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	infallible_a	7,894	5	10.4883	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A10228	Purchas his pilgrimage. Or Relations of the vvorld and the religions obserued in all ages and places discouered, from the Creation vnto this present In foure partes. This first containeth a theologicall and geographicall historie of Asia, Africa, and America, with the ilands adiacent. Declaring the ancient religions before the Floud ... With briefe descriptions of the countries, nations, states, discoueries, priuate and publike customes, and the most remarkable rarities of nature, or humane industrie, in the same. By Samuel Purchas, minister at Estwood in Essex.	Purchas, Samuel, 1577?-1626.	1613 (1613)	STC 20505; ESTC S121937	297,629	804

Iudgement to try and weigh the particulars which wee apprehend That out of them wee may sever for our use the pretious from the vile for Knowledge lies in Things as Gold in a Mine or as Corne in the Straw when by diligent inquiry after it wee have digged it up and thresh'd it out wee must then bring it to the fire and fanne to give it us purified from drosse and levity And this in Speculation answereth unto the generall vertue of practicall prudence in Morality whereby wee weigh the severall Mediums unto the true Ends of life and accordingly select and prosecute the Best Thirdly Fidelity of Retention for hee is not likely to grow Rich who puts up his Treasure as the Prophet speaks into a bag with holes For as Nature hath given to the Bodies of men for the furtherance of corporeall strength and nutriment a Retentive power to clasp and hold fast that which preserveth it untill a through concoction be wrought so proportionably is the Faculty of Memory given to Reason as a meanes to consolidate and enrich it And fluxes as in the Body so in the Minde too are ever Arguments and Authors of Weaknesse Whence it comes to passe that in matter of Learning many of us are faine to be Day-labourers and to live from hand to mouth being not able to lay up any thing And therefore in the choice of fit persons to breed up unto Learning wee should take a like course as wise Architects doe in choice of fit timber for Building They choose first the straitest and that which hath fewest knots and flawes in it which in the mind answereth unto clearenesse and evennesse of Apprehension For a cleare minde like strait and smooth timber will work easiest Next they take the heart and strongest substance and cut out the sap because that is best able to beare the weight that shall be laid upon it And this answers unto Maturity and firmnesse of Judgement Lastly they doe not take Sally or Willow or Birch and such other Materialls as are quickly apt to putrifie and weare away but such Timber as is lasting and Retentive of its Nature as Oake and Elme which may make the Superstruction of the nature of the Foundation strong and lasting and this answereth to that excellent Faculty of the Minde a Rationall memory from which one particular I think more than any other doe arise those vast differences of felicity and infelicity in the mindes of men addicted to the search of Knowledge Strange was the unhappinesse of Calvisius Sabinus in Seneca who being at vast charges in matter of learning was not yet able to retaine fast the Names of Achilles or Vlysses But as his Parasite was wont deridingly to advise him wanted a Grammaticall Attendant to gather up the fragments which his Memory let fall And Curio the Orator in Tully was wont when hee had proposed three things in an Oration to forget some one or other of them or to add a fourth yea Messala Corvinus forgat his owne name as Pliny telleth us And as wonderfull on the other side hath beene the felicity of some others Seneca the father could repeat two thousand words together in their Order Cyrus and Themistocles could call all their Souldiers by their Names by which one Art of Curtesie Otho aspired unto the Empire Adrian could read a Book which hee never saw before and after recite it by memory and of the Emperour Iulian it is said that hee had drunk Totum memoriae dolium the whole vessell of memory To say nothing of Simonides and Apollonius Tyanlus who in their old age the one at 80 the other at a 100 yeeres old were very famous for the exquisitenesse of their memories nor of Cyneas Charmidas Portius Latro and divers others who have beene admired for this happy Quality Now unto this Felicity doth conduce a Methodicall and orderly Disposition of minde to digest and lay up things in their proper places It was easier for Cyrus to remember men in an Army than in a Throng And hence hath proceeded the Art of Memory invented as Pliny tells us by Simonides and perfected by Me●…rodorus Sceptius consisting in the committing of severall Heads of matter unto distinct places whereof Quintilian discourseth in his Oratory Institutions Of Knowledge there are severall sorts according to severall considerations with respect to the Ends of it Some is Speculative for the improving of the Minde as Physicall Metaphysicall and Mathematicall Knowledge Others Practicall for fashioning and guiding of the manners and conditions of Men as Ethicall Politicall Historicall Military Knowledge Some mixt of both as Theologicall Knowledge consisting in the speculation of Divine Verities and in the direction of Divine Duties Some Iustrumentall being only subservient unto others as Grammaticall Rhetoricall Dialecticall learning In regard of Order some Superiour others Subalternate as Musick to Arithmetick Opticks to Geometry In regard of their Originall some Ingrafted as the supreame Principles of Verity and implanted notions of Morality which is called the Law of Nature and written in the Heart of all men Rom. 2. 