctrine Now what does St. Gregory teach but the same which is now taught in the Roman Church In all Controversies lately raised between Catholics and Protestants he is constantly and directly against Protestants This is so manifest that it is acknowledged by many learned Protestants who describing the particular Points of Religion professed by St. Gregory and St. Augustine the Monk sent by him to convert England name these Freewill Merit and Iustification of Works Pennance Satisfaction Purgatory Celibacy of Priests publick Invocation of Saints and Worshipping of them Veneration of Images Exorcisms Pardons Vows Monachism Transubstantiation Prayer for the Dead Oblation of Christ's Body and Blood for the Dead the Roman Bishop's Iurisdiction over all Churches Celebration of Mass Consecrations of Churches Altars Chalices Corporals and Fonts of Baptism Veneration of Relicks Sprinkling of Holy-Water Dedicating Churches to the Bones and Ashes of Saints Indulgencies to such as visit Churches on certain days Pilgrimages and in a word the whole Chaos of Popish Superstition as they are pleased to stile it So that Mr. Ascham affirms of our Apostle St. Augustine the Disciple of St. Gregory that He was the overthrower of true Religion and the establisher of all Popish Doctrines and another saith of him That he subjected England to the lust of Antichrist which Antichrist you must take for granted was St. Gregory and therefore after his death went undoubtedly to Hell there to receive his reward Thus evident Convictions forced them to confess that all the Doctrines of Faith now taught were then professed as Catholic Doctrines but gall and malice against the Church suggested such foul unseemly words to their Pens Notwithstanding Protestant Writers when not being engaged in controversie they have occasion to treat of St. Gregory himself they are not sparing in their Elogies of him such as these He was a holy and a learned Bishop He was by Name and indeed truly Great adorned with many and great endowments of Divine Grace and as he is often styled the mouth and shining light of our Lord. He was truly a pious man and for his Christian humility yet more to be praised From his Infancy being addicted to the studies of Piety he retired into a Monastery where shewing a particular sanctity of life and being wholly intent upon Prayer he drew the eyes of all men upon him He did so discharge the Pontifical Office that following ages never had his equal much less any one excelling him He was exceedingly renowned for Miracles c. Now me thinks Sir the consent of the Eastern and Western Churches under the Government of such a Prelate so versed as he was in holy Scripture witness his Sermons and Commentaries should be so prevalent with you as to make you suspect your own Reason if it suggests to you that the Religion professed in his days was superstitions and idolatrous § 33. Prot. But why do you say that the Universal Church in the East and West was governd by Saint Gregory when he himself sharply condemned the Patriarch of Constantinople for assuming such a Title as Universal Bishop which he calls an Antichristian Title Cath. It was indeed a Title full of arrogance and therefore justly condemned by St. Gregory in the Notion in which he conceived it might be understood as if the Patriarch pretended thereby to be esteemed the only legitimate Bishop in the Eastern Church For thence it would follow that all other Bishops were only his Substitutes acting by his commission and removeable by him at pleasure Whereas they claim a reception of their Order and Character immediately from Christ alone Such a new Title therefore it was that St. Gregory condemned in that Patriarch and abhorred to accept himself as plainly appears by his Epistles But yet that he had a Superintendence over the whole Church as Supreme Pastor thereof to receive and judge Appeals of Bishops from all Parts in causis majoribus to oblige all Prelates even Patriarchs to the Profession of the Faith established in Councils and the observance of the Churches Laws and to impose Ecclesiastical Censures on all Transgressors of them this St. Gregory challenged and to this the Prelates both of the Western and Eastern Churches also submitted as appears by many Epistles sent by him and Answers received from several Patriarchs and other Prelates in the East §. 34. Since therefore it is confessedly certain that the present Roman Church professes the same Religion which Saint Gregory taught and planted in England which the Eastern Church in those times approved without any contradiction and which is now condemned by Protestants it will evidently follow that in those few Points in which the present Eastern Churches quarrel with the Roman the said Eastern Churches only have been Innovators and consequently that the Roman Church that is all Churches united in subordination to the Prime Patriarch and Pastor still remains the Catholic Church and enjoys the same Authority which the Universal Church in and before St. Gregories days enjoyed So that all Christians who break from her Communion do thereby shew themselves Schismaticks and Self-condemned §. 35. I have purposely made choice to instance in the time of St. Gregory the Great because on the one side several Protestants impute the beginning of the Churches depravation principally to that Age and on the other side Almighty God as if he had a design to confute and silence their accusations chose that Age especially in which to accomplish that most illustrious of all Prophesies foreshewing the glory of the Catholic Church which is the Conversion of Nations from Heathenish Idolatry