Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	unwritten_a	2,327	5	12.8913	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23752	The lively oracles given to us, or, The Christians birth-right and duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture by the author of The whole duty of man, &c.	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.; Sterne, Richard, 1596?-1683.; Pakington, Dorothy Coventry, Lady, d. 1679.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1149; ESTC R170102	108,974	240

Tradition but by the Book of the Law found in the Temple that Josiah was both excited to reform Religion and instructed how to do it 2 Kings 22. 10. And had not that or som other copy bin produc'd they had bin much in the dark as to the particulars of their reformation which that they had not bin convei'd by Tradition appears by the sudden startling of the King upon the reading of the Law which could not have bin had he bin before possest with the contents of it In like manner we find in Nehemiah that the observation of the Feast of Tabernacles was recover'd by consulting the Law the Tradition whereof was wholly worn out or else it had sure bin impossible that id could for so long a time have bin intermitted Neh. 8. 18. And yet mens memories are commonly more retentive of an external visible rite then they are of speculative Propositions or moral Precepts 30. THESE instances shew how fallible an expedient mere oral Tradition is for transmission to posterity But admit no such instance could be given 't is argument enough that God has by his own choice of writing given the preference to it Nor has he barely chosen it but has made it the standard by which to mesure all succeeding pretences 'T is the means he prescribes for distinguishing divine from diabolical Inspirations To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this Word there is no light in them Isai. 8. 20. And when the Lawier interrogated our Savior what he should do to inherit eternal life he sends him not to ransac Tradition or the cabalistical divinity of the Rabbins but refers him to the Law What is written in the Law how readest thou Luk. 10. 26. And indeed throout the Gospel we still find him in his discourse appealing to Scripture and asserting its autority as on the other side inveighing against those Traditions of the Elders which had evacuated the written Word Ye make the Word of God of none effect by your Tradition Mat. 15. 6. Which as it abundantly shews Christs adherence to the written Word so 't is a pregnant instance how possible it is for Tradition to be corrupted and made the instrument of imposing mens phancies even in contradiction to Gods commands 31. AND since our blessed Lord has made Scripture the test whereby to try Traditions we may surely acquiesce in his decision and either embrace or reject Traditions according as they correspond to the supreme rule the written Word It must therefore be a very unwarrantable attemt to set up Tradition in competition with much more in contradiction to that to which Christ himself hath subjected it 32. Saint Paul reckons it as the principal privilege of the Jewish Church that it had the Oracles of God committed to it i. e. that the holy Scriptures were deposited and put in its custody and in this the Christian Church succeeds it and is the guardian and conservator of holy Writ I ask then had the Jewish Church by vertue of its being keeper a power to supersede any part of those Oracles intrusted to them if so Saint Paul was much out in his estimate and ought to have reckon'd that as their highest privilege But indeed the very nature of the trust implies the contrary and besides 't is evident that is the very crime Christ charges upon the Jews in the place above cited And if the Jewish Church had no such right upon what account can the Christian claim any Has Christ enlarg'd its Charter has he left the sacred Scriptures with her not to preserve and practice but to regulate and reform to fill up its vacancies and supply its defects by her own Traditions if so let the commission be produc'd but if her office be only that of guardianship and trust she must neither substract from nor by any superadditions of her own evacuate its meaning and efficacy and to do so would be the same guilt that it would be in a person intrusted with the fundamental Records of a Nation to foist in fuch clauses as himself pleases 33 IN short God has in the Scriptures laid down exact rules for our belief and practice and has entrusted the Church to convey them to us if she vary or any way enervate them she is false to that trust but cannot by it oblige us to recede from that rule she should deliver to comply with that she obtrudes upon us The case may be illustrated by an easy resemblance Suppose a King have a forreign principality for which he composes a body of Laws annexes to them rewards and penalties and requires an exact and indispensable conformity to them These being put in writing he sends by a select messenger now suppose this messenger deliver them yet saies withall that himself has autority from the King to supersede these Laws at his plesure so that their last resort must be to his dictats yet produces no other testimony but his own bare affirmation Is it possible that any men in their wits should be so stupidly credulous as to incur the penalty of those Laws upon so improbable an indemnity