Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	church_n	scripture_n	word_n	7,766	5	4.4516	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30359	The infallibility of the Church of Rome examined and confuted in a letter to a Roman priest / by Gilbert Burnet.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1680 (1680)	Wing B5805; ESTC R15581	20,586	38

of the Gospel we are not left to the uncertainties of our own conjectures But there must be a great High Priest of Christendom for judging all Controversies But if this be well considered it will not advance your pretences a whit for the Jews were in all their Political Affairs in their Commerce and Treaties with Foreiners in their Government at home and in the matters of Peace and War to be determined by the Judiciary Laws Moses gave them and as they enjoyed the Land of Canaan by that Law which was then Magna Charta so they were in all Civil matters to be judged by the Law of Moses Now since no Law can give provisions for all emergents there was a necessity of a constant Exposition of that Law in all dubious cases And therefore God was pleased to continue this among them by the Urim and Thummim Their Worship was also made up of a multitude of particular Rites and many cases occurring in these of great intricacy God continued that extraordinary Presence among them But nothing of this was necessary under the Gospel in which the policy of the several States is left to be determined according to the Laws of Nature and the several Humors Customs and Interests of Nations Our Belief is also plain and our Worship simple so that none of these things remain that made an Infallible decision necessary under the Old Testament And besides the mysteriousness of the Communication and the plain express words of the Institution do shew the difference betwixt that and any thing can be pretended to under this new and more perfect dispensation Moses plainly told them what that series of men should be and of whom descended he also declared how they were to inquire Counsel from God and how all must submit to their Sentence Nor was the High Priest by his Character vested with this Authority but when he put on the Ephod and went in before the cloud of glory and brought back the sacred response Now the exactness Moses observed in delivering that seems convincing that when God intended to bring any part of mankind under that subjection he delivered his Commission to these so impowred in so formal and solemn a manner that it was not to be disputed but by one that rejected the Law of Moses From which I presume I may infer That if God had set up such Anthority in the Christian Church the Institution had been express the persons clearly designed their Succession as plainly pointed out to have put so great a matter beyond dispute So that the manner of the divine emanations of unerring direction had been as clear as it was of old Now since I meet nothing of this in the whole New Testament I see no reason to make me believe it is as you pretend For what you infer from our Saviours words to St. Peter from his saying Tell the Church and from his promises of the Holy Ghost will never conclude that you pretend to For before you can oblige me to believe any thing from these Premises you must allow me to acknowledge the sacredness of the Books wherein these words are so that my belief of the Scriptures shall not depend on the decision of the Church but shall rather lead me to acknowledge its Authority You must also allow me to believe these Scriptures are to be so expounded before I own the Authority of the Church to be absolute since from them you bind me to believe it Therefore I must expound them so as may agree best both with the plain literal sense of the words and the design on which they are set down by all which you allow me the Exposition of Scripture Now if I may expound it in some places why not in all that is indispensably necessary to salvation And your Churches claiming that Authority to her self must not oblige me to believe it a whit the more unless by some other cogent reasons I be bound to it for none must be both Judg and Party and no mans assertion must pass for proof in his own case and yet the very places you alledg come far short of what seems requisite on such an occasion for whatever may be said of St. Peter which I shall not now inquire into where have we any formal account who shall be his Successors what shall be necessary to make any such and by what means they shall come by these infallible directions And indeed I can see no reason to think that had there been such an Institution in the Gosspel the same goodness which moved our blessed Saviour to provide so well for his Church should not likewise have drawn from him such an explicit account of it in all circumstances as was necessary for setting the thing beyond dispute and securing any such Court in their Authority by an express constitution of it in its Members and a Declaration of their power such as Moses gave the People of Israel in the obedience due to the responses of Urim and Thummim 3. My third Question shall be supposing an Infallible Church How shall I be directed in my search for it so as to find it out For the several Societies that name the name of Christ being so broken off from one another to which of all these must I address my self for a decision in all Articles of Faith When I consider the beginings of Christianity that it first arose in Ierusalem and did spread most in the East when I also consider that the Eastern Churches had most Confessors and Martyrs in the Ages of persecution and had also the greatest interest in the four first and best General Councils as appears from the Subscriptions where the Western Bishops were scarce the twentieth part When I add to this how undisputed their Succession is and how long they have kept the prosession of the Christian Faith amidst all the severities and cruelties of the Saracens and Mahometans under whose bondage they continue to this day I am tempted to seek this Judge there but when I see in what ignorance they live and how the pressures they groan under though they have not prevailed on them to renounce the name of Christ yet have brought them to a degenerate means which I love not to dwell on nor aggravate since the circumstances they are in plead pity rather than scorn or disdain I am forced to turn away from them but if I look Western I see a Church triumphing indeed in outward splendor their Worship is solemn and magnificent their Priest in great esteem and their High Priest culminates in Glory and Power but after all this I cannot see what must oblige me to an implicit belief to every thing this Church imposes on me since the Piety to which she pretends is either immured in her Cloysters or appears only in faces and outward postures of devotion but after my most impartial inquiries I can see no reason to esteem the Head of this Church a Saint or such a Clerk that I