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	scripture_n	tradition_n	2,838	5	9.5550	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51177	The coppy of a letter sent from France by Mr. Walter Mountagu to his father the Lord Privie Seale, with his answere thereunto also a second answere to the same letter by the Faukland.	Montagu, Walter, 1603?-1677.; Falkland, Lucius Cary, Viscount, 1610?-1643.; Manchester, Henry Montagu, Earl of, 1563?-1642.	1641 (1641)	Wing M2472; ESTC R6266	23,462	40

others other out of which by comparing their doctrine with the Scripture men may draw a perfect body of Truths and though they delivered few other Truths yet in delivering Scripture wherein all necessary Truths is containd they deliver all and by that rule whosoever regulates his life and doctrine I am confident that though he may mistake errour for Truth in the way hee shall never mistake Hell for Heaven in the end Seventhly His next reason is their common Achilles the fourth of the Ephesians which he chuseth onely to employ like his Triarios his mayn battell leaving his Velites his light armed Souldiers some places too allegorical even in his own opinion to stand examinatiō The words are these He hath given some Prophets some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and some Doctors for the instauration of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edification of the body of Christ till wee all meet in the unity of Faith and the knowledge of the Sonne of God unto a perfect man and unto the measure of the age of the fulnesse of Christ That we may be no more children tost and carried away with every winde of doctrine c. Verse 11 12 13. Now out of this place I see not how a succession may be evinced rather I thinke it may that the Apostle meant none For first he saith not hee will give but he hath given and who could suppose that the Apostle could say that Christ had given then the present Pope and the Doctors who now adhere to him Secondly allow that by he hath given were meant he hath promis'd which would be a glosse not much unlike to that which one of the most witty and most eloquent of our modern Divines Doctor Dun notes of Statuimus i. Abrogamus yet since these severall Nowns are all governed by the same Verb and no distinction put it would prove as wel a necessity of a continual succession of Apostles Prophets and Evangelists as of Pastors and Doctors which is more then either they can shew or pretend they can so that it seemeth to me to follow that these were then given to do this till then and not a succession of them promised till then to doe this and so wee receiving and retaining the Scriptures wherein what they taught is contain'd as wee would any thing else that had as generall and ancient a tradition if there were any such need no more for if hee say that men are tost for all the Scriptures I answer so are they for all these Doctors nay if these keep any from being tost it is the Scripture which does it upon which their authority is by them founded upon their own interpretation and reason who yet will not give us leave to build any thing upon ours out of plainer places and though they tell us that wee cannot know the Scripture but from the Church they are yet fain as appeares to prove the Authoritie of the Church out of Scripture which makes mee aske them in the wordes of their owne Campian and with much more cause Nihilne pudet Labyrinthi Eigthly there follows an other reason to this sense that Reason not being able to shew away to eternall happinesse and without such an one man would fail of the end to which he was ordained it must be propos'd by an infallible authority in so plain a manner as even the simple might be capable of it which being performed by our Saviour it must be convai'd to succeeding ages by those who heard it from him and whensoever this thread failed mankind was left without a guide to inevitable ruine I answere that though all this be granted it proves not against us for we have the Scripture come downe to us relating Christs Doctrine and written by those that heard it and which the simple are capable of understanding I mean as much as is plaine and more is not necessary since other Questions may as well be suffered without harme as those betweene the Jesuites and Dominicans about Predetermination and betweene the Dominicans and almost all the rest about the Immacultate conception and those who are not neither are they capable out of Scripture to discerne the true Church Much lesse by any of these notes which require much understanding and large learning as conformity with the Ancients and such like Ninthly the same answere I give to this serves also to the following words of Saint Austin for whereas Master Mountague concludeth that he could not meane the Scriptures as a competent rule to mankind which consisteth most of simple persons because there hath been continuall altercations about the sense of important places I answere that I may as well conclude by the same Logick that neither is the Church a competent guide because in all ages there have also beene disputes not onely