Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	church_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	1,856	5	9.2936	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77522	Letters between the Ld George Digby, and Sr Kenelm Digby kt. concerning religion.	Bristol, George Digby, Earl of, 1612-1677.; Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665.	1651 (1651)	Wing B4768; Thomason E1355_2; ESTC R209464	61,686	137

and evidenter capacity to instruct then the whole Body of Scripture Or if you do What are Private Instructions of kin to Traditions Thomas of Aquine puts in this kinde the highest complement upon Idiots towards the beginning of his first Book adversus Gentiles by sinking down the learnedst to their level For he teaches us I remember to this effect That the wisest ought not to embrace by Natural Reason and Discourse any Article in Religion were it as manifest as that the Whole is bigger then the Part since there may be one so ignorant as to have no notion of what the Whole is or what the Part. And Religion that imparts all alike must be grounded says he upon some Principle common and equal to all Herein the Doctor I must needs say is rightly Angelique for he walks to me in the clouds If he mean by that Principle Faith I understand not how that can be severed either from Reason and Discourse of which it is the last result or from Grace which is not common If he mean by the Principle that Tradition of the Church which you relie on I know not how that can be an easie guidance to the Ignorant since it is so difficult a matter to the wisest to know which is the right Church whose Traditions are so sacred for unless that appear neither the Ignorant nor the Wise are like to be much satisfied in conscience by governing the tenour of their Faith according unto them If we must judge of the Church by Bellarmine's Marks in what mis-mazes shall the Ignorant be guided whilst we finde the most Knowing involved in such intricacies in the examination of what is meant by Visibility Succession and Conformity with Antiquity and to what Society of Christians those attributes belong If you will have the true Church known by Scripture which is surely the easiest and best course even in the opinion of many learned Papists what is that but to flee back and make Tradition clear and certain by that Rule from which you flee as from what you judge obscure to Tradition that you pretend to be evident And then the Protestants will have reason to take it heavily that they should be condemned for founding each part of their Religion upon the same ground whereon the Papists build all theirs at once Yea great reason shall we have to resent it unless a Patent be produced from God Almighty declaring the Rule of Faith for such a Commodity as may be taken from Scripture in gross but not by retail Now that I have answered your Objections I will not be nice in declaring unto you to the full my sence concerning the Sufficiencie and Perspicuity of Scripture I believe that those Canonical Books which God by his providence hath preserved unto these Times and which are acknowledged by all Christians to have been Divinely dictated do make up a compleat Body of all the material objects of Faith necessary to salvation whether explicitely or implicitely necessary to be believed I further believe that in that blessed Sacrary there is not onely an inclusive sufficiencie to wit a perfect comprisal of all Saving Doctrines absolutely essential to Christianity but an exclusive also that is such a sufficiencie as excludes and forbids any Doctrines should be imposed on Christians for a necessary Article of Faith that is not recorded there Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum Jesum nec inquisitione post Evangelium cùm credimus nihil desideramus ultra credere hoc enim prius credimus non esse quod ultra credere debemus Tert. de prax advers Haeret. cap. 8. And lastly I believe that all points whatsoever of Christian Religion are there set down as perspicuously and as clearly intelligible to all capacities as they are clearly necessary to be believed by all And that God's mercy in the merits of Christ accepting alike the Faith resultant from the dark mists of the Ignorant and from the clearest intelligence of the Learned The Lamb may wade to his bliss thorow the same water thorow which the Elephant may swim Quicquid est mihi crede in Scripturis illis altum divinum est inest omnino verit as reficiendis instaur andísque animis accommodatissima disciplina plane it a modificata ut nemo inde haurire non possit quod tibi satis est si modo ad hauriendum devote pie ut vera Religio poscit accedat Here is the saying of Heraclitus most truely applicable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor truely do I conceive besides God's equalizing capacities by his own gracious acceptance that there needs more then a very ordinary one to understand the Scripture in all points absolutely necessary to salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It may be as well understood of the Word of God as of God the Word to whom Clemens pag. 56. advers Gent. applies the