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

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87879	An answer to the Marques of Worcester's last paper; to the late King. Representing in their true posture, and discussing briefly, the main controversies between the English and the Romish Church. Together with some considerations, upon Dr Bayly's parenthetical interlocution; relating to the Churches power in deciding controversies. To these is annext, Smectymnuo-Mastix : or, short animadversions upon Smectymnuus in the point of lyturgie. / By Hamon L'Estrange, Esqr.	L'Estrange, Hamon, 1605-1660.	1651 (1651)	Wing L1187; Wing L1191; Thomason E1218_2; ESTC R202717	68,906	120

censure of the Romish Church and his Lordship hopes to prove it out of Scripture If you neglect to hear this Church you shall be a Heathen and a Publican Matth. 18. 17. This Church in the Marques his sense is the Church of Rome and I grant it is but not the Church of Rome onely for it is as well the English the French the Geneva or any other particular Church and admit it were onely the Church of Rome yet the matters wherein that Church is to be obeyed are not Articles of Faith neither the very Text tells us it is onely in points of scandal and breach of unity in civil matters His next Scripture is Ephes. 5. 27. where the Church shall be presented unto Christ a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle Here is a Church I yield that cannot err but it is not the Romish Catholique Church no neither Romish nor Catholique if his Lordship means the Catholique militant Church for it is a Church that can neither err nor sin without spot and therefore their own Salmeron says It must be understood of the Triumphant Church and if his Lordship thought otherwise Augustine would have told him he was a Pelagian M. We say the Church hath been always visible you deny it Our Church saith nothing of this Point and therefore if I say any thing it must be ex abundanti dictum more than Covenants yet something I will say and something shall Liberius say too as a Salmeron quoteth him replying to Constantius his boast of the multitude of Arrians Non refert numerum esse magnum aut parvum nam Judaeorum Ecclesia in Babylone constituta ad tres pueros redacta fuit No matter whether the number be small or great for the Jewish Church in Babylon was reduced to three And at this time Liberius was Pope of Rome and because I am faln upon this time I would gladly have an answer where the Visibility of the Romish Church was unless they mean a Visibility of Heresie when Liberius himself excommunicated Athanasius and turn'd Arrian Nay more and to the very point where was the Visibility of the Catholique and true Church it self at that time but onely in that Pillar of Faith c Athanasius I confess Nazianzen says his Church had it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} most singular to it self to be preserved from drowning in the Arrian Deluge but the visible shock and storm of Persecution no man stoutly withstood and overcame but Athanasius onely His Fathers Origen in Matth. hom 30. saith The Church is full of light but that light is fulgor veritatis he himself tells us so the brightness of Truth no external splendor what 's this to a visible Church Cyprian the Church of God encompassed with light sheds her beams through all the World Cyprian's light is like Origen's an inward light too and were it as the Sun an outward Light it would not shine always in every Horizon and where it doth shine it may sometimes be eclipsed Chrysost. Hom. 4. in Esay 6. speaketh of the duration and perpetuity not of the Visibility of the Church and saith It is easier for the Sun's light to be extinguished than for the Church utterly to be destroy'd or if you will {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to disappear so saith Chrysostome and so say we too the Church wil be always visible for an Invisibility we hold not absolutly but comparatively it may be reduced to so inconsiderable a number as in regard of the paucity and fewness of the Professors the World will not own it under the notion of a Church Again Persecution may so controul the outward Profession of the Gospel that nothing belonging to external Government Discipline and Exercise of the Ministery shall be performed otherwise than by stealth and in a clandestine way Augustine speakes of the Visibility of the Church in his time that it was then visible not that it had been before or should be after him always so visible M. We hold the perpetual universality of the Church and that the Church of Rome is such a Church you deny it Our Church denieth not the Catholique or universal Church 't is an Article of the three Creeds she holds That the Romish is such a Church she doth deny because 't is in none of their Creeds and yet if it be in the Scripture I dare promise for her she shall and will believe it As to that place of Psalm 2. 8. I will give thee the Heathen for thine Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy Possession It is a most clear Prediction of the calling of the Gentiles and that all the World shall be subdued by the power of the Gospel so here 's an Universality of Christ's Kingdom but not of the Romish Church But I confess the mischief is here is a Tibi dabo I will give thee and wheresoever the Church of Rome findes that she takes all for her own that follows Let us observe now Rom. 1. 