Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	catholic_n	church_n	society_n	1,852	5	9.5659	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50645	Some farther remarks on the late account given by Dr. Tenison of his conference with Mr. Pulton wherein the doctor's three exceptions against Edward Meredith are examined, several of his other misrepresentations laid open, motives of the said E.M's conversion shewed, and some other points relating to controversie occasionally treated : together with an appendix in which some passages of the doctor's book entutuled Mr. Pulton considered are re-considered ... : to all which is added a postscript in answer in answer to the pamphlet put forth by the school-master of Long-Acre.	Meredith, Edward, 1648-1689?	1688 (1688)	Wing M1783; ESTC R25023	114,110	184

as all those must do who consider that they are Fallible and therefore may be Mistaken in their Interpretations There is also another supposed Irreverence towards the Holy Scripture that the Catholics are accused of which consists in this that they make the Tradition of the Church to be of equal credit with it On this Point I shall only ask this short Question viz. Whether it be not as much to be believed that St. Matthews Gospel is the word of God which is the Tradition of the Church as it is that our Saviour Fasted Forty Days and Forty Nights which is part of that Gospel If it be as I presume none will deny then it must follow that Tradition which is the unwritten Word of God must oblige us to believe as much as Scripture which is his written Word And indeed who is there that can doubt but that heretofore the Apostles Sermons and Verbal directions and that which the Faithful remembred of them were of equal Authority with their Epistles and other Writings Shall we not think that what was laid up in their Memories was as Obligatory as that which was committed to Paper Especially whilst we hear St. Paul Commanding the * 2 Thes c. 2. v. 15. Thessalonians to hold fast those Traditions which they had learnt whether it had been by word of Mouth or by Epistle On the whole matter I dare boldly affirm that there is none who shall impartially consider what hath been said here but will perceive that the Catholics have a greater respect for the Holy Scripture than the Protestants and this with relation both to it's Authority and Vsefulness First As to it's Authority I mean it 's Authentickness the Catholics Declare that it hath been handed from the time of the Apostles down to ours by a True and Uncorrupted Church Whereas the Protestants do not allow that they received it from any Society of Christians but such as according to their own sentiments were Corrupted The Inference of this and of what follows is too plain to need the making Secondly As to it 's Usefulness The Catholics affirm that God hath left us some sure means of understanding it a-right so far forth as it shall be necessary for our Salvation whereas the Protestants assign no other way of understanding the Scripture but what they acknowledge to be Uncertain And here I cannot but take notice that a Bible in an unknown Tongue which is capable of being rightly Interpreted and is daily so Interpreted to the Common People is incomparably of more use to them than one in the Vulgar Tongue which can be understood no otherwise than fallibly That is as I have said * See above Pag. 56. above cannot be * And consequently indeed can be of no use but rather hurtful understood An unknown Tongue which may be Interpreted being certainly less inconvenient than an unknown Sense which may not be Found out Wherefore if Scripture appear both more Authentic and more Vseful by Catholic Tenets than it doth by Protestant can it be thought to have less Respect amongst us than it has amongst them There is yet another plausible Pretence which serves rather to Amuse than Argumentatively to deceive the Common People whenever this Point viz. the Testimony on which Holy Scripture is to be received comes into Debate They say that the Holy Scripture hath a sufficient Authority from it self that it is discerned by it's own Light and that it's Style Contexture and Precepts are such as necessarily speak it to be Divine insomuch that it stands not in any need of being recommended to us by any Extrinsic Testimony whatsoever Certainly if this were so the Apostles would have had an easier task in the Conversion of the World than it proved to them They needed only to have Translated their Gospels into the Languages of all Nations and so by Ordinary Messengers to have dispersed them from one end of the World to the other And by this means they might have been in those days as sparing of their Journeys as their pretended Successors of the Church of England are in these And forasmuch as concerns those Miraculous Gifts which were Communicated to them for the propagation of the Faith all of them had been Superfluous excepting only that of Tongues Their Scripture would have discovered it self by it's own Light to be the word of God and what was Plain in it according to our Modern Doctrin would be sufficient for Salvation But since this was quite otherwise and that the Word of God was heretofore recommended to Mankind by the great Labors Holy Lives and frequent Miracles of those who Preached it and even with all these helps found not that Credit with the greatest part which it ought we must conclude that this Holy word stands in need of some Extrinsic Testimony since at the beginning it pleased God who does no unnecessary thing to accompany it with * But they the Apostles going forth Preached every where our Lord working withal and Confirming the Word with Signs that followed Mark c. 16. v. 20. such and that even when it came from the Blessed Mouth of his own * The Works that I do in the name of my Father they give Testimony of me John c. 10. v. 25. And again ver 38. Believe the Works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me c. Son. And yet tho' we should grant that there is somewhat so admirable in these Writings that forasmuch as concerns the whole frame of them it must necessarily appear at least to a well-disposed mind that they can have no other Author than God himself Will it therefore follow that every Verse is such every Historical passage or that some Syllable or Word may not be added or taken away in some Mystery of Faith without breaking in upon the Majesty of the Style or whatever else bespeaks our veneration for this Book May not I say somewhat of this Nature be done which may change the Meaning of a Sentence and yet thence no evidence arise that this Sentence so changed is not from God For further Illustration and Proof of what I say let us suppose that there were two Editions of the Bible delivered to us by an Extrinsick Testimony or Authority so equal that we could not discern which Testimony were best and that in one of these Editions our Saviour's words in the Institution of the Blessed Sacrament should be THIS is a Sign of my Body and in the other what they now are THIS is my Body Would it appear from the sound or any thing else which of these two Sentences was spoken by Christ I presume that considering the various opinions which are now in the World concerning this Mystery you are ready to say that it would not Suppose then that I or any other private person should put forth an Edition of the Bible which should have the former Sentence This is a Sign of my Body instead of the

