Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	church_n	divine_a	tradition_n	2,510	5	9.4719	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33459	A treatise of humane reason	Clifford, M. (Martin), d. 1677.	1674 (1674)	Wing C4707; ESTC R21053	22,005	94

I have said something of it be fore in answering this Argument turn'd against this Opinion unhappily and because the manner of establishing this Liberty in a Commonwealth will require a Discourse entirely by it self The last defence of this Cause and which indeed needs not the assistance of any other shall be because though men deceive themselves herein and as it often happens know not their own Opinions it is impossible that ever any man should have been is or can hereafter be guided by any thing else but his own Reason as in other things so also in matters of Religion I say impossible for whatsoever way we take we shall find that the last Anchor to which our Faith holds the last Element into which it is resolv'd and therefore it is likewise compounded of the same is onely Reason For when I ask why you believe any Mystery of Faith you will answer perhaps Because the present Church commands you If I proceed and ask Why do you believe what the present Church commands you will say Because the former Church teaches the same Why do you believe the former Church Because God commands you so to do Why do you believe that God commands it Because you find it in the Scripture Why do you believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God Because they were confirmed by Miracles Why do Miracles confirm that Because they are works which can proceed from nothing but the absolute and immediate power of the Deity Why so Because nothing contrary to or above the Course of Nature can be done by natural Agents but Miracles are effects contrary to or above the Course of Nature therefore they proceed from the Divine Operation Thus you see Faith at last resolv'd into a Syllogisme which is the proper work of the Understanding On the other hand if I demand Why you do believe that any Miracles were done for the Confirmation of the Faith Because of the great and many Testimonies of the Truth thereof Why do you believe those Testimonies Because so many Persons in so several times and places with so several interests could never agree in being deceived or to deceive So that you rest not at all in any Authority but discourse first what may be said for or against the validity of it examine it punctually in all Circumstances and at last submit to it upon some Syllogisme which is the onely Law that binds our Reason Two things are to be considered in all Authority before we obey or believe it first The condition and quality of the Persons who Command or Instruct and secondly The true interpretation of their Commands or Instructions For the first The Persons in Commanding must have a lawful Power derived to them either from God Nature or Custome which latter depends upon the two former And in Instructing must have either an absolute infallibility or else at least a probability of not Erring So that no Authority is obeyable or believeable in it self without farther examination no not that of God himself for the strength of Gods Authority depends upon that Syllogisme which proves that the nature of God is such that he can neither deceive nor be deceived Now all this Examination is purely and entirely the work of our Reason by measuring a particular and an universal Whatsoever hath such Conditions is to be obeyed or believed but such Person or Persons hath such Conditions therefore such Person or Persons are to be obeyed or believed Neither do's our Reason onely prescribe obedience and belief to us but also searches and establishes the bounds of both setting up some solid and apparent Notions by which we know our Ne plus ultra True it is that some men Obey and some men Believe without considering that they make this discourse but that is only from inadvertency as men often move their Bodies without any particular exerted thought of doing so Thus far then Authority wholy depends upon Reason And much more in the second Condition which is the interpretation of it in which business the interposition of Reason is so necessary that I shall omit either to prove or illustrate the Point Now as they who enslave themselves to Authority make it the rule and guide of Faith because that even the belief that Scripture is the Law of God depends upon it as truly it do's in my Opinion upon the tradition of Miracles so I say that much rather Reason is to be accounted that Rule and that Guide we look for because even Authority upon which even Scripture it self depends depends as much upon that neither do we more believe the Scripture for Authority then that very Authority for the Reason we think we have to do so The Samaritan says I have an infallible Rule which is the Books of Moses and only them The Jew says I cannot erre for I follow the Old Testament which is infallible and only that The Christian assures himself of the Truth as long as he is guided by the Evangelists and Apostles whose Writings are the infallible dictates of the Holy Ghost The Turk assumes the same from the Alcoran and the Heathen from Oracles Sybill's Books and the like What shall I do None of all these Books can be believed by their own Light for there are things equally strange in them all Follow the Authority of the Church which cannot misguide you Most willingly but again the same difficulty returns in another habit for as every one Cries I follow these Books which are infallible so he goes on too and says I believe these Books to be so because our Church and our Traditions which are certainly the best Authority assures us that they were written by Divine inspiration Let the Christian take heed of saying here But my Tradition is more ancient and more Universal for in the first the Jew will overcome him and in both the Heathen I must in this diversity of waies either stand still that is suspend absolutely from the belief of any Religion which is almost impossible after the belief that there is a GOD or I must choose out of these Now Election is a work so proper to Reason that it cannot be done by any thing else and therefore to be brought to a necessity of an Election is to be necessarily brought to submit in matters of Religion to the determination of our Understanding So that in matters of Religion wherein there is difference I choose this side rather than the other because my Reason bids me and where there is no difference even there I am wholy guided by my Reason because the uncontradicted concurrence of the Parties makes up a Syllogisme to perswade I say to perswade onely my Belief Briefly I cannot Believe but by an act of the Will nor can I Will but according to the directions of the Understanding so that they who say they follow Authority or they follow Divine particular Revelation or any thing else imaginable do it because that agrees with their own Reason and will quit the Party as soon as it do's otherwise The End * Contumelia afficere

