Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	holy_a	scripture_n	tradition_n	3,213	5	9.1899	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59903	A vindication of the Brief discourse concerning the notes of the church in answer to a late pamphlet entituled, The use and great moment of the notes of the church, as delivered by Cardinal Bellarmin, De notis ecclesiae, justified ...; De notis ecclesiae	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1687 (1687)	Wing S3374; ESTC R18869	41,299	72

does he call them Heathens and if they see a Church and do not believe it to be a Church then it is such a seeing of a Church as does not prove that there is a Church for if it did then all that see the Church would believe it as all that see the Sun believe that there is a Sun. Good works indeed may be seen as he learnedly proves and a Iewish Synagogue may be seen and Christian Oratories and Chappels with Crosses upon them and this may prove that those who built them believed in a Crucified God which is all he alledges to prove that it is self-evident that there is a Church by which I see something also that he does not know What it is to see a Church Though I told him before That to see a company of men who call themselves a Church is not to see a Church For a Church must have a Divine Original and Institution and therefore there is no seeing a Church without seeing its Charter for there can be no other Note or mark of the being of a Church but the Institution of it I observed That the use of Notes in the Church of Rome is to find out the Church before and without the Scriptures for if they admit of a Scripture-proof they must allow that we can know and understand the Scriptures without the authority or interpretation of the Church which undermines the very foundation of Popery In answer to this he says Nothing is more easie and familiar but that men love to be troublesome to their Friends than that the Scriptures must be known by the Church and the Church may be known besides its own evidence by the Scriptures This I believe he has heard so often said without considering it that it is become very easie and familiar to him but it is the hardest thing in the world to me and therefore begging leave of him for being so troublesome I must desire him to explain to me how two things can be known by each other when neither of them can be known first for if the Son must beget the Father and the Father beget the Son which of them must be begotten first But he has an admirable proof of this way of knowing the Church by the Scripture and the Scripture by the Church For so St. Peter exhorts the wife to good conversation that she may thereby win the husband to Christianity even without the Word without the Holy Scripture Implying that a man may be brought over to Christianity both ways by the Church and by the Scripture Suppose this what is this to knowing the Scripture by the Church and the Church by the Scripture The pious and modest conversation of the wife may give her husband a good opinion of her Religion and may be the first occasion of his inquiring into it which may end in his conversion and so may the holy and exemplary lives of Christians do but does the Husband in this case resolve his faith into the authority of his Wife withou th e Scripture and then resolve the authority of his wife into the authority of the Scripture if St. Peter had said this indeed I should have thought we might as reasonably have given this authority to the Church as to a Wise. 2ly I observed Another blunder in this dispute a bout Notes is that they give us Notes whereby to find out the true Catholick Church before we know what a particular Church is because the Catholick Church is nothing else but all the true Christian Churches in the world united together by one common faith and worship and such acts of communion as distinct Churches are capable of and obliged to every particular Church which professes the true faith and worship of Christ is a true Christian Church and the Catholick Church is all the true Christian Churches in the world And therefore there can be no Notes of a true Church but what belong to all the true Christian Churches in the World. Which shows how absurd it is when they are giving Notes of a True Church to give Notes of a true Catholick and not of a true particular Church when I know what makes a particular Church a true Church I can know what the Catholick Church is which signifies all true particular Churches which are the one Mystical body of Christ but I can never know what a true Catholick Church is without knowing what makes a particular Church a true Church for all Churches have the same nature and are homogeneal parts of the same body This I perceive our Answerer did not understand one word of and therefore says nothing to the main argument which is to prove that those who will give Notes of the Church must give such Notes as are proper to all true particular Churches for there can be no other true Notes of a Church but what belong to all true Churches because all true Churches have the same Nature and Essence which spoils the Cardinal's design of Notes to find out the one Catholick Church which all Christians must communicate in and out of which there is no Salvation And therefore instead of touching upon the main point he runs out into a new Harangue about Unity and Catholicism what Unity and Communion makes a Catholick Church whether the Catholick Church be the aggregate of all Churches or only of Sound and Orthodox Churches which has been considered already and is nothing to the purpose here For the only single question here is Whether I can know the Catholick Church before I know what a true particular Church is and consequently whether the Notes of the Church ought not to be such as belong to all true particular Churches By this Rule I briefly examined Cardinal Bellarmin's Notes Those which belonged to all true Churches which very few of them do I allow to be true Notes but not peculiar to the Church of Rome As the 6th The agreement and consent in Doctrine with the Ancient and Apostolick Church And the 8th The Holiness of its Doctrine are the chief if not the only Notes of this nature and these we will stand or fall by And because I said we will stand or fall by these Notes the Answerer endeavours to shew that they do not belong to the Church of England but whether they belong to the Church of Rome and do not belong to us was not my business to consider in a general Discourse about Notes but it has been examined since in the Examination of those particular Notes and there the Reader may find it But our Answerer according to his old wont has pickt out as unlucky instances as the greatest Adversary of the Church of Rome could have done viz. the Doctrine of Justification and Repentance which are not so corrupted by the very worst Fanaticks as they are by the Church of Rome witness their Doctrines of Confession and Penance I may add of Merits and Indulgences for want of which he quarrels with the