proved that on the denyal of this Roman Authority as the Doctor calls it Men would have no reason to believe a God it must needs have followed that the Roman Authority was not to be denyed Besides An Arian might have upbraided the Antient Catholics after the same manner and said that so much insisting on the necessity of believing a Trinity would rather make the People Atheists or Vnbelievers than Converts And that the Indifferent would be ready to say content We cannot believe the Trinity and we will have no Deity For Athanasius tells us that it will stand us in little stead to believe a God unless we also believe what is plainly repugnant to our Reason a Trinity of persons in an Vnity of Substance And this Discourse would not have been less conclusive in the Arians Mouth than it was in the Doctors This was the Answer which the Doctor by the Spirit of Prophecy thought not worth the tarrying for and therefore faced about to Mr. P. Which I should not have complained of had it been to have Answered Mr. P's Question But instead of this to shew how sollicitous he was for the Discovery of Truth in so important a Point as a Rule of Faith he * Pag. 6. near the end falls into an insignificant cavil Where I leave him it being too troublesome for me to trace him through all his turnings and windings However what is here said may serve to give the Reader some kind of Notion of them He says p. 14. Mr. M. had some while before asked Pag. 14. Dr. T. who had said that we find the Bible which we now have Quoted by the Antient Fathers how he came to know they were Fathers To which Question he thought an Answer in that place a condescention to an Impertinence The Doctor had been asked upon what Authority or Testimony for the Doctor distinguishes between them he had received his Bible He answered amongst other things that he found his Bible Quoted by the Antient Fathers Now I considered that the Fathers and their works stood in need of some Testimony themselves for their being relyed on And therefore I asked the Doctor how he knew they were Fathers By Fathers I suppose he meant Orthodox Bishops or Doctors of the Church Wherefore the meaning of my Question was how he could prove those whom he accounted Fathers to be Orthodox If he should have said that they had been allowed to be such by all Christians It would have been denyed him there having been and still being several Societies of such as Profess Christianity who assert the contrary And therefore unless the Doctor could give us a mark whereby we might know which sort of Christians are in the right and which in the wrong it would be impossible for us to understand from their Testimony whether the Fathers were Orthodox or not If he should have replyed that these Fathers were approved by our selves That also would have been as little to his purpose For if he looks on our Authority as Good he ought to receive several other things upon it which he does not And if he takes it not to be such he cannot confide in it either for Scripture or Fathers Since here they are not Arguments ad hominem or concerning only the Private difference between us and them but general Arguments which we require of them I mean such as may serve to evidence the certainty of Holy Writ to the whole World. And if the Doctor would have granted that this could have been done by our Authority it may easily be believed that we should have asked no more Lastly If he should have said that he knew those Antient Fathers to be Orthodox no otherwise than by the Conformity which he observed in their Tenets to the Doctrin of the Scriptures which is the Protestant way of proving the Orthodoxness of either particular Men or Churches he would have involved himself in a Circle by proving the Fathers to be true from their agreement with the Scriptures and the Scriptures to be so from the approbation of the Fathers By this time I suppose it sufficiently appears to unbyass'd Readers that Doctor Tenison would have shewed his Learning more by Answering this Question than he has done his Manners by calling it Impertinent Here I cannot but take notice that this Question of mine is inserted in a wrong place to make People believe that I was present to so much of the Conference Whereas I am as certain as my memory can make me that I heard none of those Discourses from the middle of the Doctors 10th Page till towards the latter end of his 17th When the Doctors loud Clamors about the Quotation out of St. Ambrose brought me back from the Window whither I had retired long before viz. before the abovesaid Discourses which begin at the middle of the Tenth Page I say I was present to none of those Discourses between the middle of the Tenth and the latter end of the 17th Page excepting somewhat which is mis-placed viz. Mr P's Reprehension of the School-master for his Wry Mouths c. which was soon after the beginning of the Conference and a little while before I withdrew But the Doctor sets it down in this Pag. 15. place that the People may not imagin that the School-master came so soon to his Assistance as in Truth he did Neither was this Reprehension occasioned as the Doctor would have it by any Discourse concerning the Lateran Council which was not then spoken to but on the School-masters producing a Picture in a Breviary and to shew his Wit laughing at it Which was an action no way pertinent to the matter then in debate And therefore the Doctor to disguise the School-masters intrusion says nothing of the Discourse which happened about the Picture It is unhappy says the Doctor p. 65. that amidst so many things we can have nothing sincere and in it's Naturals The reason of it is because in such occasions the Truth is seldom honorable for both sides And I question not but the Doctor is convinced by this time that he was much in the right when he chose rather to trust his own Memory than his own Amanuensis Concerning what he says p. 14. viz. Mr. M. asked what Writers I do not remember that Question neither did I hear the Discourse of that Paragraph What he said also to me in Derogation of Mr. P. tho' he hath it p. 15. was a long time after But the Doctor is resolved to spread my Controversie through his whole Narrative tho' by this means it be very thin and neither much for my credit nor his It is possible that the Doctor thinks to help it out by putting my Name at length so * Six times in two Pages often as he doth throughout this famous Story whereas the rest of the persons of his Drama excepting only one as I take it have only the first Letter of Theirs However lest the Doctor should design