should direct you to forsake your Christian-belief for which the Devil do's not want such pleasant colours and specious fallacies as may possibly deceive even a good understanding Before I answer this Objection I desire to know of him that makes it what it is for something it must be which he places in the same Ecclesiastical Superiority that I do reason The private Spirit what if that should perswade him to this Apostacy It cannot Not indeed if it be true but the same condition will make Reason as infallible as that and I may as well judg of the truth of the one as you of the other What is it then you will trust your Soul with in this important business Is it the Authority of Men These verily may lead you into error and it is not impossible into the greatest and worst of all which is the desertion of Christ himself not that this is likely to happen neither more probable is it that our Reason should so far misguide us But alas in this affair of so vast and so eternal consequence what security can we assume whilst there remains a possibility of miscarriage and this possibility is Evident For let us consider it in a Council which if there be any assurance in the number of men is that where most probably it may be found I will not here reckon up the many errors which great and famous Councils have fallen into themselves and labour'd to establish in others they are many and notorious But certainly if a Council could take away the satisfaction of Christs death and Divinity of his person as was done by that great one of the Arrians which condemned Athanasius not without the approbation of the Pope and the whole World besides a Council has already done that thing which you affirm impossible for it to do For they who believed Christ to come into the World as an example and pattern onely of Holiness are no more to be call'd Christians than Abrahamists or Davidists If you will here contend that even these men deserted not wholy Christianity as a man may do by the impulsion of his own private Reason yet certainly you will confess that they who fell so far into error might as well have sunk deeper and exalted some other Prophet above Christ as well as made Christ to be but a Prophet and this possibility of Errour even in so high a degree we shall find in the nature and very Elements of a Council for if any one Member of it may be a Heathen or Atheist in Opinion as the lives of many Popes and the speeches of some declare that they themselves have been why not two not three not more not the Major part that is the whole Council From the Sanctions of the 2 ● Nicene Council which establish'd the worship of Images how easie a step was there made for the next to the introduction of a full undisguis'd and Heathenish Idolatry which we must not say could not because by the mercy of God it did not happen And I verily believe if God had not stirr'd up some persons of excellent Abilities and worthy Spirits for such sure they were though not exempt from humane weaknesses to examine by the Rules of their own Reasons those follies and dangerous Errours in Religion which partly by the Interest partly by the Ignorance of Men and insensible advances of ill Custome were blindly embraced by the whole World if these Men I say had not discover'd the past Errours and by that means made their Adversaries more cautious not to fall into any new ones the world through the Adoration of Saints and Images and the boundless Increase of vain and Superstitious Ceremonies would have past before this time to its old and abominable worship of several Deities and to a Religion overwhelm'd if not with the same yet with as many and as vain Impieties It remains therefore that you put your Confidence rather in the Traditions of the former than the Commands of the present Church but what those were you must either trust some number of Men present which is not without the possibility of being misguided or your own search and diligence which is to fall into that Opinion which you condemn in me And truly they who build their Belief wholly upon the Authority of past or present Ages if they look upon all the Consequences of that Opinion are in much greater danger of being drawn from the Christian Faith than those who remit the judgment of these things to their own Reason For ever since the beginning of the Christian belief there has been the Authority of above an hundred to one against it and this Authority backt and strengthened with the universal agreement of more than three thousand years before it But on the contrary if we weigh impartially the Motives and Arguments which every Religion can produce in its own defence Reason it self will find more and much greater for the Christian than it can for any other Belief whatsoever And I am very confident that no man ever from a Christian became a Turk or a Jew because his Reason told him that was a better Religion but because either fear of punishment or hope of reward or some other sinister Cause perswaded his Reason that the worst Religion in it self would be the better to him upon those Conditions Now all those Arguments by which some men have laboured to prove that our Guide in spiritual matters ought to be Infallible will though they be granted for true as I believe in some sense they are will not at all dispossess Reason of this Authority which we have declared to be her due For the Infallibility of a Guide I conceive to be only this That it cannot fail to bring us to that end for which we chose to be guided by it and if to this end there happen to be a thousand several waies it is a Guide no less infallible as to the End if it lead us through a long an unpleasant and obscure Tract than if it conducted us by a short a delightful and an open road for not the goodness of the passage but certainty of not missing the End is that which constitutes this kind of Infallibility And truly every mans particular Reason if well followed for whatsoever Guide you pitch upon whether Scripture Spirit Church past or present or any thing else imaginable must have that condition annext or else it will become unprofitable will infallibly carry him at last though perhaps through many tedious and troublesome wandrings to his eternal happiness if it be followed for that condition cannot be repeated too often with constancy diligence and sobriety This Doctrine sets the great gate of Heaven so wide open that it will displease those men who with an envious kind of pride think it more honour to enter in with a few at a narrow wicket But I truly out of an humble consideration of my own weakness and the general imbecillity of humane