8. I thank my God that your Faith is spoken of throughout the whole World That is to all the World it is published that Rome hath embraced the Christian Faith Is she the Catholique Church because of that sure this Text no way enforceth any such Illation for we are told as much of the Church of Thessalonica 1 Thess. 1. 8. that their Faith to God-ward is spread abroad in every place and then we must mend our Creed and say I believe the two Catholique Churches that of Thessalonica and that of Rome For his human Authorities take this note by the way and they are soon cleared The Primitive Church held that consent and unity in Doctrine made all Churches in truth to be One however distinguished by names The Church of Christ is One saith Cyprian divided into several Members through the whole World and this Unity made them al not only One but Apostolical and Primitive also for Omnes primae omnes Apostolicae dum unam omnes probant unitatem saith Tertullian All were Primitive all Apostolical whilest all shewed the same Unity yea and it made all Churches though otherwise particular Catholique too Therefore the Church of Alexandria was called the Catholique Church by Arsenius so Augustine was Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopus Bishop of that Church which held the Catholique Faith and in this sense Rome was anciently stiled the Catholique Church So it was truly said by Hierome It is all one to say the Roman Faith and the Catholique Faith but though it was true then it is not true now for the Then and Now Roman Church are two M. We hold the Unity of the Church to be necessary in all points of Faith you deny it Our Church is here silent yet an Unity the Protestants hold too in essential matters of Faith and hold it so that if this Unity be a Note of the true Church they have there

weak finite and erring men still their Canons are no Articles of Faith their Decrees no infallible Rules Not so in the primitive Church I am assured by the confession of both sides Augustine being to dispute with Maximinus his first demand was Dic mihi fidem Rehearse to me thy faith the subtle Heretique supposing Augustine would urge the Nicene Creed against him reply'd I believe as the Councel of Ariminum believes but finding after that Augustine would not take this for an Answer says further I did not plead the Councel of Ariminum to excuse my opinion but to shew the Authority of the Fathers who according to Scripture delivered to us a Confession of Faith which they had out of the Scripture Augustine perceiving Maximinus let go the Councel of Ariminum was resolved to stand as little upon the Councel of Nice but closed with him thus Neither ought I to produce the Councel of Nice against thee nor thou that of Ariminum against me I am not bound to the authority of this nor thou of that let us in our conflict urge the authority of scripture witness indifferent to both and not peculiar to either See here the Orthodox and Heretique both compromise to abide the order of Scripture and both wave the Authority and Judgement of two General Councels which certainly they would not have done had they reputed them infallible and a Judge not infallible shall rule no Faith of mine But the Doctor tells us page 79. His Society of Men must be such as can say It seemed good unto us and to the holy Ghost Now Doctor you speak to the point indeed that Society of Men that Church would I fain see but are you well advised what you say If yea then it must seem good to the holy Ghost because so to us whereas the first form if he ever promised to be there with infallible assistance I dare take his word for it but had it to the holy Ghost first and then to us But assign the holy Ghost what place ye please if he be there 't is all I look for and I will not take yours unless you shew me that promise which hitherto you have not done But we will not part so neither admit for once you finde the Church you so hunt for and a spirit of infallibility directing her in that Councel must and will all Controversies presently cease Certainly no such matter for may not perverse spirits wrest to their own destruction what the holy Ghost shall declare in a General Councel as well as what he hath delivered in the sacred Scripture Did not the Nestorians vouch for their Heresie the Authority of the Councel of Nice as General a Councel and as much endowed with the holy Ghost as ever any since that of Hierusalem was or I believe shall be Nor do I speak onely of what the malice of Satan sowing Tares and man's crooked untoward will a soil proper for them may produce for the holy Ghost speaks in a manner signanter and expresly there must be notwithstanding such assistance Controversies still For if there must be Heresies there will be without controversie Controversies still and that Heresies must be the holy Ghost tells us 1 Cor. 11. 