And sure it would be no whit less madness in Christians to violate any precept of God on an ungrounded supposal of the Churches power to dispense with them 34. AND if the Church universal have not this power nor indeed ever claim'd it it must be a strange insolence for any particular Church to pretend to it as the Church of Rome do's as if we should owe to her Tradition all our Scripture and all our Faith insomuch that without the supplies which she affords from the Oracle of her Chair our Religion were imperfect and our salvation insecure Upon which wild dictates I shall take liberty in a distinct Section farther to animadvert SECT VI. The suffrage of the primitive Christian Church concerning the propriety and fitness which the Scripture has towards the attainment of its excellent end AGAINST what has bin hitherto said to the advantage of the holy Scripture there opposes it self as we have already intimated the autority of the Church of Rome which allows it to be only an imperfect rule of Faith saying in the fourth Session of the Council of Trent that Christian faith and discipline are contain'd in the Books written and unwritten Tradition And in the fourth rule of the Index put forth by command of the said Council the Scripture is declar'd to be so far from useful that its reading is pernicious if permitted promiscuously in the vulgar Tongue and therefore to be withheld insomuch that the study of the holy Bible is commonly by persons of the Roman Communion imputed to Protestants as part of their heresy they being call'd by them in contemt the Evangelical men and Scripturarians And the Bible in the vulgar Tongue of any Nation is commonly reckon'd among prohibited Books and as such publicly burnt when met with by the Inquisitors and the person who is found with it

so can expect no foreign attestation and secondly it has all along rested on the fidelity of its keepers which has bin either a single person or at best som small number at a time whereas the Scriptures have bin witness'd to by persons of all Nations and those not single but collective Bodies and Societies even as many as there have bin Christian Churches thro out the world And the same that are its Attestors have bin its Guardians also and by their multitudes made it a very difficult if not an impossible thing to falsify it in any considerable degree it being not imaginable as ● shew'd before from St. Austin all Churches shall combine to do it and if they did not the fraud could not pass undetected and i● no eminent change could happen much less could any new any counterfeit Gospel be obtruded after innumerable Copies of the first had bin translated into almost all Languages and disperst throout the world 52. THE Imperial Law compil'd by Justinian was soon after his death by reason of the inroads of the Goths and other barbarous Nations utterly lost in the Western world and scarce once heard of for the space of five hundred years and then came casually to be retriv'd upon the taking of Amalfis by the Pisans one single Copy being found there a● the plundering of the City And the whole credit of those Pandects which have ever since govern'd the Western world depends in a manner on that single Book formerly call'd the Pisan and now after that Pisa was taken by the Florentines the Florentine Copy But notwithstanding this the body of the Civil Law obtains and no man thinks it reasonable to question its being really what it pretends to be notwithstanding its single and so long interrupted derivation I might draw this parallel thro many other instances but these may suffice to shew that if the Scripture might find but so much equity as to be tried by the common mesures of other things it would very well pass the test 53. BUT men seem in this case like our ●ate Legislators to set up new extraregular Courts of Justice to try those whom no ordinary rules will cast yet their designs require should be condemn'd And we may conclude 't is not the force of reason but of prejudice that makes them so unequal to themselves as to reject the Scripture when they receive every thing else upon far weaker grounds The bottom of it is they are resolv'd not to obey its Precepts and therefore think it the shortest cut to disavow its autority for should they once own that they would find themselves intangled in the most ●nextricable dilemma that of the Pharisees about John Baptist If we say from heaven he will say why then did you not believe him Mat. 21. 25. If they confess the Scriptures divine they must be self-condemn'd in not obeying them And truly men that have such preingagements to their lust that they must admit nothing that will disturb them do but prevaricate when they call for greater evidences and demonstrations for those bosom Sophisters will elude the most manifest convictions and like Juglers make men disbelieve even their own senses So that any other waies o● evidence will be as disputable with them as those already offer'd which is the thir● thing I proposed to consider 54. IT has bin somtimes seen in popular mutinies that when blanks have bin se● them they could not agree what to ask and were it imaginable that God should so far court the infidelity of men as to allow them to make their own demands to set down what waies of proof would perswade them I doubt not there are many have obstinac● enough to defeat their own methods as we● as they now do Gods 