saying Magnifice igitur salubriter Spiritus sanctus ita Scriptur as sanctas modificavit ut locis apertioribus famae occurreret obscurioribus autem fastidia detergeret Nihil enim fere de illis obscuritatibus eruitur quod non planissimè dictum alibi reperiatur Aug. The great difficulties and obscurities which are there found I understand chiefly to be in those less material points wherein mens part-taking subtilties have given to God's Word many various acceptions whilst not seeking the doctrines of Scripture but those that themselves are imbued with in it they use it not as the straight and stedfast Rule to judge of and avoid Obliquity by for which it was ordained but rather as a Lesbian Rule to be bent and deflected according to the several purposes of their own Architecture Verifying of the heavenly food of the soul that fantastick imagination of Israel's heavenly food of the body Manna which was said to have been to all differing palats the morsel that each one would have it and the taste that his mouth was made to Since then I am thus perswaded that God hath lodged within us a Pilot Reason how weak soever yet proportionate to the Vessel and the Voyage and that he hath likewise laid open before us a clear and faithful Card that varies not for any Elevation Scripture you must pardon me Cousin if I chuse rather to steer by that Compass thorow the depths of Religion to our Haven of rest and beatitude then like those ancient Navigators that wanted a true Directory to coast it from Doctors to Fathers from Fathers to Popes from Popes to Councels and from all these to but pretended unerring Tradition Quare oportet in care maxime in qua vitae ratio versatur sibi quemque confidere suóque judicio ac propriis sensibus nati ad investigandam perpendendam Veritatem quàm credentem alienis erroribus decipi tanquam ipsum Rationis expertem Dedit omnibus Deus pro virili portione sapientiam ut inaudita investigare possent audita perpendere nec quia nos illi

temporibus antecesserunt sapientia quoque antecesserunt quae si omnibus aequaliter datur occupari ab antecedentibus non potest sed hoc eos fallit quod majorum nomine posito non putant fieri posse aut ipsi plus sapiant quia minores vocantur aut illi dissipuerint quia majores nominantur Lactan. Divin Institut lib. 1. cap. 8. And now noble Cousin that I have examined your Opinions and discussed your Arguments let me have your patience or your pardon a little further while I give you an account concerning those Directions wherewith you favour me in your Letter and in what state I am to follow some and to excuse my self in others To the first namely The use which you conceive we are to make of reading of the Fathers I willingly conform my self in one part that is in letting pass those things which they write as Divines and Scholars onely allowing them no more weight with me then the reasons wherewith they are accompanied do give them I am likewise very willing to let pass for the most part what they write as Commentors upon the Scripture their interpretations in that kinde being many times if I may so say very Chymerical Although I must tell you that were I perswaded of any third Authority by whose seal the Fathers could transmit unto us in all things of Religion such certain and unquestionable resolutions as you imagine I should not expect their aid more earnestly nor take the omission more unkindly of them in any thing then in point of giving us the right and well-handed interpretation of Scriptures I further obey you in laying hold and relying on what they teach us as Pastors of the Church relying I say upon that chiefly to wit in the great Fundamentals of Christianity but not generally that is not in those Questions which we disagree on wherein they were neither willing nor able to be exact and least of all when they inveigh against Hereticks their passions and transportments being at such times greatest As for such Opinions as they deliver Dogmatically without alleadging texts of Scripture or learned Arguments to maintain them although they appear delivered with never so earnest an intent that they should be taken as matters of Faith you must pardon me if they sink no deeper into my belief then they are driven by such Arguments as my own or others discourse can finde for them either in Reason Scripture or Universal Tradition Your second advice is that I should apply my care to collect thorowout the sence of the Fathers and by what they say to frame to my self a Model of the Practice Government and Belief of the Church in their times and then to tell you whether it be like to yours or ours The Care and Attention you wisht me I brought at first to the studie of the Fathers but I cannot brag of the Model I have framed out of them finding that truely a work hard enough for the best Antiquary And to me 't is an improvement of the difficulty to an impossibility to be put to tell you which of the present Churches hath most resemblance to that of their times I could as easily resolve you which of two men that stood before me were likest to an hundred differing faces For I do not think there is a greater variety of countenances