19. So that the revenue and product of all I have said is this That the true Church hath not the supreme Judicature over Questions of Faith and if she had yet Controversies would and must still continue and all this I hope I have not onely said but proved I confesse ingeniously sure he meant ingenuously for there was no great wit in his confession that there is not a thing that I ever understood lesse than that Assertion of the Scriptures being Judge of Controversies though in some sort I must and will acknowledge it The Doctor was here going a step beyond the Papists themselves who all hold the Scriptures to be an infallible Rule but resum'd himself and modifieth his speech with an acknowledgement of it to be so in some sense but in what he thought us not worthy to know Nor since he is so reserved will we much inquire because when known it can extend little to our satisfaction But though we must not know in what sense it is sole Judge yet in what it is not he tells us and that is Not as it is a Book consisting of papers words and letters for as we commonly say in matters of civil Differences The Law shall be Judge between us we do not meane that every man shall run unto the Law-books or that any Lawyer himself shall search his Law-cases and thereupon possesse himself of the thing in question without a legal Triall by lawfull Judges constituted to that same purpose How the Doctor thinks he hath nickt it and yet I fear he is so far from hitting the White as he hath mist the But For first the Comparison is extremely wide Things ad extra and what are without us may be stated and determined by civil Judicatories but Faith is a thing mixt of the understanding and the will over which none can claim Jurisdiction Man may adjudge away my Land my Faith he cannot and therefore I must say with the Poet Hane animam concede mihi tua eaetera sunto Secondly in civil Differences will the Doctor say that the Judges decide the Question or the Law For if the Judgement be given according to the Law then the Law is the Judge I take it and if contrary to Law or not according to it he who so determineth is not a Judge but an Arbitrator Our Law judgeth no man c. saith Nicodemus there the Law was the Judge And though with us in England the Law is a kinde of Craft or Mystery full of Quirks and Intricacies yet in other places as in Denmark Onely the Parties at variance plead their own Cause and then a Man stands up and reades the Law and there 's an end for the very Law-book is the onely Judge saith my royal Author and adds Happy were all Kingdoms if they could be so Lastly where the Doctor saith It is not our meaning that every man shall run unto the Law-books We will though not yield it yet suppose it so in other Differences but in Divinity it is clearly otherwise for there is an expresse Command given by Christ himself not to the Pharisees onely but generally to all Search the Scriptures and it were a meer mockery in our Saviour to bid us Reade the Scriptures if they were like Caligula's Laws written in so smal an hand that we cannot reade them or in so obscure words as we cannot without the help of the Church in matters of Salvation understand them In like manner saving knowledge and divine Truths are the Portion that all God's Children lay fast claim to yet they must not be their own Carvers though it be their own meat that is before them whilest they have a Mother at the Table It is no Argument of ill

and still the more they increased saith Dion himself an Heathen It may be here objected that Dion speaketh of the Jews true I grant it and as true it must be granted that Dion tells us also {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} This appellation is given to others also though of different Nations who adhere to the same principles of institution and what those are he tells us viz. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} They zealously worship a certain one God will not endure Images in their Temples observe the Sabbath and such were the Christians as well as the Jews nor must Dion be understood in this place to imply any so properly as the Christians who like the House of David at that time waxed strenger and stronger whereas the not Christianizing Jews like that of Saul waxed weaker and weaker And that by so inconsiderable so despicable means against so implacable so powerfull Opposites Christianity should so triumph so mightily prevail as that the conquered should command subdue and at length give Laws to the Conquerors till almost the whole World became her Convert Reason cannot conclude lesse than non haec sine numine This must be the Lord's doing that by the foolishness of this Word preached so many millions have been converted and made wise unto salvation The voice the Word of God it must be and not of man Lastly the failing and defection of other Religions about the time of our Saviours Incarnation the Heathen gods durst not abide his coming but forsook their stations abandon'd their Temples and left their Oracles speechlesse as Tully Juvenal and others assure us and Porphyry that sworn Enemy to Christianity confesseth that since Jesus came to be worshipped their gods have stood them in little stead The Jewish Religion which gloried so much in formality and external splendor was deplum'd and stript of all in a few years The Vrim and Thummim those pretious stones of the high Priests pectoral or breast-plate whose sparkling lustre an index of God's atonement and sure presage of Victory even dazled the eys of all Beholders about a hundred years before Christ's Birth lost their wonted radiancy and brightnesse and became ever after totally dusky and obscure evidently presignifying that the glory of the ceremonial Law was bidding the World good night To the fail of these Oracles succeeded the fail of the sacred Priesthood soon after by Herod alien'd and conferr'd in an arbitrary way on whom he pleased