'T is sure there is 〈◊〉 ordinary way of conviction left for them t● ask God having already as hath also b● shew'd afforded that They must therefore resort to immediat revelation expect in stant assurances from heaven that this Boo● we call the Bible is the word of God 55. MY first question then is in wha● manner this revelation must be made to appear credible to them The best account w● have of the several waies of revelation 〈◊〉 from the Jews to whom God was pleas● upon new emergencies signally to revel himself These were first dreams secondly visions by both which the Prophets received their inspiration Thirdly Vrim and ●hummim Fourthly the Bath-col as they ●erm it Thunder and voice from Heaven Let us consider them distinctly and see whether our Sceptical men may not probably find ●omwhat to dispute in every one of these And first for dreams it is among us so hard to distinguish between those that arise from constitution prepossession of phancy diabolical or divine infusion that those that have the most critically consider'd them do rather difference them by their matter then any certain discriminating circumstances and unless we had som infallible way of discerning ●ur dependence on them may more probably ●etray then direct us 'T is unquestionable that usually phancy has the greatest stroke in them And if he that should commit himself ●o the guidance of his waking phancy is not like to be over-wisely govern'd what can we expect from his sleeping All this and more may doubtless be soberly enough objected against the validity of our common dreams 56. BUT admit there were now such divine dreams as brought their evidence along with them yet sure 't is possible for prejudic'd men to resist even the clearest convictions For do we not see som that have made a shift ●o extinguish that natural light those notions which are interwoven into the very frame and constitution of their minds that so they may sin more at ease and without reluctancy and sure 't is as possible for them to close their eies against all raies from without too to resist revelation as well as instinct and more likely by how much a transient cause is naturally less operative then a permanent An instance of this we have in Balaam who being in these nightly visitations prohibited by God to go to Balack and tho● he knew then what he afterwards saies Num 23. 19. that God was not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent ye● he would not take God at his first word but upon a fresh bait to his covetousness tries again for an answer more indulgent to his interest Besides if God should thus revele himself to som particular persons yet 't is beyond all president or imagination that he should do it to every man and then how shall those who have these dreams be able to convince others that they are divine 57. 'T IS easy to guess what reception ● man that produces no other autority would have in this ludicrous Age he would certainly be thought rather to want sleep then to have had revelations in it And if Jacob and the Patriarchs who were themselves acquainted with divine

find the way to bliss evidently chalk'd out to him That I may use the words of Saint Gregory the Lamb may wade in those waters of life as well as the Elephant may swim The Holy Ghost as St. Austin tells us lib. 2. of Christian doctrin chap. 6. has made in the plainer places of Scripture magnificent and healthful provision for our hunger and in the obscure against satiety For there are scarce any things drawn from obscure places which in others are not spoken most plainly And he farther adds that if any thing happen to be no where explain'd every man may there abound in his sense 12. So again in the same Book cap. 9. he saies that all those things which concern Faith and Manners are plainly to be met with in the Scripture and Saint Jerom in his Comment on Es. 19. tells us that 't is the custom of the Scripture to close obscure sayings with those that are easy and what was first exprest darkly to propose in evident words which very thing is said likewise by Saint Chrysostom Hom. 9. 2 Cor. 4. 11. who in his first homily on Saint Mat. farther declares that the Scriptures are easy to be understood and expos'd to vulgar capacities 13. He saies again Hom. upon Esay that the Scriptures are not mettals that require the help of Miners but afford a tresure easily to be had to them that seek the riches contain'd in them It is enough only to stoop down and look upon them and depart replenish'd with wealth it is enough only to open them and behold the splendor of those Gems Again Hom. 3. on the second Ep. to the Thess. 