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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	church_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	4,849	5	9.4717	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26998	The Protestant religion truely stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter ; prepared for the press some time before his death ; whereunto is added, by way of preface, some account of the learned author, by Mr. Danel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Williams, Daniel, 1643?-1716.; Sylvester, Matthew, 1636 or 7-1708.	1692 (1692)	Wing B1359; ESTC R1422	79,512	227

World nor to have Men miraculously enabled to do it and give proof that it is Divine 3. We hold that God's written Word and Law is perfect in its kind Psal 19. and sufficient to its proper use and end Which Bellarmine Cassinus and the Council of Basil and many School-men in their Prologues on the Sentences confess extendeth to all things commonly necessary to Salvation yea and to be the Divine Rule of Faith 4. Yet we deny not that if God had seen meet to deliver any necessary part of Law or Gospel Faith or Practice as his will by bare word and Memory of Man we had been bound to believe and obey it when we had sound proof that it was indeed from God 5. We hold that for fullest certainty we have possession of the Bible it self and of the Essentials of Christianity brought us by two Means Conjunct that is The Scripture and practical Custom of the Church As the Scripture or written Word shineth to us by its own Light so Tradition tells us which be the Canonical Books and how the Church received them as Divine and that there are no other such And the practice of Baptismal Profession and Covenanting and of the Church Assemblies and reading Scripture and Catechizing and of Eucharistical Communion and Prayer c. tell us what in all Ages hath been taken for true Christianity As we hold a humane Belief needful in Subserviency as a means to Divine Belief so we hold humane Tradition needful to the conveyance of God's Word to us But by your leave we will distinguish the Messenger from the Authour If the King send me a Law or Mandate by a Messenger or by the Penny-Post I will receive and obey it and yet not take the Post or Messenger for King or Legislator or Infallible 6. And the Reformed Catholicks do own all true Tradition but are for a far surer Tradition than the Roman Sect. Our Tradition of Scripture and the great points of Christianity cometh to us by Evidence Infallible that may be called Natural with the greatest advantage of Moral Evidence also and not on the boast and bare word of one proud Sect that pretendeth to Fanatick Inspiration and Authority above all others I call that Natural Evidence which ariseth from such necessary Causes that cannot be otherwise nor can deceive And I call that the best Moral Evidence which cometh from Mens testimony of greatest credit for skill and honesty and we have both these Mans Soul hath some necessary acts that cannot but be and cannot be otherwise Such is sensation of sensible objects duely presented Intellectual perception of things presented according to the evidence in which they appear The Love of our selves and our own known welfare and any thing that is known to be an only and necessary means thereto and hath Omnimodam ratiomem boni The Love of Truth as Truth and Good as Good The hatred of misery c. These all Men have as men and that which dependeth on these dependeth not only on mens honesty And our evidence of Tradition is such as this It is from the Common Consent of all capable Witnesses of various Opinions Passions and Interests Friends and Foes whereas the Tradition of Sectarian Papists dependeth on the Credit of one Sect that falsly pretend a peculiar trust with both Scripture and Tradition tho' against the greater part of Christians And pretend Fanatically that even ignorant Popes and Prelates in Council have a gift of infallible knowledge For Example If there were a doubt raised Whether there be any such City in the World as Rome Paris Vienna or whether there was ever such persons as K. James K. Charles Ludovicus 14 of France c. Or whether the Statutes in our Books were really made by the Kings and Parliaments named in them and be the same unchanged c. There is Natural evidence of all this because it ariseth from necessary acts All sorts of men of contrary interests could never agree to lie and deceive men in such cases no more than they could all agree to kill themselves And if some would be falsifyers the rest would presently detect and shame them If any Lawyers would falsyfie or change the Statutes others would presently manifest the deceit they being commonly known and the cross interests of so many depending on them yea I say not only that this is Natural Infallible Evidence but that it is more than very much other Physical Evidence of many other things because we have better means to know Mans Natural necessary acts than we have to know most other Creatures of God And then for Moral Evidence we have all the Godly's attestation of all Ages and Nations and Sects of Christians and among the rest the Papists also agreeing that This Bible and This Creed and these Essentials of Christianity were all certainly transmitted to us from Christ and his Spirit in his Apostles And what 's the Tradition of the Papal Sect to all