without regard had either to Law or Line The Priesthood thus prophan'd what remain'd but the complement and last act of desolation the destruction of the Temple which delay'd not after Christ's Passion above fourty years ever since which time the Jews have had neither true Priests nor true Sacrifices nor true places of Worship nor a true home All these are motives and inductions from Reason to make it credible that the Scriptures are the Word of God but not all these nor the Testimony of the Christian Church it self is able to create faith in us which must be ipso Deo intrinsecus mentem nostram firmante illuminante God himself inlightning and strengthning our inward mind for Faith is the gift of God and be the object never so credible believe we cannot till God's Spirit worketh Faith in us For the final resolution termination and rest of our Faith must be upon God alone and by him alone wrought in us That the Authority of the Church should be the sine qua non so absolutely necessary as that the inward witnesse of God's Spirit cannot warrant us that the Scriptures are divine without her testimony needs no further confutation than the History of the Evangelists and Acts where we reade of thousands converted to Christianity who never entred at that door In short to contract my discourse within a straighter compasse Faith being an Habit infused and every Habit requiring some preceding dispositions and degrees to it Faith must have hers also to make the thing credible before it be actually believed of these motives and preparatory dispositions the Tradition of the Church is I grant to us Christians the first and most prevalent but the Church is not herein in unsociable it is not her testimony alone will make it credible that the Scriptures are divine other deductions and inferences framed by light of Reason must and usually do co-operate in working the minde to that perswasion And by this time that famous place in S. Augustin is easily resolved which the Marques urged against his Maj. and Englished with more advantage to his cause than conformity to the minde of that Father I should not believe the Gospel it self unless I were moved by the Authority of the Church so the Marques But Saint Augustine Nisi commoverit unlesse the Churches Authority together with other inducements did move me to it clearly implying she could not move alone Having dwelt thus long and unavoidably upon this point lest the Doctor should think he hath quite lost me 't is high time to apply my self to him again This Church being found out and her Authority allowed of all controversies would soon be decided You say true indeed Doctor her Authority being allowed of but then it must be allowed of for divine and who will so allow it amongst us Protestants And how can it be proved she hath any such Authority you will send us back I know to Audi Ecclesiam But there will be a controversie what is the genuine interpretation of that place whether hearing implieth an absolute or limited submission and who shall decide that controversie You 'll say the Church I say no she must not for 't is her own case and she must not be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} witnesse in her own cause that our Saviour held incompotent in himself If I bear witness of my self my witness is not true But the Doct. tells us 'T is one Article of our Creed I believe the holy Catholique Church That 's true too but 't is Credo sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam I believe there is an holy Catholique Church not I believe in the holy Catholique Church As the Lion wants neither strength nor courage nor power nor weapons to seise upon his prey yet he wants a nose to finde it out wherefore by natural instinct he takes to his assistance the little Jack-call a quick-sented beast who runs before the Lion and having found out the prey in his Language gives the Lion notice of it now to apply this to our purpose Christ crucified is the main substance of the Gospel c. The Doctor is here fallen upon a comparison wherewith he is much taken I confesse I am not so well read to tell whence he had it nor of so easie belief to credit the Fable nor is it essential or to the purpose whether a Fable or a Story since the main design

nurture for Children who are adult and grown to full stature and past the danger of cutting their own fingers sometimes to be their own Carvers though their Mother be at the Table But how commeth it to passe that the Doctor here placeth our Mother the Church in no obscure place neither but in the Carvers place at the Tables end where she should be visible enough and yet say afterward he would fain finde out this Church And if at the Table she be the more hard-hearted is she sure for truly Doctor I must say as Powhaton did to the Jesuit or Attaliba an Indian Prince too to Frier Vincent she hath carved me nothing no nor any man else for these fifteen hundred years and 't is an hard case that Children should cry and pine and sterve and die eternally for want of this Food everlasting which is before them and all because their Mother will not carve them and themselves they must not 'T is time then for God to take away and I heartily pray he may not take away and deprive this Church of that blessed Food for such wicked Tenets as this They must not slight all Orders Constitutions Appeals and Rules of Faith Most true the Churches