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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	answer_v	scripture_n	word_n	1,678	5	4.1153	3	false

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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

Age that has produced so great a Schoolman as this to whom the great Aquinas himself is but a meer Novice The Church is a compound Body in which Faith is mixed and blended as the four Elements are in Natural Bodies And therefore as we can more easily know what a Stone or a Tree is than see the four Elements in it Fire and Air and Water and Earth of which it is compounded and which are so mixt together as to become invisible in their own Natures so the Church is more knowable than the true Faith which is so compounded with the Church as to become invisible it self Nay to be as much changed and transformed in the Composition as Dust and Ashes is into Flesh and Blood And thus I confess he has hit upon the true Reason why the true Church must be known before the true Faith because the Church of Rome which is his true Church has so changed and transformed the Faith that unless the Faith can be known by the Church the Church can never be known by the Faith. How much is one grain of common Sense better than all these Philosophical Subtilties For indeed the Church is not a compound Body but a Society of Men professing the Faith of Christ and the only difference between them and other Societies is the Christian Faith and therefore the Christian Faith is the only thing whereby the Church is to be known and to be distinguished from other Bodies of Men and therefore the Church cannot be known without the Faith unless I can know any thing without knowing that by which alone it is what it is And when there are several Churches in the World and a Dispute arises which is the true Church there is no other possible way of deciding it without knowing the true Faith for it is the true Faith which makes a true Church not as Dust and Ashes make Flesh and Blood but as a true Faith makes true Believers and true Believers a true Church and tho that Society of Men which is the Church is visible yet the true Church is no more visible than the true Faith for to see a Church is to see a Society of Men who profess the true Faith and how to see that without seeing the true Faith is past my Understanding In the next place the Cardinal urges That we cannot know what true Scripture is nor what is the true Interpretation of Scripture but from the Church and therefore we must know the Church before we can know the true Faith. To this I answered As for the first I readily grant that at this distance from the writing the Books of the New Testament there is no way to assure us that they were written by the Apostles or Apostolical men and owned for inspired Writings but the Testimony of the Church in all Ages And our Answerer saies I begin now to answer honestly p. 17. and I am very glad I can please him But it seems I had pleased him better if I would have called it an Infallible Tradition but that Infallible is a word we Protestants are not much used to when applied to Tradition it satisfies us if it be a very credible Tradition the Truth of which we have no reason to suspect But I have lost our Answerers favour for ever by adding But herein we do not consider them as a Church but as credible Witnesses This makes him sigh to think how loth men are to own the Church For these company of men so attesting were Christians not Vagrants or idle Praters of strange news in ridiculous Stories I hope not for then they could not be credible Witnesses but were agreed in the Attestation of such a Divine Volume not only as a Book which would do very little Service indeed but as a Rule as an Oracle All this I granted but still the question is whether that Testimony they give to the Scriptures relies upon their Authority considered as a Church or considered only as credible Witnesses And when this Author shall think fit to Answer what I there urge to prove that they must not be considered as a Church but as credible Witnesses I shall think of a Reply or shall yield the cause But this Answerer is a most unmerciful man at comparisons For saies he to tell us we cannot know the Church but by the Scripture is to tell us that we cannot know a piece of Gold without a pair of Scales The weight of Gold I suppose he means and then it is pretty right and if we must weigh Gold after our Father I suppose we may weigh it after the Church too tho She be our Mother Or that a Child cannot know his Father till he comes to read Philosophy and understand the Secrets of Generation And it is well if he can know him then This I consess is exceeding apposite for a Child must be a Traditionary Believer and take his Mothers word as Papists believe the Mother Church who is his Father That we could not understand the true Interpretation of Scripture neither without the Church This I also denied and gave my reasons for it which our Answerer according to his method of answering Books takes no notice of but gives his Reasons on the other side I affirmed That the Scriptures are very intelligible in all things necessary to Salvation to honest and diligent Readers Instead of this he saies I affirm That every honest and diligent Reader knows the Sense of Scripture it must be in all things necessary to Salvation which differ as much as being intelligible and being actually understood tho I will excuse him so far that I verily believe he had no dishonest Intention in changing my Words but did not understand the difference between them But says he did not St. Peter write to honest and diligent Readers when he warns them of wresting some places in St. Paul to their own Destruction as others also did As they did other Scriptures also St. Peter saies but he saies too that they were the unlearned and the unstable who did thus And tho the Scriptures be intelligible such men need a guide not to dictate to them but to expound Scripture and help them to understand it but does St. Peter therefore warn them against reading the Scriptures or direct them to receive the Sense of Scripture only from the Church Or say that honest and diligent Readers cannot understand them without the Authority of the Church But it seems there are several Articles very necessary to Salvation which men cannot agree about no not all Protestants as the Divinity of the Son of God the necessity of good Works the distinction of Sins mortal and less mortal which is a new distinction unless by less mortal he means Venial that is not mortal at all the necessity of keeping the Lords day and using the Lords Prayer Now these points are either intelligibly taught in the Scripture or they are not if not how does he know they are in