this who tell us falsely you cannot know the Scripture to be God's Word but by taking it on the belief of the Pope and Church of Rome as Endowed with the Power of Judgment and the gift of Infallibility Alas what abundance of Impossibilities must be proved true before any Man can by this method believe God's word 1. Before they can believe the Gospel and that Jesus is the true Christ they must believe that he hath a Vicar 2. And a Church 3. And the Pope is this Vicar and his Sect this Church And 4. That he hath the Office Power and Gift of infallible Judging which the Major number of Christians or Churches have not 5. And that Christ not yet believed in gave him power and Infallibility 6. And that he that now Reigneth is the true Pope by due Election Consecration Qualification c. With many more such Impossibilities And what is it to give up the Cause to the Infidels if this be not 7. But we judge that God's Law in Scripture secured from the charge of pretended Rememberers and Vsurpers is so sufficient to its proper use that there needeth no Supplemental Tradition as if it were but half God's Law but only subservient historical Tradition And we challenge the Papists to prove de facto 1. That any such supplemental Tradition is Existent 2. That they possess any other but what the other Churches know 3. That they are more than other Churches authorized to be the Keepers and Judges of that Tradition And 4. We fully prove them Innovators and that Popery is a meer Novelty It is copiously proved by Peter Moulin de novitate Papismi David Blondel de Ecclesia Andrew Rivet Defence of Morney against Coffetean and against Silvester and many others Can they without the most profligate Impudence pretend Apostolical Tradition for denying the Laity the Cup in the Eucharist and for their praying in an unknown Tongue and forbidding the Scripture and deposing Princes and dissolving Oaths of Allegiance and for tormenting and

such thing as you falsly charge them with That the Church of Rome is not such a Church that is Is not the Vniversal Church indeed we not only say but think the contrary sitter for a man Drunk than Sober What is Rome all the World Is Abassia America Mesopotamia Muscovy Asia Thrace England Scotland Sweden Denmark no part of the World yea of the Christian World And is not the Christian World the Church Vniversal Reader here is a Controversy worthy the Wits Learning and Honesty of all the Famous Fathers and Doctors and Juglers of the Roman Catholick Church The Question is Which of the Rooms in the House is the whole House One saith that the Kitchin or the Cole-House or the House of Office is the whole House We Protestants say that no one Room is the whole but Hall Parlors Dining-Room and all the Chambers and Closets and Kitchin are the whole and if the Cole-House and House of Office will needs be parts we will not contend with them but we will never grant that they are either the whole or the best part Tho' by Fire and Stink they think to force us to it But the ancient Writers distinguish between the Catholick Church and a Catholick Church By the first is meant the whole Church By the second is meant such a particular Church as is not Schismatical but a true and sound part of the whole But what could these Self-Condemners say more against themselves than thus openly to confess that their Sect claimeth to be the whole Church and so Trayterously unchurcheth two or three parts of the Church of Christ and Damneth most Christians for not being Traytors to Christ as they To confute his base abuse of Scripture is needless and irksome The Tenth point accused That the Churches Vnity is not necessary in al● p●i●ts of Faith Ans This we verily hold for all that God hath revealed in Scripture to be believed are points of Faith if the Word be used intelligibly by these men But all the points of Genealogies Topography Chronology Prophecy in Scripture are revealed to be believed therefore they are points of Faith and if Unity in all these is necessary to the Unity of the Church then no Church on Earth hath Unity Certainly Rome hath not whose Commentators and Doctors disagree about many hundred Texts of Scripture and Sixtus 5th and Clemens 8th Popes about the very Translation of many hundred Texts These men must now say that we are not bound to believe all Gods Word or else they must confess that their Church hath not Unity That which Reformed Catholicks hold is 1. First points of Faith or revealed to be believed are some of them Essential to Christianity and of necessity to Salvation and some but Intergrals if not some Accidents The first all the True Church agreeth in The second not As who is Antichrist or Babylon or the Ten-Horned or Two-Horned Beast in the Revelations What is the Time Times and half a Time with an Hundred such But in general all believe that all Gods Word is true It might convince these men in that it was long before all the Churches received all the Canonical Books of Scripture and yet all received not all their Apocryphal Books And are these out of the Church Or are none of these Books to be believed The Eleventh Point accused That St. Peter was not Ordained by Christ the first Head or Chief among the Apostles and that among the Twelve none was greater or lesser than other Ans Meer Falsehood as undistinguisht The word Head is ambiguous this Writer hath a Head such as it is that other Heads