14. 15. Other Acquired and by search and industry laboured out of those Principles and the others which are taught us Other Revealed and Divinely manifested to the Faith of Men whereof the supreame Principles are these two 1. That God in his Authority is infallible who neither can be deceived nor can deceive 2. That the things delivered in Holy Scriptures are the Dictates and Truths which that infallible Authority hath delivered unto the Church to be beleeved and therefore that every supernaturall Truth there plainely set downe in termini●… is an unquestionable Principle and every thing by evident consequence and deduction from thence derived is therefore an undoubted Conclusion in Theologicall and Divine Knowledge In regard of the manner of Acquiring some is Experimentall A Knowledge of Particulars and some Habituall a generall knowledge growing out of the reason of Particulars And those Acquired either by Invention from a mans Industry or by A●…scultation and Attendance unto those that teach us In regard of Objects some supre●…me as the Knowledge of Principles and Prime Verities which have their light in themselves and are knowne by evidence of their owne Tearmes Others derived and deduced by argumentation from those Principles which is the Knowledge of Conclusions In regard of Perfection Intuitive Knowledge as that of Angels whereby they know things by the View and Discursive as that of Men whereby wee know things by Ratiocination In regard of Order and Method Syntheticall when wee proceed in Knowledge by a way of Composition from the Causes to the Effects and Analyticall when wee rise up from Effects unto their Causes in a Way of Resolution With this noble Endowment of Knowledge was the Humane Nature greatly adorned in its first Creation So farre forth as the Necessity of a happy and honourable life of the Worship

receive revenge doe worke not only Anxiety and Griefe which is a motion of slight but hope also and desire to ease it selfe if not in the recovery of its own losse yet in the comfort of another mans For Calamity as the Historian speaks is ever either querulous or malignant Cum suo malo torquetur quiescit dien●… When it feels it selfe wrung and pinched it quickly proceeds either by justice or revenge to please it selfe in † retaliation For the former of these as it is the common property of Man with all other Creatures to love himselfe so it is his particular desire also being Animal Sociale Politicum to be Loved by others because hereby that Love of himselfe which proceedeth from Iudgement and Reason is confirmed For every man doth more willingly beleeve that whereunto he hath farther authority to persuade him And therefore though Love be not sinisterly suspitious nor too envious in interpreting a mans owne or a friends actions and beha●…iour yet that Love which is not blind and furious will be ever ready to submit it selfe unto the opinion of stayed and indifferent judgements because it is conscious to it selfe how easily it may miscarry if it r●…ly upon its owne censure wherein Reason Affection and Prejudice are mixed together Now then when a man already strongly possessed with a love of his owne or his friends person or parts shall find either of them by others sleighted and despised from whose joynt-respect he hoped for a confirmation of his judgement there hence ariseth not onely a Griefe to see his Expectation deceived and his Opinion undervalued but withall a Desire to make knowne unto the persons who thus contemne him by some manner of face or tongue or hand or heart or head Revenge for all these may be the instruments of our Anger that there is in him more courage power and worth than deserves so to be neglected Which Passion in a word so long as it submits it selfe to the government of Reason is then alwaies allowable and right when it is grounded on the Pride and Insolency of others who unjustly contemne us And then Irregular and Corrupt when it proceeds from the root of Pride and Ambition in our selves which makes us greedy of more honour from others than their judgements or our owne worth suffers them to afford us To this branch of Contempt may bee referred Forget fulnesse of friends and acquaintance whereby we upbraid them with obscurity and distance as well from true worth as from our affection For Omnia quae curant meminerunt saith Tully and Aristotle to the same purpose Those things which wee doe respect doe not lye hid and out of our sight Next hither may be referred all Vngratefull persons who sleight those favours which they have received from other mens bounties and out of a swelling and height of stomacke cannot endure to acknowledge any obligations but desire to receive benefits as Corrupt men take Bribes in the darke and behind their backs that so neither others nor if it were possible