at a Publike Assembly then there are differences in the several Ages wherein the Fathers lived touching those three parts of Religion especially these two of Practice and Government of which Tertullian having summ'd up all the chief particulars of the Creed pronounces Hac lege fidei manente caetera jam disciplinae conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis Tert. de Virg. Velan cap. 1. For matters of Practice 't is a clear case what libertie was taken to varie them according to several evasions and ends since some of the Apostles themselves you know did not stick to practise Circumcision nor do the several ages appear to me ere a whit the more exquisite in the imitation of their fore-fathers then you will say the Church of Rome is at this day of the Apostles in that and of those that followed after in administring the Eucharist to children and yet 't is she that pretends to be the Pantomime of antiquitie for matters of Government how Camelion-like that hath been how various is as visible as green and he that would reduce the Church now to the form of Government in the most primitive times should not take in my opinion the best nor wisest course I am sure not the safest for he would be found pecking toward the Presbytery of Scotland which for my part I beleeve in point of Government hath a greater resemblance then either yours or ours to the first age of Christs Church and yet is nere a whit the better for it since it was a form not chosen for the best but imposed by adversitie and oppression which in the beginning forc'd the Church from what it wisht to what it might not suffering that dignitie and state Ecclesiasticall which rightly belong'd unto it to manifest it self to the world and which soon afterwards upon the least lucida intervalla shone forth so gloriously in the happier as well as more Monarchicall condition of Episcopacy of which way of Government I am so well perswaded that I think it pittie 't was not made betimes an article of the Scotish Catechism that Bishops are jure divino But as it is a true maxime in nature Corruptio optimi pessima so it holds likewise in Government both civill and Ecclesiasticall The best of all Monarchy festers oft-times and swels into the worst of all Tyrannie To which after the first 500. years Policy having or'etopt Pietie the Church made a hastie progress and of the following ages in this particular I grant the present Church of Rome to be a copy farr exceeding the originall verifying now of the Roman the imputation that Aristides layd by way of reproach on all other Empires 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For matters of belief the salvation of Christians depending chiefly upon them 't is true in the primary and fundamental articles they have been more constant unanimous and exact and in those comparing the Church of their times with yours and ours I think I may pronounce them all three alike to one another but in points less material such as I esteem those wherein we two differ I should contradict my self to undertake the framing out of the Fathers a certain judgement which of the two present Churches were most correspondent to that of their times Notwithstanding if you command me to say for which side in my guess the Fathers do make most I will tell you truely and freely what I think holding then the ballance as even as I can I conceive the Fathers in some few poynts do lean somewhat more to you as in that of Christs descent into hell and also in that of free-wil those excepted that wrote

in heat against Pelagius but in other differences and those of greater importance I collect and probably if I am not much deceived that their sense is much clearer for us as in the doctrines of Purgatory and of the Eucharist for as touching the first although you may pretend in some that the words and outward shell wherein the Fathers opinions were conveyed belong more to you yet if the matter be carefully pick'd and examined I doubt not but the sense and kernel will prove ours it will be found that when ever any of the Fathers Origen onely excepted and his adherents who held the very flames of Hell but Purgatory Temporal I say those set aside all the expressions of the Fathers this way appear clearly to me to have been understood not of a Purgatory but onely of a probatory fire whether they meant that of affliction or that of the day of judgement as for that place in St. Augustine formerly alledged for Purgatory his best commentator Lod. Vives confesses he could never meet with it in the ancienter copies of that Fathers admirable works however crept into the vulgar Editions In point of the Eucharist I believe my former instances will deserve a confession of the ballances being so equally poysed in this affaire as far forth as expression at least that the overbearance of either scale is hardly perceptible but did I grant that their words weighed incomparably more on your side yet I should not doubt to challenge their sense for us and that most confidently upon this reason That supposing the Fathers to have believed as we doe the Sacrament to be Bread great reason might they have