about her authority but even which was shee and to whatsoever reason he imputes this to the same may we the other as to negligence pride prejudication and the like and if he please to search I verily beleeve he will find that the Scriptures are both easier to bee knowne then the Church and that it is as easie to know what these teach as when that hath defin'd since they hold no Decrees binding de fide without a confirmation of the popes who can never bee knowne infallibly to be a Pope because a secret simony makes him none no not to be a Christian because want of due intention in the Baptizer makes him none whereof the latter is always possible and the first in some ages likely and in hard Questions a readinesse to yeeld to the Scriptures when they shall be explan'd me thinks should serve as well as a readinesse to assent to the decrees of the Church when those shall bee pronounced Tenthly Hee saith the Scripture must be kept safe in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of them which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved that free from corruption then its selfe in a continuall visibility I answer that neither to giving authority to Scripture nor to the keeping of them is required a continuall visibility of a no ways erring body of Christians the writers of them give them their authority amongst Christians nor can the Church move any other and that they were the writers of them we receive from the generall Tradition and testimony of the first Christians not from any following Church who could know nothing of it but from them for for those parts which were then doubted of by such as were not condemned for it by the rest why may not wee remayn in the same suspence of them that they did for their being kept and convey'd this was not done onely by their Church but by the Greeks and there is no reason to say that to the keeping and transmitting of Records safely it is required to understand them perfectly since the old Testament was kept

ready to shew our visibility in this question men are to consider that there is a double splendor of the Church which makes way for the visibilitie of it The proper splendour of a Church consists in puritie of doctrine The common splendour of a Church consists in the outward accommodations which appertain not to the being but the well being of the Church as temporall peace multitude of professors locall succession of Pastors yet persecution may interrupt this succession of Pastors it may cut off the multitude of professors heresie may so far prevail as to make the Orthodox Church pull in her head witnesse the time of Arianisme when few but godly Athanasius and some with him were faine to keepe in corners and of this our Divines are to be understood when they speake of our latencie that for this outward splendour it suffered a great obscuritie for divers hundred yeeres yet when it was at the lowest the doctrine was visible and some professors still in the eye of the World I would wish you well to consider the things which I shall tell you The state of the Church is so ordered by our great Master Christ that she is to expect her times of obscurity as well as her times of splendor hee hath made her estate militant and appointed her to a passive condition as well as an active designed her to vicissitudes of obscurity as well as luster and shews her no lesse glorious in her obscurity then in her triumph as Tertullian saith of vertue Extruitur duritia destruitur mollitia 2 This visibilitie represented by an innumerous multitude locall Succession Secular estate these were not considered in the first times when the Church stood sound nor in the later times when she got some recovery only in the intermediate when she lay under the crosse and were these the probats of Faith it had bin ill with the Israelites Church in the time of Elias worse with the Apostolicall Church when the Scribes and Pharisies sate in Moses Chaire worst in the time of Arianisme and in times of Antichristianisme which shall come as most Writers say 3 This glorious succession which Rome so much brags of is a deceitfull medium whereby to measure the truth of a Church because a Church may be a true Church without it and be also a false Church with it Non colligitur ibi necessariò esse Ecclesiam ubi est successio saith Bellarmine though Stapleton be of another minde Alexandria challengeth succession as well as Rome the Church of Constantinople takes her pedigree from Saint Andrew the Apostle and brings it down to our times A false Church may have succession and a true Church may want it otherwise you will grant that Rome is no true Church the Church of Rome hath sometimes lyen empty sometimes it hath carried double and both of them have bin deposed these broken links marre the chaine of that succession But because this rather concernes the persons not the thing It is otherwise to be cleerly shewed that it may be a true Church that hath not this uninterrupted succession for else no Church at all could be true in her first plantation For successions are by descent descents have no place in first originals whereas