their owne eyes might be witnesses unto it For as Tacitus speaks Gratia oneri habetur such is the pride of some men that they disdaine not to be overcome in any thing though it be in kindnesse And therefore Vbi multum beneficiâ antevenêre pro gratia odium redditur saith the same Author When they finde themselves overloaden with Love the best requi●…all which their high minds can affoord is hatred which cannot but worke a double Anger an Anger against our selves and our owne weaknesse in the choice of so unfit a subject for the placing of our benefits and an Anger at that contemptuous Pride which so basely entertained them Hither also we may referre those Locked and Close men who even to their friends are so referred and keep every thing so secret as if none were worthy to whose Iudgement or Trust they might commit themselves Hitherto likewise are referred Acceptation of persons in equallity of merit with unequall respect negligence of outward ceremony and beha viour and generally what ever else may worke an opinion that we are undervalued The second branch of this first Fundamentall Cause was an Hindering of the projects and purposes of another which is not only a Privative as the former but a Positive and Reall Injury which includes that other and addes unto it as being not only a sleighting but an assault upon us no●… an Opinion only but an Expression of our weaknesse a course so much the more likely to insenc●… nature and make it swell by how much violent and opposition is more sensible in motion than in rest So that these two former Injuries I thinke I may well compare to a Banke and to a Bridge or some other stops to a River in his course Whereof the former doth Confine the River and not Op pose it as not hindring it in its direct and naturall motion which it rather helpeth by more uniting the parts but only in a motion Laterall and indirect which nature intended not and therefore herein we see not any manifest fretting and noise but only a secret swelling and rising of the water which breaks not into outrage and violence But the Latter resisting the naturall course of the streame in its owne Chanell and standing directly crosse where the Nature should passe makes it not only in time to overswell on all sides but in the meane time works in it great tumult noise Sp●…mens fervens ab Obice Savior ibit It foames and boyles and with a raging force Fights with all Obstacles that stop its course So of these two Degrees of Contempt in Anger the former as being onely a Confining and Limiting Contempt which shuts up a mans worth within too narrow and strait a judgement works indeed a secret swelling of the Heart with Indignation at the conceipt of such disesteem but this breaks not out into that clamour as S. Paul cals it that noise of Anger as the other doth which a●…iseth out of a direct opposition against our counsels or actions Vnto which opposition may be reduced all manner of injurious proceeding which tends to the prejudice and disappointing of any mans ends whether it be by closenes and undermining as cheats and couzenages in the preventing of lawfull or by other politicke wisedome in hindering unlawfull ends or whether by open and prosessed Opposition as in matters of Emulation Competition Commodity and the like or lastly whether it be such as takes notice and discovers ends which desired to be undiscerned And therefore Tacitus reckoning the ambiguous and close speeches of the Emperour Tiberius sayes that it was Vnicus Patrum metus si intelligere viderentar the Senate seared nothing more than to discover that they understood him which is the same with his judgement after Eò acriùs accepit recludi quae premeret nothing did more exasperate him than to see those things taken notice of which he desired

like Impostors who boldly pretend unto Truth when they cunningly oppose it as Iacob in Esa●…'s Cloathes robbed Esau of the Blessing or as the Ivy which when it embraceth the Oake doth withall weaken and consume it And this is a very preposterous and perverse method first to entertaine Corrupt Conceits and then to wrest and hale Principles to the countenancing and protecting of them It being in the errors of the mind as in the distempers of the palate usuall with men to find their owne rellish in every thing they read Concerning the other Abuse it is an often observation of Aristotle that Principles and Con clusions must be within the Sphaere of the same Science and that a man of Learning ought al waies to be faithfull unto his owne Subject and make no Excursions from it into another Science And therefore he saith that it is an equall absurdity for a Mathematician whose conclusions ought to be peremptory and grounded on principles of infallible evidence only to ground them on Rhetoricall probabilities as it were for a Rhe●…oritian whose Arguments should bee more plausible and insinuative to leave all unsaid that might reasonably be spoken except it may bee proved by demonstrative principles This leaping a Genere ad Genus and confounding the dependancies of Truth by transferring Principles unto Sciences which they belong not unto hath been ever prejudiciall to Knowledge and Errour hath easily thereby crept upon the weakest apprehensions while men have examined the conclusions of one Science by