Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	apostle_n	church_n	tradition_n	3,170	5	9.1818	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59905	A vindication of the doctrine of the holy and ever blessed Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God occasioned by the Brief notes on the Creed of St. Athanasius and the Brief history of the Unitarians or Socinians and containing an answer to both / by William Sherlock.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1691 (1691)	Wing S3377; ESTC R25751	172,284	293

and what is the Rule of Faith are two very distinct Questions and to apply what is said of the Catholick Faith to the Rule of Faith becomes the Wit and understanding of an Heretick This is the very Argument which the Papists use against our Authors Compleat and Infallible Rule of Faith the Scriptures that they do not contain all things necessary to Salvation because they do not prove the great Fundamental of the Protestant Faith that the Canon of Scripture which we receive is the Word of God now what Answer he would give to Papists with reference to the sufficiency of Scripture let him suppose I give him the same Answer in Vindication of the Catholick Faith of the Athanasian Creed and we are right again But his parting blow is worth some little observation That if the Scriptures be a compleat Rule of Faith then this Creed of Athanasius is at least an unnecessary Rule of Faith But why did he not say the same thing of the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed or any other Creeds as well as of the Athanasian Creed for it seems a Creed as a Creed for there is no other sense to be made of it is a very unnecessary thing if the Scripture be a compleat Rule of Faith And thus both Catholicks and Hereticks even his dear Arians and Socinians have troubled themselves and the World to no purpose in drawing up Creeds and Confessions of Faith But this Author ought to be sent to School to learn the difference between a Creed and a Rule of Faith A Rule of Faith is a divinely inspired Writing which contains all matters to be believed and upon the Authority of which we do believe a Creed is a Summary of Faith or a Collection of such Articles as we ought to believe the Truth of which we must examine by some other Rule the sum then of our Author's Argument is this That because the Scripture is the Rule of Faith and contains all things necessary to be believed therefore it is very unnecessary to collect out of the Scripture such Propositions as are necessary for all Christians explicitely to believe He might as well have proved from the Scriptures being a compleat Rule of Faith that therefore there is no necessity of Commentators or Sermons or Catechisms as that there is no necessity of Creeds But as senseless as this is there is a very deep fetch in it for he would have no other Creed but that the Scripture is the Divine Infallible Compleat Rule of Faith which makes all other Creeds unnecessary and then he can make what he pleases of Scripture as all other Hereticks have done before him But let me ask this Author whether to believe in general that the Scripture is the compleat Rule of Faith without an explicite belief of what is contained in Scripture will carry a Man to Heaven There seems to me no great difference between this general Faith in the Scriptures without particularly knowing and believing what they teach and believing as the Church believes We suppose then he will grant us the necessity of an explicite belief of all things contained in the Scripture necessary to Salvation and ought not the Church then to instruct People what these necessary Articles of Faith are and what is the true sense of Scripture about them Especially when there are a great many damnable Heresies taught in the Church by Men of perverse Minds who wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction and does not this shew the necessity of Orthodox Creeds and Formularies of Faith And this puts me in mind of the great usefulness of ancient Creeds though the Holy Scripture be the only Divine and Infallible Rule of Faith viz. That they are a kind of secondary Rule as containing the Traditionary Faith of the Church It is no hard matter for witty Men to put very perverse senses on Scripture to favour their heretical Doctrines and to defend them with such Sophistry as shall easily impose upon unlearned and unthinking Men and the best way in this case is to have recourse to the ancient Faith of the Christian Church to learn from thence how these Articles were understood and professed by them for we cannot but think that those who conversed with the Apostles and did not only receive the Scriptures but the sense and interpretation of them from the Apostles or Apostolical Men understood the true Christian Faith much better than those at a farther remove and therefore as long as we can reasonably suppose this Tradition to be preserved in the Church their Authority is very Venerable and this gives so great and venerable Authority to some of the first General Councils and therefore we find Tertullian himself confuting the Hereticks of his days by this argument from Prescription or the constant Tradition of all Apostolick Churches which was certain and unquestionable at that time and as much as Papists pretend to Tradition we appeal to Tradition for the first Three or Four Centuries and if the Doctrine of the Athanasian Creed have as good a Tradition as this as certainly it has it is no unnecessary Rule though we do not make it a primary and uncontroulable Rule as the Holy Scripture is where there are two different Senses put on Scripture it is certainly the safest to embrace that sense if the words will bear it which is most agreeable to the received Doctrine of the Primitive Church contained in the Writings of her Doctors or Ancient Creeds or such Creeds as are conformed to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church Then for taking ought from this Creed the whole Greek Church diffused through so many Provinces rejects as Heretical that Period of it The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son contending that the Holy Spirit is from the Father only which also they clearly and demonstratively prove as we shall see in its proper place And for the menace here of Athanasius that they shall perish everlastingly they laugh at it and say He was drunk when he made that Creed Gennad Schol. Arch Bishop of Constantin This Addition of the Filioque or the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and from the Son which was disputed between the Greek and Latin Church is no corruption of the Essentials of the Christian Faith about the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity as I observed before nor does Athanasius deny Salvation to those who do not believe it For he that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity does not relate to every particular Word and Phrase but to that Doctrine which immediately proceeds That the Trinity in Vnity and Vnity in Trinity is to be Worshipped which the Greeks acknowledged as well as the Latins and therefore agreed in the Substantials of Faith necessary to Salvation And that I havereason for what I say appears from this that after the Latins were perswaded that the Holy Ghost did proceed from the Son they were far enough from denying Salvation to those who