much differ from Reformed Catholicks hold that Peter is called first in numbring them That he was by Christ in many instances preferred before others That he was an Eminent Speaker and worker of Miracles That all the Apostles were not Equal in parts and worth but some herein greater than other What was Judas no lesser than the rest that was a Thief and Traytor John was Eminently the Disciple whom Jesus loved But we hold 1. That as John was not made Lord or Ruler of the rest by being Loved more so Peter's Preheminence made him no Master or Ruler of the rest The twelve Apostles were chosen Relatively to the twelve Tribes Peter as Reuben was the first and denyed Christ and was called Satan with a Get behind me Mat. 16. as Reuben defiled his Fathers Bed But as Levi was the third so was James the first Sanctified Apostle And as Juda the fourth is called the Law-giver from whom the Scepter should not depart c. so John the fourth is the Disciple of Eminent Love and Love is the Everlasting Grace when Faith and Prophesie cease But Christ made no one of them Ruler of the rest Proved 1. No Text speaketh any such thing And the Headship of Governing Power would have been of such grand necessity to be known that Christ and his Apostles must needs have plainly and oft inculcated it 2. Peter never Exercised any such Power what mention is there of any Laws or Mandates of his to the other Apostles 3. The rest never sought to him for Laws or Orders 4. The Schism and Controversies of Christians were never decided by appealing to him as the Judge 5. When some at Corinth would have made him their Head and said I am of Cephas Paul reproveth them as carnal saying of all What are they but Ministers by whom ye believed 6. Paul reproveth him Gal. 2. 7. The Jewish Christians contend against him for Eating with Gentiles Act. 11. whom he satisfieth by proof from God and not by pleading his Supremacy 8. He never once claimed any such Power 9. Paul 1 Cor. 12. tells us of none in the Church greater than Apostles But the rest were Apostles as well as he 10. No such Article was ever put into the Churches Creed We grant that Christ did in instituting the Apostles Office institute a disparity of Ministers in his Church and this to be continued in the Ordinary continued part of their Works but not in the Extraordinary And we grant that in putting Peter first Christ intimated that among men of the same Office there may for Order sake be a Priority as the President of a Synod or Colledge or the Fore-man of a Jury or a Chief-Justice or the Speaker of a Parliament God is not the God of Confusion but of Order as in all the Churches If a Parish or an Independant Church have one grave Pastor with divers young Assistants that were but his Scholars nature will give him some awing Preheminence among them We are not against such a Primacy among Bishops or Arch-Bishops But this is nothing to a Governing Office And if Peter had had such what 's that to the Pope of Rome The Twelfth Point accused That a Woman may be Head or Supreme Governess of the Church in all Causes as the late Queen Elizabeth was Ans A cheat by Confusion and Equivocation

must teach them to understand God's Book or to throw it away May not the Teacher and the Book consist together Must School-Boys be forbid to Learn their Grammar because they must have a Teacher Must he teach them the Book or teach them without Book But all the Craft is to get all the World to take only such Cheaters as this for their Masters and then Bible or no Bible may serve turn 16. Is it not the Office of Teachers to Translate God's Word into known Tongues that the People may understand it This is the first part of Preaching it If not why do they use Translations in the Church of Rome the Septuagint and the Vulgar Latin And why did Sixtus 5th and Clem. 8. make such a stir to Correct the Latin And why do so many Comment on them And the Rhemists turn it into English But what is all this for but to help Men to understand the Book 17. Doth not all the Word of God cry down Ignorance and cry up Knowledge from End to End And what Knowledge is it but Divine of the Word and Law of God What else is the scope of all the first Nine Chapters of Solomons Proverbs and of Psal 1. 19. and 119 c. God saith Hos 4. 6. My People perish for lack of knowledge And Isa 27. 11. It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not save them Ignorance and Blindness are made the common cause of Errour Sin and Misery But we are so far from taking all parts of Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood that we are more than the Papists for first and most diligently teaching them the Essentials the Creed Lord's Prayer and Commandments and Baptism and Church Communion and the Lord's Supper and lesser parts as they grow up what they must learn first their Teachers must instruct them 18. If he say as they still do that the Ignorant will misunderstand the Scripture and every one turn it to his own Fancy and Heresie I answer The way to prevent this is to teach it them diligently what else is the Ministry for and not to forbid it them Every Knave may pervert the Law of the Land to maintain his own ill Cause and must the Law therefore be forbidden them Reason is far more commonly abused than Scripture There is no Heresie or Error no Villany Perjury Cruelty Persecution Oppression or Injustice but Reason is pleaded for it Must