Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	age_n	church_n	tradition_n	3,033	5	9.4226	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52138	Plain-dealing, or, A full and particular examination of a late treatise, entituled, Humane reason by A.M., a countrey gentleman.	Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678.	1675 (1675)	Wing M876; ESTC R23029	77,401	164

men though he cannot be so much a fool to follow it himself viz. the relying on our naked reason so far as to exclude other more necessary helps especially in such matters as these of History concerning which Reason alone can be no competent Judge But yet this Gentleman is so confident positively to affirm pag. 26. that They that build their Faith upon past or present Ages are in much greater danger of being drawn from the Christian Faith then those who remit the judgment of these things wholly to their own Reason Whereas if he had considered things aright he must needs have seen that the main cause why our Reason will dictate to us that Christianity is the true Religion must be from the constant Tradition of the former Ages of the Church For from hence it is that we believe the Gospel to be the Writings of the Apostles from hence it is that we believe the Historical part of it and by consequence from hence it must proceed that we believe the Doctrines contained in it But let us hear his Reason for this bold Assertion it is nothing else but this that There hath been the Authority of an hundred to one against Christianity and that backed with the Universal Agreement of three thousand years before Certainly it is not possible for him to believe that this is any thing of a satisfactory Argument For did ever any body reckon the Tradition of the Heathens and Jews for the ground of the Christian Faith Does he not know that by Tradition every Christian that knows what he saith means the Tradition of the Church of Christ Can this then be any Reason against it that the Heathens and Jews did not assert it I am altogether of his Opinion that Reason will demonstrate the Christian above any other Riligion but still the Authority of the Christian Church together with the Gospel must acquaint us what Christianity is otherwise meer Reason could never know it So that let Reason alone though it be never so well followed with constancy diligence and sobriety it can demonstrate nothing of Christianity if it is not backed with the Authority of the Church Now I appeal to the Author himself to know how it is possible that the Universal Tradition of the Christian Church should lead us into such Errours as should cause us to deny Christ Was there ever any Age of Christians which did generally fall into the denial of Christ How could they then be called Christians who renounced the very essence of Christianity Now because this Author hath not told us what Helps and Directions a Christian must make use of to inform his Reason in matters of Religion I shall lay him down such a Rule as can never fail him in his main end his future happiness unless he be false to his Rule The Rule in general is this The Scriptures rightly interpreted To the interpretation of which is necessary a due meditation and apprehension of the scope and coherence of the words with a knowledge of the Original Languages and the peculiar Idioms of them together with the knowledge of the Customs of those times and places in which those things were done spoken and written which makes all Judaick and Ecclesiastical Authors especially Historians to be very requisite especially as to the understanding the New Testament For many things are but cursorily mentioned in the Gospel and therefore are best explained by the Writings of those that were conversant with the Apostles and their Successors who did converse with them and so on which calls in the assistance of all Antiquity especially the ancient Fathers of the three first Centuries and the four first General Councils and after all a sound rational Soul as necessary to lay these together where they agree and to judge which is most to be relied on where they differ and to draw well grounded consequences from them together with the Divine assistance concurring with all these means so that the common people that have not these advantages though they may have as good and sound rational Faculties as the greatest Scholars and can exercise them as judiciously in other things in which they have had convenience rightly to inform themselves are no more fit to interpret Scripture then they are to Comment on Euclid or Archimedes For that they have not those helps which are necessary for such a Work But what then must they do they must use the best means that God hath given them i. e. the Directions of the Church and of those Persons whom the Church hath by Gods Commission ordained over them to be their Guides and Instructers And though perhaps by their Guides unskilfulness or the corruption of the Church they are members of though this last cannot be supposed in the Church of England because it is free from all corruption in Doctrine they may be led into Errours yet since they have made use of the best means God hath given them he doth not require impossibilities at their hands and therefore will not impute those Errours to their Faults which he hath never given them power to help Whereas on the contrary if every one of the common people must be left wholly to the guidance of his own Reason they must necessarily run into as many Religions as there are men and worship a several Deity not onely every day of the week but every hour of the day and by thinking themselves as wise as their Teachers come to despise and contemn them and to trample under foot all Order and Decency to scorn the Laws of their Magistrates and in a word to run themselves into all confusion danger and wickedness This some men see well enough to be the natural consequence of this Opinion and therefore they who have a mind to make divisions amongst us do nothing else but cry up Conscience and every mans own Reason For if they can but thus separate the Sheep from the Shepherds they will soon make them stray so far till they get them into their own Pound These are the mighty advantages that the most of men would obtain by following no other Guide but their own Reason The next advantage of his Opinion is the great charitableness of it viz. That It sets the Gate of Heaven so wide open that all persons whatsoever may enter This is Charity indeed with a Witness to fill Heaven like Noab's Ark with all sorts of Beasts both clean and unclear But I am afraid there 's something else in the case besides altogether Charity that prompts the Author to this opinion he tells us so himself and therefore we may believe him that the humble consideration of his own weakness was another strong motive to him It seems the Gentleman begins to think that if there be no entrance into Heaven for Jews Turks Heathens and Atheists he himself shall scarce ever come there As for his Opinion that all these are in an equal possibility of salvation with the unerring Christian certainly