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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	authority_n	canonical_a	church_n	4,930	5	4.6276	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55306	Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth by Edward Polhill ...	Polhill, Edward, 1622-1694?	1675 (1675)	Wing P2755; ESTC R9438	262,258	506

Canon it forbids Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to return to their Military Employment and in the Ninteenth it commands Rebaptization of such as were Baptized by Hereticks The Emperour Zeno being expulsed the Tyrant Basiliscus by the perswasion of Timotheus Aelurus wrote Letter in condemnation of the General Council of Chalcedon unto which as impious as they were no less than five hundred Bishops subscribed at the Tyrants Command And touching the Canon if the Council of Laodicea be right in it that of Carthage is not so and consequently that of Constantinople which takes in both must needs be in an Error These things premised Can the unvariable and infallible Scripture hang upon a variable and errable Authority such as Mans is May all the precious Promises of Life and Salvation be precarious and pendent on an Humane Arbitrium Tertullian in his Apology speaking of that old Decree among the Romans that no God should be consecrated without the approbation of the Senate saith Apud nos de humano arbitratu divinitas pensitatur nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit If the Authority of Scripture depend on the Church then we may say Nisi homini Scriptura placuerit Scriptura non erit and by consequence all the Faith of the Saints must be pendulous and hanging on uncertainties If the Churches desinition be so momentous to Scripture let us see what the Church hath done in it Hath it collected the Canonical Books into a body 'T is probable Ezra collected the Books of the Old Testament into a body and so think many of the ancient Fathers And I suppose St. John collected the Books of the New Testament together for he lived after all the other Apostles even unto the time of Trajan that by his vigilancy the Canon of the New Testament might be kept pure and unadulterate When after St. Pauls death there was a Book called Periodus Pauls Teclae spread abroad under the Name and Title of Paul St. John discovered it to be spurious insomuch that the Author of it confessed that he did it amore Pauli And I believe what was done in this collection of the Canon was not done by an ordinary Spirit but by a Prophetical Spirit in Ezra and an Apostolical one in St. John In the mean time it appears not to have been done by an act of the Church but leaving this particular When and how did the Church define the Canon Such a momentous thing should have been done by the Primo-primitive Church in the first Century whilest the Church of Christ was a pure Virgin as Egesippus said Lib. 3. Dist 21. Quest 1. Thus the School-man Durandus lays it down Hoc quod dictum est de approbatione Scripturae per Ecclesiam intelligitur solum de Ecclesiâ que fuit tempore Apostolorum qui suerunt repleti Spiritu sancto No Church so fit to do it as that which had so much of the holy Spirit but nothing was done in it in that Age. The so called Canons of the Apostles which in the 85th Canon take in three Books of Macchabees into the old Canon and the Constitutions and Epistles of Clement into the new are clearly adulterate these condemn second Marriages deprive not a Clergy-man of communion for Fornication or Perjury or Thest and speak of Altars Oblations Vessels of Gold and Silver sanctified Cantors and Lectors and many other such-like altogether unknown in those Apostolical times About these Canons Mirè inter se digladiantur Pontisicii saith one Gelasius in a Roman Synod of seventy Bishops declares them Apocryphal in toto Bellarmine rejects all but the first fifty and I think all the Romanists cast away the 85th Canon touching the Scripture as Supposititious The first Virgin-Century doing nothing in this grand matter one might have lookt for it in the second or third but there is no foot-step of it In the fourth Century about the year 320 came the famous Council of Nice and then it might have been expected as the aptest foundation for their Orthodox Conclusions against Arrius and withal for a stated Rule against all future Heresies but there is a failure also nothing was done in it And into what Heart can it enter that in all those 320 years there was no Canon no Authority of Scripture no foundation for the Primitive Christians to fix their Faith upon In those days Paganism was strong and Persecutions hot and Divine Cordials necessary and yet the Scripture for want of the Churches Definition was not of Authority as to the Christians then living I say according to the Popish Thesis it was not But to go on Afterwards about the year of our Lord 368 came the Council of Laodicea which in the 59th Canon orders That no Books should be read in the Church but the Canonical ones of the Old and New Testament and enumerates as Canonical such as are received in the Reformed Church only omitting the Apocalypse And now had not that Omission been and had this Council been a General one the work had been done But afterwards in this very Century about the year 398 the third Council of Carthage in its 47th Canon reckons up as Canonical Tobit Judith two Books of Macchabees and five Books of Solomon accounting Wisdom and Ecclesiastious to be two of them In this Council St. Austin was present who yet in his Book de Civitate Dei Lib. 17. cap. 20 saith That Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus in the judgment of the more learned were not Solomens and were chiefly received in the Western Church it seems the Eastern received them not In the end of the next Century about the year 494. Gelasius Bishop of Rome with seventy Bishops enumerates the same Books as Canonical which are reckoned so in the Council of Carthage save only that he omits the Book of Nehemiah and names but one of the Macchabees These particular Provincial Councils being of incompetent Authority to desine the Canon for the Universal Church and withal variant nay repugnant among themselves Whither must we go but to a General Council but Oh how late very late doth that come How long will the Authority of Scripture and Faith of Christians be suspended and to how little satisfaction will this desinition be About the year 682 was the sixth General Council of Constantinople in Trullo and as to this Point what did it It consirmed the Canons of the Apostles the Council of Laodicea and the Council of Carthage which three in this Point being totally inconsistent each with other every one by the leave of these Fathers who confirmed them all may chuse what Canonical Books he will have whether those in the Canons of the Apostles or those in the Council of Laodicea or those in that of Carthage and what pitiful incertainties are here And now it is to little purpose to fly over many Centuries more till we come to the Councils of Florence and Trent these are late ones and as our Learned Whitaker