Reason therefore be renounced Heresies are for want of understanding God's word and must be cured by understanding it 19. And if all the World must take the Popes or Priests words instead of Gods or for their Rule how shall those in Aethiopia Syria America or here know what the Popes Word is That never see him or any that hath seen him And how shall we know when above twenty times there have been two Popes at once which of them is the Right And when they contradict and Damn each other which of them must we believe And when General Councils accuse them of Errour and Condemn them which is to be trusted with our Souls Or if it be Councils that must be to us instead of Scripture when they Damn each other which must we believe And so abundance of them have done When the Pope and they agreed to depose Christian Princes and give away their Dominions and disoblige their Subjects from all their Oaths of Allegiance is it as true as the word of God that all Subjects must believe and obey them But how shall all the poor People know what the Pope and Councils say and hold They can neither read their Volumes nor understand them nor know which are authentick and true Must they all believe their Parish Priest What if he be as very a Deceiver as the writer of this Touchstone that doth but Cheat from the beginning to the end Yet must we take his word instead of Gods Or when other Priests or Fryars contradict him which of them must we believe What if his Parishoners know him to be ignorant or a common Lyar Yet must our Salvation rest on his word and God's word be forbidden us What if we obey him in Error and Sin will he undertake to be Damned for us Or will his undertaking or Damnation save those whom he mislead c. As to his Citation of Scripture against Scripture it is so palpable a perversion that I will leave any Man that will but Read the Text to his own ability to answer him Rev. 5.1 No Man in Heaven or Earth was worthy to open the Sealed Books that John saw in his Vision What then must no Man therefore open the Bible Or because the Revelation is hard must therefore the People be forbidden to Read it and the rest of God's word which was written for them as sufficient to make them wise to Salvation yea to make the simple wise Psal 19. And with as shameless a Face doth he cite the Fathers against the drift of all their writings and Labours and the Judgment of all the Churches of Christ for many hundred years of its purest foundest Primitive times The Fourth accused Point That Apostolical Traditions and ancient Customs of the Church not Founded in the written word are not to be received nor do oblige us Ans This is but more Deceit by confusion and false report The Reformed Catholicks hold 1. That Memory is not so sure a way to deliver any Laws and Doctrines to Posterity through many hundred years as writing is For it must lie on the Memories of so many Thousands in so many Ages and so many parts of the World Of so many Languages Kingdoms and cross Interests and Opinions in their quarrels and the things to be remembred are so many that this needs no proof with any but Fools or Mad-men What a Religion should we have had if instead of the Bible it must have all been brought us down by the Memories of all the Rabble of ignorant and wicked Popes yea or of the best and by the Memories of all the Prelates and Priests that have pretended to be the Church Why do they themselves write their pretended Traditions if writing them were not needful And why have we all our Statutes Records and law-Law-Books if the Lawyers and Peoples Memories would keep and deliver them without these When Men's Memories Wits and Honesty are so weak that we can scarce get one Story carried without falsifying through many Hands 2. We hold that God in mercy hath therefore considered Man's Weakness and Necessity and before the Apostles died inspired them to Record so much of his Law and Gospel and Will as was universally necessary for all his Subjects to know in order to Divine belief Obedience and Salvation And hath left nothing of this importance and necessity unrecorded in the Law of Nature God's Visible works and Scripture knowing that after Ages were not to have new universal Legislators to make such Laws for all the

killing all baptized persons that obey not the Pope with many such 8. If Tradition tell us of any Customs used in the Apostles or Primitive times that be not in Scripture and so be not made matters of Necessity to all yea or of any occasion all mutable Customs that are mentioned in Scripture as washing the Saints Feet the Holy Kiss the Womans Vail long or short Hair Collections each Lords Day Preachers Travelling on Foot c. we quarrel not with the then use of such Traditions when they were seasonable no more than with forbearing things strangled and blood Nor quarrel we with the Churches after that setled Easter Day and made the 20th Canon of the Nicene Council and used divers Ceremonies at Baptism But Traditions of things Indifferent and Mutable we receive but as such to be laid aside when the occasion ceaseth And if any will turn them into a necessary common Law we disclaim such Usurpers for they cross that very Tradition It was delivered as Indifferent and you feign and make it a necessary Law and so destroy it 9. We maintain openly that Tradition is against the Papacy and its Corruptions They are but a third or fourth part