Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	father_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	2,047	5	9.1715	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62675	An essay concerning the power of the magistrate, and the rights of mankind in matters of religion with some reasons in particular for the dissenters not being obliged to take the Sacramental Test but in their own churches, and for a general naturalization : together with a postscript in answer to the Letter to a convocation-man.	Tindal, Matthew, 1653?-1733.	1697 (1697)	Wing T1302; ESTC R4528	95,152	210

otherwise than as it has this Mark and Character stampt upon it Hence it is that God Heb. 8. speaking of the Gospel-time and Covenant saith I will put my Laws into their Minds and write them in their Hearts And they shall not teach every Man his Neighbour and every Man his Brother saying Know the Lord for all shall know me from the least to the greatest And to interpret this Law which is written in our Hearts and which we cannot from the greatest to the least fail to discover if we attend to our own Minds by Fathers Councils c. is to interpret a Rule that 's clear and evident in it self by what is most obscure and mysterious If the Gospel be hid from any it 's not the Poor the Babes the Simple but the Pretenders to vain Philosophy and Science falsly so called the Wranglers and Disputers of this World who would fain be thought to be the Wise and Prudent and as it was their Prejudices and Prepossessions made them esteem the Gospel the foolishness of Preaching so it afterward made some of them corrupt the foolishness of Preaching with their wise unintelligible Philosophy and their Successors by following the Tradition of Men made void the Commandments of God The first Reformers despised any Authority but that of Reason and Scripture and had those that succeeded them followed their Example they had no doubt destroyed Popery whose chief Support consists in Human Traditions as Fathers Councils c. 6. The Subject of this Book shows how little is to be relied on the Authority of those Men on which they will have every thing to rely for tho the Light of Nature by placing Man in such a helpless Condition that he cannot subsist without the Assistance of others does oblige all Men except he that is Orthodox to himself is Al sufficient for himself to be most kind loving and friendly one to another and agreeable to this the Scripture most passionately recommends the Love of our Neighbour but most frequently and zealously when we differ from him and tho the observance of this Command has at all times been absolutely necessary the Christians from the beginning being divided in their Sentiments yet for all this there never was a Convocation of Priests but what notoriously broke this Rule by not only most uncharitably anathematizing and damning those that could not comply with their Sentiments but by obliging Men to abstain from all Commerce and Converse with them and as soon as the Christians had the Power of the Sword to treat them most inhumanely and barbarously And by degrees the Clergy so intoxicated the People that they were perswaded that this Branch of the Fundamental Law of Nature and the Gospel so absolutely necessary in this State of Ignorance and Darkness was one of the greatest Crimes imaginable The Author of the Letters concerning Toleration is if not absolutely the first the first that amongst us has ventured to assert the Justice and Necessity of a Toleration in its due and full Extent An Author that on more Accounts than one is to be esteemed a Patron of the Liberties of Humane Nature and a Guardian of the Happiness and Safety of Civil Societies and who has by his Writings been most serviceable to Mankind in enlightning their Minds and in improving their Understandings for which he must never expect forgiveness by Men of the Pamphleteer's Principles 7. But to return Tho our Author supposes it no small Crime P. 15. for the Parliament to judg of Matters of Religion yet he grievously complains that notwithstanding the urgency of the Occasion no Relief has been effected that way and tho the Commons have a standing Committee for Religion nothing as I remember has since the Revolution been done by them in behalf of it But what can Men in a Legislative Capacity do more for Religion than besides punishing Vice and Immorality to protect every one in worshipping God as they judg most agreeable to his Will and give them the best Opportunity of informing themselves of his Mind And have they not done this by granting a Toleration and by refusing a Bill for restraining the Liberty of the Press 8. In short when the Clergy had corrupted the Christian as much as the Heathen Priests had Natural Religion it pleased God out of his great Goodness that the Noble Art of Printing should be discovered whereby Men could with ease communicate their Thoughts to the World and some free-spirited Men who durst judg with their own Understandings doing this and Copies of their Works being dispersed it caused many to perceive how miserably they had been imposed on by their Spiritual Guides which as it may well be imagined strangely alarm'd the Kingdom of Darkness of which I shall give but one Instance Cardinal Woolsey Lord Herb. Hist. of H. 8. in a Letter to the Pope tells him That his Holiness could not be ignorant what divers Effects the new Invention of Printing had produced that it had brought in and restored Books and Learning and had been the occasion of those Sects and Schisms that daily appear in the World and chiefly in Germany where Men begin to question the Faith and Tenets of the Church that if this were suffered the common People besides other Dangers might come to believe there was not so much need of the Clergy The Priests to secure themselves from any harm from this new Invention did their utmost to hinder any thing from being printed but what was on their own side and by that means to turn this dreadful Engine on their Enemies which as far as it was quickly and steddily put in Execution had its desired Effect in preserving of Popery but in those Places where by the Connivance of the Government or otherwise this Method was not strictly observed the People threw off the Popish Yoke and the generality of the Clergy were forced to comply yet loth to forgo their beloved Empire over the Consciences of Men they quickly endeavoured to make the People pay the same Obedience to their Determinations as they formerly did to the Romish Clergy and as they made use of the same Arguments and the very same Method to enslave them so they were no less zealous to hinder the Liberty of the Press which puts me in mind of what Le Clere observes at the latter end of the Life of Nazianzen that tho Theology is subject to Revolutions as well as Empire and has undergone considerable Changes yet that the Humour of the Divines is not much altered but the Powers the Clergy claimed to themselves being inconsistent with the Principles of the Reformation and in England with the Oath of Supremacy and that Power the Laws have invested the King with there is nothing so contradictory as their pretended Power and that which they are forced to own does belong to the Magistrate So that our high Church-men are not consistent with themselves no not in one Point but what is worse assert such Principles