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

the Scripture If they be why cannot an honest and diligent Reader understand that which is intelligible That all men do not agree about the Sense of Scripture in all points is no better argument to prove that the Scriptures are not intelligible than that Reason it self is not intelligible for all men do not agree about that neither Well but he will allow That honest Readers may arrive to the understanding of that part of Scripture which the light of nature suggests That we must not steal defraud we must do as we will be done by p. 19. But he little thinks what he hath done in granting this for then if the Church should expound Scripture against the light of Nature honest Readers may understand the Scripture otherwise and if the Church should be found tripping in such matters honest Readers might be apt to question her Infallibility in other cases for those who once mistake can never be Insallible And yet this light of Nature teaches a great many shrewd things and the Scripture teaches them too and therefore in these matters honest and diligent Readers may understand the Scriptures tho it be against the Exposition of the Church as That Divine Worship must be given to none but God That God who is an invisible Spirit must not be worshipped by material and visible Images That publick Prayers ought to be in a Language which is understood by the People That Marriage is honourable among all Men That Faith is to be kept with all Men That every Soul must be subject to the higher Powers That none can judicially forgive Sins but only God That to forgive Sin is not to punish it and therefore God does not punish for those Sins which he has wholly pardoned And other such like things are taught by the light of Nature as well as Scripture and we thank him heartily that he will give us leave to understand these things But he proceeds 'T is the Revelation part the Mysterious part which is properly called the holy Scripture which is not so perspicuous What are not the words perspicuous and intelligible To what purpose then were they writ Or is it the thing which is above our Comprehension but that does not hinder but we may understand what the Scripture teaches tho we do not fully comprehend it For I would know whether they fully comprehend the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation the Natures and Person of Christ which were the Subject of the Arian Nestorian and Eutychian Heresies when the Church teaches these things I suppose they will not say they do and yet they will own that they can understand what the Church teaches about them And then tho they cannot comprehend these mysteries yet they may as well understand what the Scripture as what the Church teaches about them Now saies our Author to say the Scripture is plain to every honest private Reader in these Arcana is to deny and cassate all Church History make Oecumenical Councils ridiculous run down all Synods and Convocations that ever were or shall be Why so I pray Does Church-History or Oecumenical Councils all Convocations and Synods declare That the Scriptures are not intelligible in these matters Or that a private honest diligent Reader cannot understand them How came they then to determine them for Articles of Faith by their own Authority or by the Authority of Scripture Should Synods and Convocations and Oecumenical Councils determine that for an Article of Faith which is not plain and intelligible in Scripture they were ridiculous indeed and there were an end of their Authority And here he appeals to the Testimonies produced by the Cardinal out of Irenoeus Tertullian and St. Augustin which have been so often answered already that I do not think it worth the while to engage with this Answerer about them let the Reader if he pleases consult some late Books to this purpose as that Learned Vindication of the Answer to the Royal Papers about Church Authority and the Pillar and ground of Truth But I cannot pass on without taking notice of his unanswerable Argument to prove That the Church of Rome understands St. Paul ' s Epistie to the Romans and by consequence the Articles of Iustification whether by Faith alone or Works better than all the Lay-Readers of the Reformation viz. because he can never be perswaded that any private man should understand an Epistle of St Paul better than the Church to which it was written How unworthy is it to opine the contrary And how silly is it to think that those must necessarily understand an Epistle best to whom it was written But if those Christians at Rome to whom St. Paul wrote for he takes no notice of any formed and setled Church there at the writing of his Epistle and therefore does not direct it to the Church as he does in other Epistles but to the Saints that are at Rome I say if those Christians might be supposed at that time when the state of the Controversy among them was generally known to understand this Epistle better than we can now yet what is this to the Church of Rome at sixteen hundred years distance However by this Rule we may understand all St. Paul's other Epistles as well as the Church of Rome and that will serve our purpose And yet methinks if the Churches to which the Epistles were sent are the only Authentick Expositors of such Epistles all those Churches to whom St. Paul wrote should have been preserved to this day to have expounded those Epistles to us and yet not one of them is now in being excepting the Church of Rome and therefore at least we must make what shift we can to expound them our selves for the Church of Rome can pretend no greater right in them than the Church of England And thus I came in the second place to consider the Cardinals use of Notes and found several faults with them 1. That he gives Notes to find out which is the true Church before we know what a true Church is whereas there are two Inquiries in order of nature before this viz. Whether there be a true Church or not and what it is And though the Cardinal takes it for granted that there is a Church I demanded a proof of it that they would give me some Notes whereby to prove that there is a true Church This demand amazes our Answerer and makes him cross himself and fall to his Beads Hear O Heavens and give ear O earth But this is a Devil that wo'nt be conjured down let him either give me some Notes to prove that there is a Church or tell me how I shall know it Yes that he will do for it is self-evident he saies that there is a Church p. 20. as it is that there is a Sun in the Firmament or else the Heathens could never see it But what do the Heathens see a Christian Church Do they then believe the Holy Catholick Church why then