2. All things are evident and strait which are in the holy Scripture whatever is necessary is manifest So also Hom. 3. on Gen. 14. It cannot be that he who is studious in the holy Scripture should be rejected for tho the instruction of men be wanting the Lord from above will inlighten our minds shine in upon our reason revele what is secret and teach what we do not know So Hom. 1. on Jo. 11. Almighty God involves his doctrin with no mists and darkness as did the Philosophers his doctrin is brighter then the Sun-beams and more illustrious and therefore every where diffus'd and Hom. 6. on Jo. 11. His doctrin is so facile that not only the wise but even women and youths must comprehend it Hom. 13. on Gen. 2. Let us go to the Scripture as our Mark which is its own interpreter And soon after saies that the Scripture interprets it self and suffers not its Auditor to err To the same purpose saies Cyril in his third Book against Julian In the Scripture nothing is difficult to them who are conversant in them as they ought to be 14. IT is therefore a groundless cavil which men make at the obscurity of the Scripture since it is not obscure in those things wherein 't is our common interest it should be plain which sufficiently justifies its propriety to that great end of making us wise unto salvation And for those things which seem less intelligible to us many of them become so not by the innate obscurity of the Text but by extrinsic circumstances of which perhaps the over-busy tampering of Paraphrasts pleased with new notions of their own may be reckon'd for one But this subject the Reader may find so well pursued in Mr. Boyls Tract concerning the stile of Scripture that I shall be kindest both to him and it to refer him thither as also for answer to those other querulous objections which men galled with the sense of the Scripture have made to its stile 15. A third circumstance in which the Scripture is fitted to attain its end is its being committed to writing as that is distinguish'd from oral delivery It is most true the word of God is of equal autority and efficacy which way soever it be deliver'd The Sermons of the Apostles were every jot as divine and powerful out of their mouths as they are now in their story All the advantage therefore that the written Word can pretend to is in order to its perpetuity as it is a securer way of derivation to posterity then that of oral Tradition To evince that it is so I shall first weigh the rational probabilities on either side Secondly I shall consider to which God himself appears in Scripture to give the deference 16. FOR the first of these I shall propose this consideration which I had occasion to intimate before that the Bible being writ for the universal use of the faithful 't was as universally disperst amongst them The Jews had the Law not only in their Synagogues but in their privat houses and as soon as the Evangelical Books were writ they were scatter'd into all places where the Christian Faith had obtain'd Now when there was such a vast multitude of copies and those so revered by the possessors that they thought it the highest pitch of sacrilege to expose them it must surely be next to impossible entirely to suppress that Book Besides it could never be attemted but by som eminent violence as it was by the heathen Persecutors which according to the common effect of opposition serv'd to enhance the Christians value of the Bible and consequently when the storm was past to excite their diligence for recruiting the number So that unless in after Ages all the Christians in the world should at once make a voluntary defection and conspire to eradicate their Religion the Scripture could not be utterly extinguish'd 17. AND that which secures it from total suppression do's in a great degree do so from corruption and falsification For whilst so many genuine copies are extant in all parts of the world to be appeal'd to it would be a very difficult matter to impose a spurious one especially if the change were so material as to awaken mens jealousies And it must be only in a place and age of gross ignorance that any can be daring enough to attemt it And if it should happen to succeed in such a particular Church yet what is that to the universal And to think to have the forgery admitted there is as a learned man saies like attemting to poison the sea 18. ON the other side oral Tradition seems much more liable to hazards error may there insinuate it self much more insensibly And tho there be no universal conspiracy to admit it at first yet like a small eruption of waters it widens its own passage till it cause an inundation There is no impression so deep but time and intervening accidents may wear out of mens minds especially where the notions are many and are founded not in nature but positive institution as a great part of Christian Religion is And when we consider the various tempers of men 't will not be strange that succeeding Ages will not alwaies be determin'd by the Traditions of the former Som are pragmatic and think themselves fitter to prescribe to the belief of

and Apostolical Tradition and there found our actings from whence their order and origation began 8. IT is true Bellarmine reproches this discourse as erroneous but whatever it might be in the inference which Saint Cyprian drew from it in it self it was not so For Saint Austin tho sufficiently engag'd against Saint Cyprian's conclusion allows the position as most Orthodox saying in the fourth Book of Baptism c. 35. Whereas he admonishes to go back to the fountain that is the Tradition of the Apostles and thence bring the stream down to our times 't is most excellent and without doubt to be don 9. THUS Eusebius expresses himself in his second Book against Sabellius As it is a point of sloth not to seek into those things whereof one may enquire so 't is insolence to be inquisitive in others But what are those things which we ought to enquire into Even those which are to be found in the Scriptures those things which are not there to be found let us not seek after For if they ought to be known the holy Ghost had not omitted them in the Scripture 10. ATHANASIUS in his Tract of the Incarnation