the orthodox faith doth the very first day put her in possession of Apostolical succession as Tertullian well saith That Churches wch have not their original descent from the Apostles are Apostolicall propter consanguinitatem doctrinae The place which you cite out of the fourth to the Ephesians proves cleerly the necessity of orthodox Pastors not of locall Succession you may hereby see how in the informing of your selfe in this particular you are overtaken this thing also much troubles me that your Letters said that when you last came back out of Italy you sought nothing so attentively as satisfaction in these points of controversie especially that touching the visibilitie of our Church in all ages but could receive none Could you never in all the while of your last being in England find the time to acquaint me with your desire doubtles I must say you did in this time study the dissimulation of your intention otherwise I must have known it I was heretofore more indulgent towards you for God knows it Walter the sonne of my bodie was never so deare unto me as the salvation of my sonne Walters soule your yonger yeers can witnesse how I shewed you the way which I my selfe took to settle mine own salvation for though it was my happinesse to be derived from vertuous and religious parents yet I tooke not my Religion meerly by discent but studied and examined the ground on which I was to found my faith I read both Papists and Protestants I found both confident and contradictory Et quoties palpitavit mihi tremulum cor before I setled either way sometimes thinking safest to mean well and to keep unsetled either way yet I saw a necessity laid on mee to be one of the two Churches but how to find out which of them was the true Church whereof I must be a member if I would secure my salvation hic labor hoc opus est I easily resolved there was not two Churches whereof a man might chuse which to be of and after long study I found cleerly that to be the true Church which constantly held the common faith which faith had the Scripture for the rule this known and resolved which is undoubted then I was not scared with that fearfull censure of the Roman Church which pronounced all damned that are not of that Church But how much am I distasted to finde severall arguments made in the Letter all to insinuate that the Scriptures are not a competent rule of faith and first varietie of interpretation secondly obscuritie of some places thirdly inauthentiquences of themselves fourthly their authoritie dependent on the Church fiftly the puritie of them warranted by the visibility of the Church sixtly made Authentike by the Churches authoritie strange assertions as if the true Church were not to be tried by the true faith but the true faith by the Church I know my self bound to believe the authoritie of that Church which makes Scripture the rule of faith but as for the act of any Church though it be a fit Ministry to shew me the way yet it is not of authority sufficient of it selfe to secure me of my salvation from true faith the true Church is inferr'd and which is the true Church when all is done must be tried by the Scripture but it is now with us as it was in the time of Chrysostome when there was so much question which was the true Church and men were of so many different opinions about it as none could tell what Church to bee of or what Religion was safest to trust to so saith the Father of the Scriptures which in matters of faith necessary to salvation speak so truly so fully so plainly as it is but a shift for a man

transmitted by the Iews who yet were so capable of erring that out of it they lookt for a temporall King when it spake of a spiritual me thinks the testimonie is greater of a church that contradicts the Scripture then which doth not since no mans witnessing is so soon to be taken as when against himselfe and so their testimony is greater of a Church that contradicts the Scripture by which themselves are condemn'd Besides the generall reverence which ever hath bin given to the Books the continuall use of them together with severall parties having alwayes their eyes upon each other ready and desirous to have somewhat to accuse in their Adversaries gives us greater certainty that these are the same writings then we have that any other ancient Book is any other ancient Authors and we need not to have any other unerring company preserv'd to make us surer of it yet the Church of Rome as infallible a Depositarie as she is hath suffer'd some varieties to creepe into the Copies in some lesse materiall things nay and some whole Books as they themselves say to be lost and if they say how then can that be the rule whereof part is lost I answer that wee are excus'd if we walk by all the rule that we have and this makes much against Traditions being the rule since the Church hath not lookt better to Gods unwritten word then to his written and if she pretend she hath let her tell us the cause why Antichrists comming was deferr'd which was a Tradition of St. Paul to the Thessalonians and which without impudence she cannot pretend not to have lost and if