given in a Publick Edict for Liberty of Worship not only to deprive and banish those of the Clergy that professed Arianism but even to put all Men to death on whom any of Arius his Works were found 6. But it may be said That if the Christian Priests in the first General Council and all ever since have been for Persecution there must be some very good Reason to influence them I answer Just as much as influences the Jewish Priests not to own Jesus to be the Messias For as they were prejudiced against him because he did not come to advance their Temporal Power so the Christian Priests have been as much prejudiced against those Gospel-Methods of Love Gentleness c. as being wholly inconsistent with their Pride Ambition and that Dominion over Conscience they so much affected as is manifest by their own Histories which represent them after such a manner ever since Persecution prevailed as one would imagine he was reading a Story of Devils rather than of the Successors of the Apostles But if there is Confusion and every evil Work where Envying and Strife is it 's no wonder these should prevail in the highest manner when Barbarity and Cruelty are superadded And not only Ecclesiastical History but the best of the Clergy almost as soon as Persecution was in use give a very scandalous Character of their Body as St. Jerom St. Basil St. Ambrose St. Hilary who in his Comment on the Psalms scruples not to compare them to the Scribes and Pharisees and St. Gregory Nazianzen who in his first Oration amongst other things saith They are no better than Scribes and Pharisees that they looked on the Priesthood not as a Ministry of which they must give an Account but as a Magistracy which is liable to no examination that no Charity was observed in them but only Anger and Passion that their Piety did only consist in condemning the Impiety of other Men whose Conduct they observed not to reclaim but to defame that they blamed or praised Men not because of their good or bad Life but according to the Party they embraced that they admired in themselves what they sharply censured in another Party that they wrangled about Trifles on the specious Pretences of defending the Faith that they were abhorred by the Heathen and despised by all good Men among the Christians 7. In a word There can be no Argument from Human Authority for Persecution because that destroys any Argument that 's built upon Authority even in the Judgment of the Persecutors themselves For ask them why the Council of Ariminum which was double in number to that of Nice and which even the Nicene Fathers themselves subscribed is not of any Authority the Answer is Because they were not a Free Council but were over-awed by the Emperor But if Persecution destroyed their Authority the Reason will hold against any other Council or Meeting of Men ever since Force has been in fashion And it 's no wonder that the Nicene Fathers who were so divided into Parties and Factions and full of Heats Fewds and Quarrels as Marvel in that small but admirable Essay of Creeds and Councils fully shows should revenge themselves on their Adversaries on pretence of advancing the true Religion or that the Arians when they had been so provoked should serve them after the same manner or that the different Parties after these Precedents which must necessarily encrease their Hatreds and Animosities should be more and more for persecuting one the other But more than enough of Human Authority And Now I shall examine what they urge from Reason for the Magistrate's using Force Which may be concluded under these three Heads 1. That it causeth People impartially to consider the Arguments and Motives that make for the true Religion 2. That it hinders the Propagation of Errors 3. That the Interest of the Common-Wealth obligeth the Magistrate not to permit different Professions of Religion CHAP. III. Object That Compulsion tends to make People impartially consider examined 1. I Agree with them that nothing can be more agreeable to the Dignity and more apparently the Duty of Rational Creaturs than to make a strict Inquisition in their advanced and capable Years into Matters of Religion and that of all the Uses Reason was designed for the chief no doubt was in relation to our Eternal Happiness But how can we expect that Happiness from the Hand of God if what we are to believe or practise be by meer accident or for the sake of Worldly Interest and not the Effects of our own Industry and Reasoning for God will judg us as we are Rational Creatures and consequently our Rewards from him will be in a just Proportion to the use we make of our Reason This being premised it 's evident nothing can well be a greater Crime than to hinder People from a free Exercise of their Reason in Matters of Religion which I say nothing can more effectually do than Punishments and Rewards For what can bias and prejudice more than Punishments on the one hand and on the other not only Protection but the Prospect of Preferment and Advantages for as much weight as they carry in Mens Minds so much will they be influenced by them And to put Discountenance and Punishment in one Scale and Impunity and Preferment in the other is as likely a way to make a Man judg impartially for himself as it is to bribe and threaten a Judg to make him judg so for others In a word What can be more absurd than to suppose that the way to make Men consider calmly and without prejudice of those things that require their utmost attention is to provoke them to Passion by ill usage and to distract them on one hand by the Terrors of Punishment and to agitate them as strongly on the other by the hopes of worldly Enjoyments 2. It 's usually said Men are careless and negligent and of themselves unapt to make a strict Inquisition into Religion therefore are to be forced But Force will make them but more so and instead of remedying encrease the Malady for Men will then be afraid to examine the Magistrate's Religion for fear of finding it false and any other for fear of finding it true both which will equally subject them to Punishment In such Circumstances if they examine at all it will be very slightly and partially for a small a very small Reason will make most Men profess a Religion on which their worldly Happiness depends and it must be a monstrous one indeed that they will not make a shift to own rather than be all their lives subject to Punishment In short What can be more unnatural than to imagine that to terrify People into this or that Perswasion is a more likely way to induce them to examine impartially the different Perswasions than to let them freely examine and as freely profess what upon examination they are perswaded is the Truth 3. If Men ought to be influenced in