saies It is fit for us to adhere to the word of God and not relinquish it thinking by syllogisms to evade what is there clearly deliver'd Again in his Tract to Serap of the holy Ghost Ask not saies he concerning the Trinity but learn only from the Scriptures For the instructions which you will find there are sufficient And in his Oration against the Gentiles declares That the Scriptures are sufficient to the manifestation of the truth 11. AGREEABLE to these is Optatus in his 5. Book against Parmen who reasons thus You say 't is lawful to rebaptize we say 't is not lawful betwixt your saying and our gain-saying the peoples minds are amus'd Let no man believe either you or us All men are apt to be contentious Therefore Judges are to be call'd in Christians they cannot be for they will be parties and thereby partial Therefore a Judg is to be lookt out from abroad If a Pagan he knows not the mysteries of our Religion If a Jew he is an enemy to our baptism There is therefore no earthly Judg but one is to be sought from heaven Yet there is no need of a resort to heaven when we have in the Gospel a Testament and in this case celestial things may be compar'd to earthly So it is as with a Father who has many children while he is present he orders them all and there is no need of a written Will Accordingly Christ when he was present upon earth from time to time commanded the Apostles whatsoever was necessary But as the earthly father finding himself to be at the point of death and fearing that after his departure his children should quarrel among themselves he calls witnesses and puts his mind in writing and if any difference arise among the brethren they go not to their Fathers Sepulcher but repair to his Will and Testament and he who rests in his grave speaks still in his writing as if he were alive Our Lord who left his Will among us is now in heaven therefore let us seek his commands in the Gospel as in his Will 12. THUS Cyril of Ierus Cat. 4. Nothing no not the least concernment of the divine and holy Sacraments of our Faith is to be deliver'd without the holy Scripture believe not me unless I give you a demonstration of what I say from the Scripture 13. SAINT Basil in his Book of the true Faith saies If God be faithful in all his sayings his words and works they remaining for ever and being don in truth and equity it must be an evident sign of infidelity and pride if any one shall reject what is written and introduce what is not written In which Books he generally declares that he will write nothing but what he receives from the holy Scripture and that he abhors from taking it elsewhere In his 29. Homily against the Antitrinit Believe saies he those which are written seek not those which are not written And in his Eth. reg 26. Every word and action ought to be confirm'd by the testimony of the divine●y inspir'd Scriptures to the establishment of the Faith of the good and reproof of the wicked 14. SAINT Ambrose in the first Book of his Offic. saies How can we make use of any thing which is not to be found in Scripture And in his Instit. of Virgins I read he is the first but read not he is the second let them who say he is second shew it from the reading 15. GREG. Nyssen in his Dial. of the soul and resurrect saies 'T is undeniable that truth is there only to be plac'd where there is the seal of Scripture Testimony 16. SAINT Jerom against Helvidius declares As we deny not that which is written so we refuse those which are not written And in his Comment on the 98. Ps. Every thing that we assert we must shew from the holy Scripture The word of him that speaks has not that autority as Gods precept And on the 87. Ps. Whatever is said after the Apostles let it be cut off nor have afterwards autority The one be holy after the Apostles the one be eloquent yet has he not autority 17. SAINT Austin in his Tract of the unity of the Church c. 12. acknowledges that he could not be convinc'd but by the Scriptures of what he was to believe and adds they are read with such manifestation that he who believes them must confess the doctrin to be most true In the second Book of Christian doctrin c. 9. he saies that in the plain places of Scripture are found all those things that concern Faith and Manners And in Epist. 42. All things which have bin exhibited heretofore as don to mankind and what we now see and deliver to our posterity the Scripture has not past them in silence so far forth as they concern the search or defence of our Religion In his ●ract of the good of Widowhood he saies to ●ulian the person to whom he addresses What shall I teach you more then that we read in the Apostle for the holy Scripture settlos the rule of our doctrin that we think not any thing more then we ought to think but to think so●erly as God has dealt to every man the mesure of Faith Therefore my teaching is only to ex●ound the words of this Doctor Ep. 157. Where ●ny subject is obscure and passes our compre●ension and the Scripture do's not plainly afford its help there human conjecture is presum●●ous in defining 18. THEOPHILUS of Alex. in his second Paschal homily tells us that 't is the suggestion of a diabolical spirit to think that any thing besides the Scripture has divine autority And in his third he adds that the Doctors of the Church having the Testimony of the Scripture lay firm foundation of their doctrin 19. CHRYSOSTOM in his third Homily