Church of Rome does not pretend her self to be fundamentally Catholick in this sense that she was the first Church but that by virtue of Saint Peter's Chair the Soveraign Authority of the Church is seated in her and none can belong to the Catholick Church but those who embrace her Communion and submit to her authority Which shows how well our Answerer understood this Controversie when he says Pag. 40. Time was when the Church of Ierusalem was so that is the Catholick Church as it was the first and only Church and the Matrix of all other Churches or the Church of Antioch which never was so then why not the Church of Rome What think you in the sense given The Church of Rome does not challenge to be the Catholick Church in the sense now given i. e. as the first and original Church and if she did all the World knows she was not and the sense now given will not prove the Church of Rome to be the Catholick Church in the sense in which she claims it But this is intolerable to dispute with men who do not understand what they dispute about To hasten then to a conclusion for if my Reader as I suspect is by this time sick of Reading he may easily guess how sick I am of Writing The last thing I objected against Bellarmin's Notes was That they pretend to find out an infallible Church by Notes on whose authority we must relie for the whole Christian Faith even for the Holy Scriptures themselves For suppose he had given us the Notes of a true Church before we can hence conclude that this Church is the infallible Guide and uncontroulable Iudg of Controversies we must be satisfied that the Church is infallible This can never be proved but by Scripture for unless Christ have bestowed Infallibility on the Church I know not how we can prove she has it and whether Christ have done it or not can never be proved but by the Scriptures So that a man must read the Scriptures and use his own judgment to understand them before it can be proved to him that there is an Infallible Church and therefore those who resolve the belief of the Scripture into the Authority of the Church cannot without great impudence urge the Authority of the Scriptures to prove the Churches Infallibility and yet thus they all do nay prove their Notes of the Church from Scripture as the Cardinal does To which our Adversary answers Infallibility and Transubstantiation God forgive all the stirs that have been made upon their account Amen say I and so far we are agreed He makes some little offers at proving an Infallible Judg or at least a Judg which must have the final decision of Controversies whether Infallible or not this is not the present dispute but how we shall know whether the Church be Infallible or not If by the Scriptures how we shall know them without the Church To avoid a Circle here of proving the Church by the Scriptures and the Scriptures by the Church he says There are other convictions whereby the Word of God first pointed at by the Church makes out its Divine original But let him answer plainly Whether we can know the Scriptures to be the Word of God and understand the true sense of them without the Infallible authority of the Church If he will say we can we are agreed and then we will grant that we may find out the Church by the Scripture but then he must not require us afterwards to receive the Scripture and interpretation of it upon the authority of the Church And so farewell to Popery As for that advice I gave Protestants Where they dispute with Papists whatever they do at other times not to own the belief of the Scriptures till they had proved them in their way by the authority of the Church and then we should quickly see what blessed work they would make of it How they would prove their Churches Infallibility and what fine Notes we should have of a Church when we had rejected all their Scripture-proofs as we ought to do till they have first satisfied us that theirs is the only true Infallible Church upon whose authority we must believe the Scriptures and every thing else He says it is very freakish to say no worse Especially when I grant to my cost that we come to the knowledg of the Scripture by the uninterrupted tradition of credible witnesses though I will not say tradition of the Church But if he understand no difference between the authority of an Infallible Judg and of a Witness he is not fit to be disputed with As for what I said That I would gladly hear what Notes they would give a Pagan to find out the true Infallible Church by he honestly confesses There can be no place for such Notes when the authority of the Scripture is denied Which is a plain confession how vain these Notes are till then believe the Scriptures and when they believe the Scriptures they may find more essential Notes of a Church than these viz. that true Evangelical Faith and Worship which makes a Church but these Notes the Cardinal rejects because we cannot know the true Faith and the Scriptures without the Church and the Justifier of Bellarmin says that there can be no place for the Notes of the Church when the Authority of the Scripture is denied and therefore they must first agree this matter before I can say any thing more to them But yet he says If the Church should say to a Pagan We have some Books Sacred with us which we reckon are Oracles of God transmitted to us from generation to generation for almost seventeen hundred years which we and our forefathers have been versed in by daily Explications Homilies Sermons However you accord not with the Contents of the Book yet we justly take our selves to be the best Iudges and Expounders of those Oracles The Pagan would say the Church spoke reason Pag. 44. But nothing