Orders are not to be slighted nor yet to be obeyed without further disquisition and scrutiny the Apostle spake as to wise men yet left them to judge what he said so may the Church determine what she please and if not agreeable to my sense endeavour I will to inform my self better and if after after all my study I cannot subdue my Reason to hers yet to her Orders my outward conformity I will provided she makes no Rules of Faith and obtrudeth nothing destructive to saving principles things above her sphere Saving knowledge and divine Truths must not be wrested from the Scripture by private hands This is that we desire let them there remain fit it is that in what every man hath equal propriety he also should to it have equal accesse and most unfit that the means of eternal livelihood should be monopolized Doct. There is nothing more absurd to my understanding than that the thing contested which is the true meaning of the Scriptures should be Judge of the Contestation Nor to mine that any one should tell us what God meaneth better than he doth himself or that the Church a thing subordinate to Scripture and not to be known or discovered but by Scripture should tell us the minde of the Scripture better than it doth it self Doct. No way inferior to that absurdity which would follow would be this if we should leave the deciding of the sense of the words of the Law to the pre-occupated understanding of one of the Advocates Neither is this all the Absurdity that doth arise upon this supposition for if you grant this to one you must grant it to any one and to every one if there were but two how will you reconcile them both If you grant that this Judicature must be in many there are many manies which of those manies will you have Decide but this and you satisfie all Decide you it Doctor whence it concerns for your Church must be one of those manies and yet I believe you will not satisfie all not those I am perswaded whose suffrage is for the Scripture against all manies whatsoever If you make the Scripture the Judge of Controversies you make the Reader Judge of the Scripture Not so Doctor no Judge yet a more competent Judge to himself than any other or all the World can be seeing Knowledge and Understanding cannot be produced and perfected in any man any other way than by his own Reason If I make the dead Letter my Judge I am the greatest Idolater in the World A great Idolater you should then be I grant but not the greatest in the World for you worship then but what you see and something really existing but to worship such a thing as hath not yet been nor can be divin'd when it shall be as your Church is certainly must be the greater Idolatry of the two Doct. It will tell me no more than it told the Indian Emperor Powhaton who asking the Jesuit how he knew all that to be true which he had told him and the Jesuit answering him that God's Word did tell him so the Emperor asked him where it was He shewed him his Bible the Emperor after he had held it in his hands a pretty while answered it tells me nothing But you will say you can reade and so you will finde the meaning out of the significant Character and when you have done as you apprehend it so it must be and so the Scripture is nothing else but your meaning Not so Doctor but so it must be to me be it to the Doctor what he please nor perhaps shall it be always so to me as I now apprehend it for I am no infallible Judge to my self rectifie I may and will upon better reason what I formerly mis-apprehended upon worse Wherefore necessity requireth an external Judge for Determination of Differences besides the Scriptures If an external Judge besides Scriptures be necessary then necessary also it is that that Judge be first infallible for else better it were the Dissentions continued than the Error be stated and put into possession as may well be feared in an erring Judge Secondly that that Judges authority be allow'd of for infallible by general consent for else all will not abide her arrest and doom Lastly that that Judge be always ready and forth coming upon all emergent Differences to still them never out of the way never to seek for else the Differences will the more increase and fructifie by staying the longer for judicial sentence and decision Now because for these fifteen hundred years controversies have been and no such Judge as yet discovered in rerum natura to quiet them we may safely conclude from the no Judge a no necessity or accuse God for improvidence and neglect in leaving us destitute all this time of so necessary a Requisite Doct. And we can have no better recourses to any than to such as the Scripture it self calls upon us to hear which is the Church which Church would be found out The Scripture calls upon us to hear the Church but is this to hear to obey her Glosse and Interpretation of the Scripture to give up and resign our judgements to her sense Calvin Beza Grotius all Expositors the Context it self will tell you no it is to submit to her censure in point of satisfaction for mutual offence whereby she is scandalized so that Doctor you must before you finde the Church you so look for finde some other Text to warrant her Authority or she is like to be no external Judge whom all must obey in matters of Faith Here the Doctor takes breath and gives his most Excellent Majesty leave to speak who like himself most judiciously catechiseth the Doctor in the