Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	believe_v	church_n	infallibility_n	2,898	5	12.0726	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33462	Capel's remains being an useful appendix to his excellent Treatise of tentations, concerning the translations of the Holy Scriptures : left written with his own hand / by that incomparably learned and jucicious divine, Mr. Richard Capel, sometimes fellow of Magdalen-Colledge in Oxford ; with a preface prefixed, wherein is contained an abridgement of the authors life, by his friend Valentine Marshall.	Capel, Richard, 1586-1656.; Marshall, Valentine.; Capel, Richard, 1586-1656. Tentations.	1658 (1658)	Wing C471; ESTC R5922	60,793	168

is to take us off from the Scriptures and to cast us and our consciences on the authority of the Church We list not to dispute with them about the Infallibility of that which they call their Church For I doubt not but that the learned among them do not themselves beleeve what themselves do write But our work lies not in that road We grant what they would have as touching the Church by way of Ministry but for that which they call the Churches Authority we know not any such authority the Church as Church being not a Domination but a Ministration But that we may not leave any rubb in the consciences of the weak as touching the authority of the Scriptures as touching the Originals and Translations we will shut up all in brief For the Originals though we have not the Primitive Copies written by the finger of God in the Tables or by Moses and the Prophets in the Hebrew or by the Apostles and the rest in the Greek for the New Testament yet we have Copies in both languages which Copies vary not from the Primitive writings in any matter which may stumble any This concernes onely the learned and they know that by consent of all parties the most learned on all sides amongst Christians do shake hands in this that God by his providence hath preserved them uncorrupt What if there be variety of readings in some Copies and some mistakes in writing or Printing this makes nothing against our doctrine sith for all this the fountaine runs clear and if the fountain be not clear all translations must needs be muddie Besides 't is a saying of a wise Philosopher That what some say is like to be false what many say may be false But what all say is more then like to be true Now Christians of all parties do agree as touching the Originals that they are kept pure Onely some of and among the Papists passionate men do bite at the Originals but herein they do but bl●t their own vulgar translation sith they confesse it to be drawn out of the Originals I confesse some men by their picking quarrels with the Originals as a matter whereof they talk as though there were no certainty of faith as touching them have troubled the spirits of some men with a thorny tentation which my b●sinesse is to do what I can to remove which I now endeavour to do as briefly as I can The foundation I first lay is That we may have a certainty moral of things whereof we have no evidence which is sufficient to settle us in an acquired faith free from all feare and material doubt of the contrary We beleeve without making any question of it that there is such a place as Rome though we never saw it that such a man is our father such a woman our mother and we out of conscience do duties to them albeit we have no evident certainty of it but by belief that such a Prince is true heir to a Crown and out of conscience we do performe obedience and yet we can have no more certainty of this but moral For who hath or can have an evidence of this that such an heire is the true begotten of such a King It 's agreed on by almost all Divines of all sides that if one of the Propositions be in the Scripture and the other be but a moral certainty which leaves no dubitation behinde it the conclusion bindes the conscience As thus every childe is bound in conscience to honour his Parents this is an act of faith grounded on the Scripture such or such a man is my father this is but a moral certainty yet hence it followes that in conscience I stand bound in conscience to honour such a man as my Father And that he is my Father all the certainty I can have is but moral built on the credit of my mother If these reasonings were not firme it would destroy all Policy and Order in this life nor could Gods Law to honour father and mother binde the conscience nor can a man tell that he was baptized in his youth but by such Testimonies as these Therefore I like that of Bellarmine who stands upon it that of such like things a certainty may be had from the testimonies of men in some sort comparable to natural evidence it self for that it leaves no scruple or dubitation in our minds But what of all this Why it shewes that the general consent of in a manner all Hebricians and Grecians in the Christian world consenting that our Originals are by the good hand of God preserved uncorrupt and pure is a sufficient perswasion to breed a moral certainty answerable to natural evidence excluding all reasonable dubitation to the contrary That the Originals were for the provision and food of the soules of his Church kept pure and uncorrupt by the Prophets and Jewes for the old by the Apostles and Christian Churches for the New Testament sealed up by St. John the Secretary of Christ as Scotus calls him Else the Lord must have been wanting to his Church which cannot be imagined And that acquired faith makes way for infused faith to act I have learned long since out of Scotus Thus the case stands The Originals are to be received and believed That the Hebrew and Greek are the true Originals we believe by humane testimonies which leave the mind without perplexitie without all doubting and so it follows that by mans testimonie the Originals are to be received and believed by us so that the heart stands free from any true cause of any doubting at all which being equivalent to the highest certainty that is it cannot but lay a foundation to build our faith upon this certainty being a meanes by which we come to the other of the Scriptures being the last ground on which we build our faith we are not to look for demonstrations in arguments of this nature It 's a foolish thing to expect from a Mathematician to deale by perswasion his Art lies in evident and ocular demonstration Now 't is as absurd to expect demonstration from an Orator or Moralist his businesse lies in perswasion But yet in our point in hand our perswasions must be grounded on such moral certainty as is to us without question and without feare of the contrary It is a piece of wise counsel of Aristotle That it is the wisdome of a learned man so farre forth to seek after proofs of truth in any matter as the nature of the subject matter will beare And it is agreed upon that in all learning in the highest science of all the principles are proving but not proved For that which is the first cannot be proved by any thing before it else the first were not the first as the first mover is never moved And in all Inferiour Sciences the first principles of that Science must be proved in an higher Schoole Now the first principle in the School of