the Principles of another As when Religion which should subdue and captivate is made to stoop bow to Reason and when those Assents which should be grounded upon Faith and not on meer humane disquisition shall be admitted according to the conformity which they have with Nature and no farther And hence it is that so many of the Philosophers denyed those two maine Doctrines of the Creation and Resurrection although in some of them the very sight of Nature reacheth to the acknowledgement of the former of those because they repugned those maine Principles of Nature which are indeed naturally true and no farther that ex nihilo nihil fit Nothing can be made of nothing And a privatione ad habitum non datur regressus That there is no regresse from a Totall Privation to the Habit l●…st And this reason was evidently implyed in that answer which was given by him who knew the Root of all Errour unto the obstinate Opposers of the Resurrection Erratis nescientes Scripturas neque Potentiam Dei Where are intimated two maine Principles of that Mystery of the Resurrection the Word and the Power of God This later commanding our Assent that it May be that other our Assurance that it Will be So that wherever there is an Ignorance of these two and we goe about to examine this or any other Mystery rather by a disputing than an Obeying Reason the immediate consequent of such peremptory and preposterous course is Errour and Depravation of the Vnderstanding Pythagoras and his Schollers out of a strong conceipt that they had of the Efficacy of Musicke or Numbers examining all the passages of Nature by the Principles thereof fell into that monstrous Errour that Number was the first and most Essentiall Element in the Constitution of all Creatures Thus as men which see through a coloured Glasse have all Objects how different soever represented in the same colour So they examining all Conclusions by Principles forestalled for that purpose thinking every thing of what nature soever to be dyed in the colour of their owne conceipts and to carry some proportion unto those Principles Like Antiph●…ron Orites and others in Aristotle who did confidently affirme every thing for Reall which their Imagination faneied to it selfe But Tully hath prettily reprehended this abuse in that satyricall reprehension which he gives to Aristoxenus the Musitian who needs out of the Principles of his Art would conceipt the Soule of man to consist of Harmony H●…c magistr●… concedat Aristoteli canere ipse doceat Let him leave these things to Aristotle and content himselfe with teaching men how to sing intimating thereby the absurdity of drawing any Science beyond its owne bounds 2 Another Cause of Errour may be Affectation of Singularity and a Disdaine of being but an accession unto other mens Inventions or of Tracing their steps when men shall rather desire to walke in wayes of their owne making than in the beaten paths which have been troden before them to be guilty of their owne invented Errors than content with a derived and imputed Learning and had rather be accounted the Purchasers of Heresie than the Heires of Truth Quase nihil fuisse●… rectum quod primum est melius existiman●… quicquid est aliud as Quintilian spake elegantly on another occasion As if nothing had been right which had been said before they esteeme every thing therefore better because new 3 Another Cause may be the other Extreme for a man may lose his way as well by enclining too much to the right hand as to the left I mean a too credulous prejudice and opinion of Authority when wee bow our judgements not so much to the nature of things as to the learning of men Et credere quàm scire videtur 〈◊〉 we rather beleeve than know what we assent unto T is indeed a wrong to the labours of Learned men to read them alwaies with a Cavilling and Sceptical mind and to doubt of every thing is to get resolution in nothing But yet withall our Credulity must not be peremptory but with reservation Wee may not captivate and resigne our judgements into another mans hand Beleefe without evidence of Reason must bee onely there absolute where the Authority is Vnquestion●…ble and where it is impossible to 〈◊〉 there onely it is Impious to Distrust As for mens Assertions Quibus possibile est subesse falsum what he said of Friendship Sic ama tanquam Os●…s Love with that Wisedome as to remember you may be provoked to the contrary is more warrantable and advantagious in Knowledge Sic crede tanquam dissensurus so to beleeve as to be ready when cause requires to dissent It is a too much streightning of a mans owne Vnderstanding to inthrall it unto any or to esteeme the dissent from some particular Authorities Presumption and Selfe-conceit Nor indeed is there any thing which hath bred more Distempers in the Body of Learning than Factions and Sidings When as Seneca said of Cato that hee would rather esteeme Drunkennesse a Vertue than Cato Vitious So Peripateticks and Platonists Scotists Thomists and the rest if I may adventure so to call them of those learned Idolaters in deifying the Notions of Mortall men shall rather count Errour Truth than their great Masters Erroneous But yet I would not be so understood as if I left every man to the unbridled reines of his owne fancy or to a presumptuous dependance onely on