to the purpose For the question is What Notes of a Church you will give to a Pagan to convince him which is the true Church before he believes the Scripture and here you suppose a Pagan would grant that you were the best Interpreters of Books that you accounted Divine and had been versed in near seventeen hundred years But would this make a Pagan believe the Scripture Or take your words for such Notes of a Church as you pretended to produce out of Scripture especially if he knew that there were other Christians who pretended to the Scriptures and the interpretation of them as well as your selves and the only way you had to defend your selves against them was without the authority of Scripture to make your selves Judges both of the Scriptures and the Interpretation of them But he knows none that are so senseless to resolve all their Faith into the authority of the Church I perceive he does not know Cardinal Bellarmin whom he undertakes to

justifie as any one would guess by his way of justifying him let but the Romanists quit this Plea that our Faith must be resolved into the Authority of the Church and I shall not despair to see our other Disputes fairly ended For the Conclusion of the whole I observed That it is a most senseless thing to resolve all our Faith into the authority of the Church Whereas it is demonstrable that we must know and believe most of the Articles of the Christian Faith before we can know whether there be any Church or not The order observed in the Apostles Creed is a plain evidence of this for all those Articles which are before the Holy Catholick Church must in order of nature be known before it This he grants that in order of Nature all these Articles of the Creed concerning Father Son and Holy Ghost must be known before we can know a Church but to us the Church is most known Which is plain and down-right non-sense if by most known he means first known which is the present dispute for whatever by the order of nature must be known first must be first known without any distinction For we speak now not of the Methods of Learning but of resolving our Faith into its first Principles and that surely must follow the order of nature If the belief of the Churches Authority be not in order of nature before the belief of Father Son and Holy Ghost it is a senseless thing to resolve our Faith into that which though we should grant were the first cause of knowing these yet is not the first principle in order of nature into which Faith must be resolved Children indeed as he observes must receive their Creed upon the Authority of their Parents or of the Church which is more known to them than their Creed as all other Scholars must receive the first Principles of any Art or Science upon the authority of their Masters But will you say that the Latin Tongue is resolved into the authority of the School-master because his Scholars in learning the Latin Tongue rely on his authority which yet is just as good sense as to say that our Faith must be resolved into the authority of the Church because the Church teaches Catechumens their Catechism and they receive it upon the authority of their Parents or Priests And hence indeed he may conclude that a young Catechumen knows his Teachers before he knows his Creed but to conclude that he knows a Church first as that signifies a blessed Society where Salvation is to be had is a little too much for that supposes that he knows the Church before he has learnt Unam Sanctam Ecclesiam that is before he has found the Church in the Creed which is great forwardness indeed If he does not speak of Children but of Men-Catechumens for such there were in the Primitive Church and such he seems to speak of when he says It is plain that the Catechumen knew there was a Church a blessed Society where Salvation was to be had before he would enter himself to be Catechised in the Faith. I do not doubt but such men did know the Church before they submitted to the instructions of it but they knew Christ too and believed in him before they knew the Church For they first believed in Christ and then joyned themselves to that Society which professed the Christian Faith that they might be the better instructed in the Doctrines of Christianity that they might learn from the Church what the Christian Faith is and the reasons of it not that they would wholly resolve their Faith into Church-authority But I find by our Author that the Creed was made only for Catechumens For he says The first person used at the beginning of the Creed I believe signifies I who desire to be made a member of the Church by the Holy Sacrament of Initiation do believe what hath been proposed to me first and then comprehended in that Fundamental Breviate What he designs by this I cannot guess for still the Catechumen professes to believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost before he believes the Holy Catholick Church But pray what does I signifie when a Bishop or Priest or the Pope himself repeats the Creed If as he concludes We must believe Father Son and Holy Ghost before we can compleatly determine the Church and its definition he should have said before we can know whether there be a Church or not much less believe upon its authority then indeed as he says the Creed must begin with I believe in God. But if our Faith must be resolved into the authority of the Church as the Church of Rome teaches and as these laborious endeavours of finding out a Church by extra-essential Notes supposes then the Creed as I said ought to begin with I believe in the Holy Catholick Church and upon the authority of this Church I believe in God the Father Almighty and in Iesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost Thus I have with invincible patience particularly answered one of the most senseless Pamphlets that ever I read and I hope it will not be wholly useless for sometimes it is as necessary to expose non-sense as to answer the most plausible Arguments though notwithstanding the mirth of it I do not desire to be often so employed FINIS The Use and great Moment of Notes p. 1. Pag. 2. Pag. 4. Pag. 5. Disc. p. 1. Ephes. 4. 1 2 3. 1 Cor. 12. 12 13 c. Disc. P. 5. Pag. 6. Disc. p. 9. Disc. p. 9. Disc. p. 10. Disc. p. 13. Disc. p. 14. Disc. p. 15. Joan. Laun. Epist. Vol. 8. ep 13. Nicol. Gatinaeo Disc. p. 17. Disc. p. 19. Disc. p. 22.