is through Jesus Christ who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the East Luk. 1.78 towards which the true believer bows down himself for all grace The Socinians grace such as is supposed to issue forth without the satisfaction of Christ is not indeed the grace of God but a fancy an Idol of their own heart He that abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God saith S. John 2 Joh. v. 9. therefore such an one must not be received or saluted with God speed v. 10. Let the Socinian who abides not in the doctrine of a redeeming and satisfying Christ cry up free-grace and that as he thinks in the purest and highest strains without all money and price even without that of the Mediator After all this he hath not God or free-grace in the right notion of it the true believer dares not entertain such a grace or say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to it lest he should bless an Idol and rejoyce in a thing of nought such a grace is a meer stranger to Scripture and therefore faith whose skill is only in that Dialect cannot own it though humane reason speak never so fair for it Again would a believer have mortification he would have it in Gods way he seeks it not Macedonius-like by standing in a ditch all the day nor as the Palestine-monks by lying as dead unburied men on the earth nor with the Papists by Pilgrimages and outward pennances nor with the Flageliantes in their scourging and bloody whipping their own bodies No this is not Gods way in all this Pageantry of mortification they are at hostility with nature rather then with sin and in shooting all their arrows at the body they miss the mark the chief seat of sin in the heart Nesciunt superstitiosi saith a Learned man Deum amare immutationem cordium non dilaniationem corporum superstitious men know not that God loves changing of hearts rather then renting of bodies the true believer seeks mortification in and by Jesus Christ our old man is crucified with him Rom. 6.6 As long as we are in the old Adam sin will be lively but as soon as we are in Christ the wisdom and power of God sin which is the weakness and folly of man dies in us The believer seeks after the spirit of Christ as after that which can lay our lusts a steep in godly sorrow and nail them to the cross of Christ and let out their vital blood even the inward love thereof Moreover a believer would have instruction and teaching but he would have it in Gods way The Papists say that Images are Lay-mens books and whilest the Bible is to the unlearned a sealed letter these are Letters Patents open to all men he that runs may read God as it were in great Capital letters Gregory the Great though he condemned their adoration yet he allowed their presence in Churches tanquam essent memoracula rudium literae but alas can the dumb Idol speak or if it could can a teacher of lies instruct may that be our memorial which hath made many forget God Did God ever licence the printing of such Lay-mens books and if it have not his Imprimatur by an institution how can we expect his benediction surely this is none of Gods way faith saith the image of God is in the word and the only crucifix in the Gospel The Enthusiasts would be taught in an immediate and extraordinary way but the believer goes to the word there is the School where he would be taught of God there are the gates and door-posts where he would hear wisdom speak Secondly This resignation is made to its entice object and not by piece-meal As to God the ultimate object the believer would not pick and chuse among his Attributes but is for them all he would not have a God all of grace but such as he is an holy one and a just who will be sanctified even in our approaches to touch his golden Scepter The believer whilest he casts himself upon Gods grace would be assimulated to his holiness when he catches hold on mercy withall he trembles at divine justice as he waits for the smilings of Gods face so he walks as in his presence all places to the believer are Bethels and Peniels full of God and too dreadful to sin in If any man go about by his faith to single out grace from among the other Attributes and suck that honicomb of infinite sweetness by it self alone he doth not believe but presume like those in the Prophet The heads thereof judge for reward and the Priests thereof teach for hire and the Prophets thereof divine for money yet will they lean upon the Lord Mic. 3.11 O vain presumption for them standing upon such unholy ground to lean upon the Lord is an utter impossibility A traitor who strikes off his Soveraigns Crown or with Hacket stabs at his image doth not cannot at that time cast himself on his Grace or Royal favour A sinner whilest by his sinful rebellions he strikes at the Soveraignty or stabs at the holiness of God doth not cannot lean upon his free-grace St. John hath determined the case If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lye and do not the truth 1 Joh. 1.6 Let such an one cry up free-grace free-grace never so much he doth but trust in a lye there is no such grace as he dreams of none but what comes from the holy one as the giver of it none but what teaches the receiver a lesson of holiness Again as to Jesus Christ the Mediator the believer is for All Christ not only for him as a meriting and atoning Priest but for him as a teaching Prophet and ruling Lord also Whilest he wraps up himself in the pure robes of Christs righteousness at the same instant his ear is open to discipline and his heart unfolds the everlasting doors to let in the King of glory he puts the Crown upon his head and sets him upon the throne of the heart singing blessing honour power glory to the Lamb for ever That Christ who is in glory in heaven at the right hand of Majesty comes to be in glory in the heart by the resignations of faith Thus he himself faith the spirit shall glorifie me Joh. 16.14 that is by working faith in the heart as the Father glorifies him above so the spirit and under that faith glorifie him below If any man go about by his faith to pick out the merits and righteousness of Christ for salvation without a respect to his teaching and ruling offices he mangles and tears in pieces Christ as much as in him lieth renting of Jesus from Christ nay and Jesus in twain whom he admits only to save him from the guilt of sin and not from the power and love of it separating the blood of his Saviour from the water and his merits from the spirit which are and ever must be in conjunction such an half and