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A42580 A vindication of the principles of the author of the answer to the compiler of the nubes testium from the charge of popery in answer to a late pretended letter from a dissenter to the divines of the Church of England : as deceivers, and yet true, 2 Cor. 6. 8. Gee, Edward, 1657-1730. 1688 (1688) Wing G464; ESTC R3563 22,276 42

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Bishops challenge as their Right To let him see how loosely he manages this debate betwixt us I can with putting in two or three necessary words subscribe to all our Compiler says for the Pope and yet be as far from owning the Popes Supremacy as the Church of England is or ever was The Fathers teach says our Compiler (a) Nubes Testium p. 22. that Christ Built his Church upon Peter So say I too if by Fathers here be meant two or three of them and not the Fathers unanimously as he hath it before or generally That the Bishop of Rome is the Successor of Saint Peter is what I can also grant and that that See is the Centre of the Catholick Communion if I may but put in here what is absolutely necessary while possessed by an Orthodox Bishop and that whosoever separates himself from it I add professing the true Faith and possessed by a Catholick Bishop is guilty of Schism I CAN I SAY SUBSCRIBE THOUGH I DO NOT TO ALL This without any Obligation in the least of believing the Popes Supremacy All that our Compiler puts down here reaching no farther than a Primacy of Order does not at all suppose in the Popes any Jurisdiction or Authority over the Catholick Church Having dispatched my Vindication against the Charge of the three first Articles of Popery I come now to examine the fourth which doth charge me with doubting whether there be really any Controversy about Tradition betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England Well then are these my expressions in the place quoted Or is this the sense of them there I must profess to the world that had I not already discovered the cheats of the malicious Representer in the former Articles I could not have believed that any person of common sense or learning would have been guilty of such tricks I had the same occasion in my chapter about the Tradition that I had in the former chapter about Supremacy of shewing how loose a Writer our Compiler is and exposing him for putting that down as an account of the Controversy which I could subscribe to if taken in that sense which the words would fairly bear and yet be never the nearer to Popery than I now am or ever intend to be Upon this coming to examine what he had put down at the Head of his Collections about Tradition I have these expressions To state therefore the Controversy about Tradition if there really be any betwixt us he should not have put down that for the account of the debate herein betwixt us which is agreed to by both sides nor should have omitted that wherein WE REALLY DISAGREE and that is about the Scriptures being a certain and Perfect Rule of Faith WITHOUT THE HELP of TRADITION which the Council of Trent hath made to be of Equal Authority with the Scripture One would think such clear expressions as these would have prevented my being accused of doubting whether there really be any Controversie about Tradition betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England but no clearness it seems can be protection against the Malice of such an Adversary as is fallen upon me and therefore he puts down those expressions as mine doubting whether there be really any Controversie about Tradition betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England when in that very paragraph I say that We meaning the Churches of England and Rome Really Disagree about Tradition's being part of the Rule of Faith. And therefore any other Reader less spiteful than my angry Adversary would easily have seen and observed that the expression in the beginning of the paragraph if there really be any was used and intended for an allusion to that state of the Controversie which had been set down by the Compiler about Tradition and ought not to be wire-drawn to make me doubt that in the beginning of the paragraph the contrary to which I did directly assert within three lines after The fifth Article of the charge against me is that I did say that the Tradition of the Catholick Church is to be received and the sixth is of the same kind that I confessed there That by Tradition we receive the Holy Scriptures and know how to separate the Scriptures from Apocryphal or Suppositious Writings I do freely own that these are my expressions in that place and these I am sure are far from looking like Popery if I that wrote them may be allowed to tell in what sense I did mean and intend them All the service that my Adversary could expect from the citing and insisting upon them was onely to amuse the common Readers with the Word Tradition that they not understanding the Ambiguity of the Word nor in what several senses the Word Tradition was used might be tempted to believe that I was for setting up there that Tradition which they used to hear preached against so much by the Clergy of the Church of England By Tradition here which I said we receive or admit of I did not mean that Tradition which is set up as part of the Rule of Faith in the Church of Rome nor did I any more mean Tradition as it is taken for any Doctrine of the Church of Rome which they say was from the beginning delivered to them All that I meant by Tradition there was no more than the bare means of delivering down to us the Word of God and any Rites or Customs in the Ancient Church When I said therefore that by this Tradition we received the Holy Scriptures and know how to separate the Scriptures from Apocryphal or Supposititious Writings The full and clear meaning of those expressions was that the Canonical Books of the Holy Scriptures or to speak to the meanest capacity that the Bible was delivered down from time to time and from hand to hand in all Ages unto us that we did receive them from our Forefathers in the Church as they had received them from theirs up unto the beginning and that since they delivered down to us onely those Books which the Church of England does believe and admit for the Word of God we do thereby know that no other Books could be part of the Scriptures which were not handed down to us for such This is as much as I need to offer either in Vindication of my self or explication of my words when I spoke of Tradition but because I cannot clear my innocence too much herein I will shew the world that I had very good Vouchers for every word that I said thereabout and will produce the sense of Arch-Bishop Usher who never was thought by any Sort of Protestants to be any ways inclineable to or guilty of Popery This most learned Prelate in his Reply to the Jesuits Challenge hath these words about (b) p. 35. Tradition This must I needs tell you before we begin that you much mistake the matter if you think that Traditions of all sorts promiscuously are struck at