Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A36018
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Protestant certainty, or, A short treatise shewing how a Protestant may be well assured of the articles of his faith
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Dillingham, William, 1617?-1689.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing D1485; ESTC R1392
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22,130
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40
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from thence returning to recover as much as we can of that which we laid aside to try the Experiment And lastly for the new Demonstrations which some have lately advanced to prove the infallibility of Oral Tradition from the impossibility of its miscarrying and that what is this day declared for Apostolical Doctrine must needs have been always so declared because it cannot be imagined that those who delivered it one day for such should have forgotten what they had heard but the day before or that they would report that to others which they had not heard themselves This I say doth require and needs more Charity and good nature in an Adversary than it is like to meet withal out of their own Communion and but rarely there And really the Demonstration is so extraordinary that did not we see it made use of by themselves we might rather have supposed it to have been hatched by the heat and sweat of some Man's Brain who was no well-wisher to the Doctrines which it is brought in favour of But however that be I am confident that seven Cities will hardly contend for the honour of his Birth who had the felicity to be the first Inventor and for our selves we shall desire to be well assured not only of the goodness and infallibility of their Memories and of their Honesty who all along delivered these things but also of their due attention to and right apprehension of the things which they heard And also that Men of so good Memories might not likewise have so good Inventions or at least some of them as to light upon some private opinions of their own which they might impart unto others and which might insensibly in tract of time be spread abroad and so far liked by the generality that for the very agreableness of them to their Minds and conveniences for their Interests they might be worthy to be ascribed either to some extraordinary Spirit in the Author if known or else to the Apostles themselves And this be spoken without any worse reflection upon their Memories or Fidelity which have been shewn to be a very insufficient enumeration of the possible yea and probable causes of a miscarriage in Oral Tradition But this demonstration has convinced Protestants of this at least that as far as this is confided in Demonstration at present runs very low in the Church of Rome And to keep our Country People from being overmuch convinced by it we shall need only to put them to read a leaf in Chaucer where they may perceive that our Language notwithstanding daily use and Tradition is so much altered from what it was three hundred Years ago that what was then ordinarily spoken is now hardly to be understood But wherever the Romanists shall at length agree to place this their Infallibility nay though every one of their Communion might have it who would but pretend to it let them make the best use of it they can for their own private assurance and comfort But if they will needs make it Argumentative to convince others of the Divine Authority of what they deliver we hope they will first prove to us such their Infallibility by clear promises in Scripture or testimonies from Scripture or else by universal Tradition of the Churches of Christ concerning it or else shew us some unquestionable works of divine Power wrought in Confirmation I say not of their Doctrines but of their own Infallibility in testifying that the Doctrines were taught by Christ and his Apostles which is pretended to have accompanied the Tradition through all Ages and therefore the Miracles must run parallel with it and accompany it in a constant Succession to be the Credential Letters of the successive deliverers and reporters to the Men of each particular Generation For it seems a very unreasonable thing for any Disputant to require such a Postulatum to be granted him by his Antagonist that whatsoever he shall say is not only true but infallibly true which is such a begging of the Question as shews how poorly he is provided to give Men a just satisfaction and is as much as to say He is resolved never to dispute about any thing which he proposes I will add no more but only this upon the whole Master That while the Romanists do offer us more Certainty for the Scriptures being the Word of God than we need They cannot perform to us so much Certainty for those unscriptural Doctrines as we do justly require and expect before we entertain them So prone are some Men to dream of Supererogating while in truth they fall shamefully short of doing their necessary Duty FINIS A Catalogue of some Books Printed for Henry Mortlack at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard A Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer by T. C. Wherein the true Grounds of Faith are cleared and the False discovered the Church of England vindicated from the Imputation of Schism and the most important particular Controversie between us and those of the Church of Rome throughly examined By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. and Dean of St. Paul's Folio The second Edition Origines Britannicae Or the Antiquity of the British Churches with a Preface concerning some pretended Antiquities relating to Britain in vindication of the Bishop of St. Asaph By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls Folio The Rule of Faith Or an Answer to the Treatise of Mr. J. S. Entituled Sure Footing c. By John Tillotson D. D. To which is adjoyned A reply to Mr. J. S.'s third Appendix c. By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Octavo A Letter to Mr. G giving a true Account of a late Conference at the D. of Pauls A second Letter to Mr. G. in answer to two Letters lately published concerning the Conference at the D. of Pauls Veteres Vindicati In an Expostulary Letter to Mr. Sclater of Putny upon his Consensus Veterum c. wherein the absurdity of his Method and the weakness of Reasons are shewn his false Aspersions upon the Church of England are wiped off and his Faith concerning the Eucharist proved to be that of the Primitive Church Together with Animadversions on Dean Boileu's French translation of and Remarks upon Bertram An Answer to the Compiler of Nubes Testium Wherein is shewn That Antiquity in relation to the Points in Controversie set down by him did not for the first five hundred Years Believe Teach and Practice as the Church of Rome doth at present Believe Teach and Practice together with a Vindication of Veteres Vindicati from the late weak and dis-ingenuous Attempts of the Author of Transubstantion defended by the Author of the Answer to Mr. Sclater of Putney A Letter to Father Lewis Sabran Jesuit in answer to his Letter to a Peer of the Church of England wherein the Postscript to the Answer to the Nubes Testium is vindicated and Father Sabran's Mistakes farther discovered A second Letter to Father Lewis Sabran Jesuite in answer to his Reply A Vindication of the Principles of the Author of the Answer to the Compiler of Nubes Testium in Answer to a late pretended Letter from a Dissenter to the Divines of the Church of England Scripture and Tradition compared in a Sermon Preached at Guild-Hall Chappel Nov. 27. 1687. By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls the second Edition A discourse concerning the Nature and Grounds of the Certainty of Faith in Answer to J. S. his Catholick Letters by Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St Pauls The Council of Trent examined and disproved by Catholick Tradition in the main Points in Controversie between us and the Church of Rome with a particular Account of the Times and Occasions of introducing them Part I. To which a Preface is prefixed concerning the true Sense of the Council of Trent and the Notion of Transubstantiation By Ed. Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls