Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	prove_v	scripture_n	tradition_n	2,732	5	9.6275	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

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

fourth why should a prudent Man charge so much the greater number with the Schism Why should the three parts be the Schismaticks and not the fourth 3ly I observed another Mystery of finding the true Church by Notes is to pick out of all the Christian Churches in the World one Church which we must own for the only Catholick Church and reject all other Churches as Heretical or Schismatical or Uncatholick Churches who refuse Obedience and Subjection to this one Catholick Church For if this be not the intent of i● what do all the Notes of the Church signifie to prove that the Church of Rome is the only true Catholick Church And if they do not prove this the Cardinal has lost his Labour Now I observed That there are many things to be proved here before we are ready for the Notes of the Church They must first prove that there is but one true Church in the World. Or as I had expressed it before One Church which is the Mistress of all other Churches and the only Principle and Center of Catholick Unity To this he Answers p. 37. That there is but one true Church ought to be proved Credo unam Sanctam doth it seems not prove it but if there were as many Churches as Provinces if they are true they are one as hath been explained Nor stands it with the very Institution of the Creed to say I believe many true Churches no more than to say I believe in many true Faiths which I suppose there is some new Institution for also believing in the true Faith for if they be true say I they are one Harp not therefore any more on that jarring String It is really a miserable case for a Church which is able to speak somewhat better for her self to be exposed by such Advocates as do not understand her own Principles For will any learned Romanist deny that there are several particular true Churches Or will any Protestant deny that all true Churches are one Catholick Church which we profess in our Creed But the Controversy between us and the Cardinal is quite of a different nature not whether there are any particular true Churches nor whether all the true Churches in the World make one Catholick Church but whether the Church of Rome which considered in it self is but a particular Church be the only true Catholick Church the center of Catholick Unity so that no Church is a true Church but only by communion with and subjection to the Church of Rome Now this he can never prove by the Notes of a true Church unless he first prove that there is but one particular Church the communion with and subjection to which makes all other Churches true Churches For if there be more true Churches than one which owe subjection to no other Church but only a friendly and brotherly correspondence then though his Notes of a Church could prove the Church of Rome to be a true Church yet they could not prove that all other Churches must be subject to the Church of Rome The Church of England may be a true Church still though she renounce obedience to the Bishop of Rome But he undertakes to prove the Church of Rome not to be the Mistress which as it may be construed is invidious though she challenges all the authority of a Mistress but the Mother of other Churches And if he could do it it were nothing to the present argument which is not Whether the Church of Rome be the Mistress or Mother which he pleases of all other Churches but whether the bare Notes of a true Church can prove this prerogative of the Church of Rome when there are other true Churches besides her self But yet his arguments to prove this are very considerable 1st Because the Church of Rome is acknowledged to be so by all in communion with her P. 37. which is indeed unanswerable The Church of Rome her self and all in communion with her say she is the Mo-Mother of all other Churches and therefore she is so 2dly The Learned King Iames the First did not stick to own her Did King Iames the First own the Pope's Supremacy 3. To us in England 't is past denial our Mother and Nurse too Our step-mother we will own her and nothing more But 't is her authority that keeps up in England above all other Reformed Churches our Bishops our Liturgy our Cathedrals by her Records her Evidences they stand the shock of Antichristian Adversaries This is strange news We are indeed then more beholden to the Church of Rome than we thought for but does the Church of Rome allow our Bishops or our Liturgy how then does her Authority keep them up truly only because she cannot pull them down and I pray God she may never be able to do it She is not our Principle as he speaks and never shall be our Center again His fourth Argument is from Vitruvius which I believe is the first time it was used from the situation of Rome for the Empire of the World which he thinks holds as well for the Empire of the Church And so he concludes with our Lords Elogies of St. Peter's Chair which I could never meet with yet This is a formidable man especially considering how many such Writers the Church of ●ome is furnished with I added That they must prove that the Catholiks Church does not signifie all the particular true Churches that are in the World but some one Church which is the fountain of Catholick Unity That is says he he should say not only signifie all but also some one P. 39. No Sir I say not signifie all but some one The Cardinal proposes to find out by his Notes the one true Catholick Church among all the Communions of Christendom and to prove that the Church of Rome is this Catholick Church Now I say this is a senseless undertaking unless he can prove that the Catholick Church does not signifie all the particular true Churches which make the one Church and Body of Christ but some one Church which is the fountain of Catholick Unity and Communion with which gives the denomination of Catholick Churches to all others Now what has our Answerer to say to this besides his Criticism of all and some one Truly he fairly grants it and says that other Churches as daughters of the Mother-church are formally Catholick but take the Mother by her self and she is fundamentally Catholick But this I say ought to have been proved that there is any one Church which alone is the Catholick Church as the foundation of Catholick Unity which the Cardinal's Notes cannot prove That the Catholick Church began in one single Church as he says I readily grant and became Catholick by spreading it self all over the World but thus the Church at Ierusalem not at Rome was the Matrix as he speaks of the Catholick Church which yet gave the Church of Ierusalem no preheminency or authority over all other Churches But the