againe they say God hath preserv'd all necessary Traditions I reply so hath hee all necessary Scripture for by not being preserv'd it became to us not necessary since wee cannot be bound to beleeve and follow what we cannot finde But besides I beleeve that all which was ever necessary is contain'd in what remaines for Pappias sayes of S. Mark that he writ all that S. Peter preach'd as Iraeneus doth that Luke writ all that S. Paul preach'd nay Vincentius Lirinensis though hee would have the Scripture expounded by ancient Tradition yet confesseth that all is there that is necessary and yet then there was no more Scripture then we now have as indeed by such a Tradition as he speaks of no more can be prov'd then is plainly there and almost all Christians confent in and truly I wonder that they should bragge so much of that Author since both in this and other things he makes much against them especially in not sending men to the present Roman Church a much readier way if he had knowne it then such a long and doubtfull one as hee prescribes which indeed it is impossible that almost any question should be ended by Eleventhly He brings S. Austines authority to prove that the true Church must be alwayes visible but if he understood Church in Master Mountagu's sence I think he was deceiv'd Neither is this impudence for me to say since I have cause to think it but his particular opinion by his saying which Card. Perr quotes that before the Donatists the question of the Church had never beene exactly disputed of and by this being one of his maine grounds against them and yet claiming no Tradition but onely places of Scripture most of them allegoricall and if it were no more then I may better dissent from it then he from all the first Fathers for Dionisius Areopagita was not as yet hatcht in the point of the Chiliasts though some of them Pappias and Iraeneus claim'd a direct Tradition and Christs owne words Secondly as hee useth this kind of liberty so he professeth it in his 19 Epistle where he saith that to Canonicall Scriptures he had onely learnt to give that reverence as not to doubt of what they said because they said it and from all others hee expected proofe from Scriptures or reason Thirdly the Church of Rome condemnes severall opinions of him and therefore she ought not to finde fault with them who imitate her examples Twelfthly He adds two reasons more the consent of the Fathers of all ages and the confession of Protestants To the first I answer that I know not of any such and am the more unapt to beleeve it because M. Mountague vouchsafes not to insist upon it nor to quote any which I guesse he would have done but that hee misdoubted their strength Secondly suppose that all the Fathers which speak of this did say so yet if they say it as private Doctors and claime no Tradition for it I know not why they should weigh more then so many of the now-learned who having more help from Art and no fewer from Nature are not worse searchers into what is truth though lesse capable of being witnesses to what was tradition Thirdly they themselves often professe they expect not to be read as Judges but as to be judg'd by their and our rule the Canonicall Scriptures Fourthly Let him please to read about the imaculate conception Posa Salmeron Wadding and he will finde me as submissive to antiquity even whilest I reject it as those of his owne Party for they to preferre new opinions before old are faine to preferre new Doctors before old and to confesse the latter more perspicacious and to differ from those of former times with as little scruple as hee would from Calvin whom Maldonat on purpose to oppose confesseth he chuseth a new Interpretation before that of all the Ancients which no witnesse but my eyes could have made mee beleeve nay and produce other points wherein their Church hath decreed against the Fathers to perswade her to doe so againe although Campian with an eloquent brag would perswade us that they are all as much for him as Greg. the 13 who was then Pope To the second I answer that infallibility is not by us deni'd to the Church of Rome with an intention of allowing it to particular Protestants how wise and learned soever Thirteenthly Hee says next that hee after inform'd himself in other points which seem'd to him unwarrantable and superstitious and found onely his own mistakes gave him occasion of scandall to this I answer that I cannot well answer any thing unlesse he had specified the points but I can say that there are many as picturing God the Father which is generally thought lawfull and as generally practised their offerings to the Virgin Mary which onely differs frō the heresy of the Colliridians in that a candle is not a cake their praying to Saints and beleeving de fide that they heare us though no-way made certaine that they doe so and many more which without any mistake of his might have given him occasion to be still scandalized for whereas he saith that these points were grounded upon the authority of the ancient Fathers which was refused as insufficient by Protestants I answere that none of these I name have any ground