notwithstanding to raise the majesty of it in their expressions and to term it the body of Christ it being usuall and thought necessary in the primitive times to wrap up the Sacraments of the Church in mysteries that the Catechumens might be possest with a more awfull reverence towards them and be whetted and fan'd as it were to a more keen and ardent desire of being admitted unto them especially the danger being much more easie for them to think too meanly of what bore the name of Christs body but was palpably bread then that they should fall to adore that for God which their eare onely told them was the flesh of Christ and all their other senses assured them to be the commonest food of mankind wheras supposing them to have believed as the Church of Rome doth that the Sacrament is the very Flesh and blood of our Saviour and to be received with the same reverence that belongs to God himselfe there can be no warrantable reason why they should at any time lessen the majesty of so sacred an object of our adoration or give it so often the name of those ordinary elements whose evidence to our sense should they alwayes have said all they could invent of dignifying would still have been apt enough to give an allay to the faith and veneration that 's pretended to These being as I conceive two of the most important Articles of difference between your Church and ours what hath been said will suffice to manifest unto you that throughout this discourse I decline not the trial by the Fathers out of any distrust of our cause for truly though I will not allow their Writings to be the proper tribunall at which our controversies are to be judged I should be content to referre with you the whole matter to their arbitration and voluntarily to allow them that determinating power which in right they cannot claim so farre am I from acknowledging a greater conformity in the Church of Rome then in ours to what they teach to have been either the Government Practice or Beliefe of the primitive times nor yet should I refuse them for Arbitrators as peremptorily as I doe for Judges I would not think my pains lost or study of the Fathers not worth the while For besides the addition of knowledge and general improvement of the Soul which one must be a very stupid Reader of the Fathers not to advance in by the helps of their great and universal learning besides the admirable excitations to piety and zeale I conceive that even in the affair of directing us to a soul-saving Religion a Christian by searching into their ancient memorials may as you say reap a far greater advantage then either Criticks or Lawyers do in their several Sciences from their worm-eaten monuments of Antiquity for they Cousin from those maymed evidences of broken and disjoynted Records draw out principles it is true so probable as may prudentially induce a rational and equal Surveyers assent from which they frame perhaps some such text whereby indifferent men do consent to be regulated but we by our holy search into the Sacraries of former ages are led to a text already divinely framed A text perfectly comprizing all parts requisite to the supreme Science it concerns A text whose very affirmation is an uncontroulable resolution from our Records of antiquity wee draw not only Topical Arguments but proofs to any discoursing man above demonstration such as it were madness and impiety to reject upon any argument to the contrary and this in all points of Religion mistake me not I mean that do really and confestly on all hands import Heaven or Hell in mens beliefs and practise and from hence though I should deny the Fathers any usefulness at all in our controversies yet I should extreamly gratulate to my self the labour and ambition to be in some good measure skill'd in their Antiquities and to you your great and according to your principles most judicious progress in them Your next advice is that I should apply my understanding and industry to build up as well as to pull down and to examine as strictly the reasons of my own belief to see whether that be wel grounded as those for the contrary opinion to observe whether that be concludingly demonstrated I must confess I ever thought it a superfluous labour to seek to establish one part of a contradiction by any further proof then the destruction of the other and you your self supposing our Tenents contradictory do warrant that for a truth to me sufficiently proved and press on me a necessity of imbracing whatsoever is contradictory to a falshood 'T is true that St Jerome passes upon Lactantius a censure in a wish Vtinam tam nostra confirmare putuissit quam facile aliena distruxit but his case and ours are not alike 't was not so convincing an Argument Paganism is ridiculous Judaism exolete Therefore Christians are in every thing in the right as 't is with us the Church and tradition is not infallible in all things therefore fallible in some the bread is not transubstantiated therefore it remains bread There is no third place for us after death besides heaven and hell and no fall from the one and no redemption from the other therefore no Purgatorie In these and the like cases