of Christians The other two or three parts of the Christian World profess that the Tradition of their Churches is against the Popes universal Sovereignty and against all the Corruptions of which they accuse him None but the shameless will deny that the Abassians Armenians Greeks and others plead that this is their Tradition And Reader tell us why the Tradition of two or three parts of the Church should not rather be believed against a third part than that which the third part boast of against all the rest 10. Ask them which way they know and keep their Traditions Whether they have any History Records or any other way which we may not know as well as they If they pretend that it is a Secret kept by their Church it 's a strange Secret that so many Thousands know But if it be a thing proveable let them prove it 11. Is it not unmercifulness to tell all the Christian World that as big and hard as the Bible is if they knew and obeyed it all they cannot be saved unless they believe and do more kept by the Pope and called Tradition When yet these Deceivers can dispense with the knowledge and practice of God's own word and think the Bible a Book too big and hard and the Prophane say too strict to be commonly understood and kept And yet all the Bible is not Enough but we must be bound to as much more as they will call Tradition yea Volumes also of Papal Canon Laws 12. Did not Christ for this thing Condemn the Old Pharisees Mat. 15 Prove your Traditions to be Apostolical and about things necessary and not your Forgeries or about things mutable and indifferent and we will obey all such Apostolical Traditions But your Novelties and Usupations shall not pass with us for Divine Laws because you can call them such The Fifth accused Point That a Man by his own understanding and private Spirit may rightly judge and interpret Scripture Ans Can any Man unriddle what this Deceiver meaneth 1. Can a Man judge without his own understanding 2. What meaneth he by a private Spirit Little know I. If he mean God's Spirit it is no contemptible nor private Spirit even in a private Man If he mean a Man 's own Spirit Soul or Intellect it is the same as his own understanding If he mean any Evil Spirit or fancy and Erroneous self-conceit we defie such Spirits and Deceivers that use them To understand without our own understandings is a Mystery fit for Rome Why may not a Dog or a Sheep be said so to understand the Scripture if it may be understood without our own understandings What a Curse is on the ignorant Nations that will be led by such words as these But if he will say that he meant By his own understanding alone without a Teacher why did he not say so but say one thing and do another But that had been too gross a Lye to have been believed by them that see that we set up Teachers in all our Congregations 3. Therefore I can imagine nothing but absurdity in his words unless he mean that we hold that a Man may rightly Interpret Scripture by his own understanding immediately instructed by his Teacher and God's Spirit without taking the Sence only at the rebound on the belief of the Pope and his Clergy For we never thought that a Man 's own natural Wit without a Teacher and the help of God's Spirit can savingly understand and apply the Scripture And yet we would fain tell Papists a better way to Convert a Philosopher or a Turk than to Preach to them thus God hath written his Law and Gospel to the World but you cannot tell what is the meaning of it till you take that sence on trust from our Pope and Clergy and know that Christ authorized him to be Judge and that before you believe in Christ or understand the word that so authorizeth him Were not corrupted Nature very blind in things Spiritual Plow-men and Tinkers and Coblers would be able to confute such Fopperies and much more Priests and Popes and Prelates 4. But I pray you tell me whether the Pope and his Prelates do not interpret Scripture by their own understandings Whose understandings else do they judge by in Conclaves or Councils 5. And tell me whether he that judgeth that the Pope is Christs Vice-Christ and Ruler at the Antipodes and is infallible tho' he be by Councils condemned for a Simonist and Infidel an Atheist a Seducer or an ignorant Sot Doth not this Man judge all this by his own understanding If a Man take an ignorant sottish Priest for the Mouth of the Catholick Church tho' he know no more what he talks against than this Roman Deceiver doth he not judge this by his own understanding If a Sot will believe you that your Sect is the whole Church and all are Damned tho' they love God and believe in Christ if they will not be ruled by the Pope and every Mass-Priest doth he not judge thus by his own understanding Do you Preach to Men or Beasts that have no understanding of God's Law and Will If a Man must believe all the Canons of Popes and Councils in Baronius Binnius Surius Nicolinus Caranza c. doth he not do it by his own understanding 6. Oh! But the meaning is You are all private ignorant Men and we are the Clergy Kings choose some of us and Popes choose others and whether we are Wise or Fools Learned or Vnlearned Infidels or Christians you are all Damned if you will not follow us and if we be Damned you must be content to be Damned with us And is it so Hath God made Man for no safer and better a Condition than to be Damned when ever Sottish Drunken Priests will