Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	rule_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	12,255	5	9.8749	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62891	Short strictures or animadversions on so much of Mr. Croftons Fastning St Peters bonds, as concern the reasons of the University of Oxford concerning the covenant by Tho. Tomkins ...	Tomkins, Thomas, 1637?-1675.	1661 (1661)	Wing T1839; ESTC R10998	57,066	192

which provokes their anger and Mr. Cr. like an angry Disputant confutes himself Is that our fault that we shew a peculiar respect to that part of it which peculiarly concerns our Saviour his Words and Works Our particular obligation assures us it were ill if it were otherwise Outward Reverence provided we do not let it serve in stead of but use it to signifie and promote inward cannot in that case be a crime But if to dignifie some parts of Scripture above others be a crime themselves are guilty as doing so to the Psalms of David only they are not Davids but Sternholds by singing them before every Sermon a thing in Scripture no where commanded But so have I seen a distempered person in spite to another beat himself The next thing considerable is p. 55 56. Christmas Easter c. and the Holy-days are superstitious plainly repugnant to Gal. 4.10 Col. 2.16 If the Feasts there mentioned were evidently not Christian Festivals I suppose I may safely conclude Christian Festivals not to be plainly forbid in that place where they are not so much as spoke of The Text in the Galatians mentions expresly Moneths and Years proportions of Time no way to be accommodated to Christian Festivals or then or now That in the Colossians is so plain that it must be a worse Principle than Inconsideration which occasioned the mistake not only because it expresses New Moons a thing not established by Christian Authority but in the words following the 17. verse gives a clear account of the unlawfulness of those Feasts of the Observance of which he there complains which are a shadow of things to come but the Body is Christ Those Feasts therefore were not reproved as having been commanded by any Christian Church which it is clear they were not but because they had in them not only a general malignity as being kept in Obedience to the Iewish Law and so must suppose that to be still in force but had besides a peculiar malignity in their nature being and for that very reason reproved a shadow of Christ to come and so consequently denyed His coming Now then all which can be gathered from this place is Christians must not keep Feasts which prefigured Christ to come Ergo they may not keep Feasts in remembrance that He is come There is a pretty piece of Divinity p. 56. to enforce the former Conclusion which no doubt would be admirable if it were but sense To observe the Nativity Circumcision Passion Resurrection Ascension severally is irrational and irreligious irrational because they are not in themselves Mercies to the Church but as they center in Mans Redemption irreligious because without Divine warrant That none of all these signal condescensions of Divine goodness should be esteemed in themselves Mercies or worth giving thanks for when Edge-Hill and Nasby Battails though but in order to the undoing of the King were so accounted argues a more passionate esteem and concernment for the Covenant of Scotland than that of Grace That it is irreligious because without Divine warrant is said but not proved For a thing becomes unlawful only by being against some Law that is by being forbidden not barely by being not commanded Our Saviour Christ we are sure observed Feasts which had not such Institution notwithstanding that prohibition which was as strict to the Iews whose Authority instituted those Feasts and in obedience to which He kept them as it can possibly be to us Ye shall not add c. Christ did indeed abolish the Ceremonial Law of the Iews and that was all He did abolish so as to make unlawful From hence men gather That it is ● sin for us to imitate them in any thing we find done by them according to the Principles and Dictates of Nature Gratitude c. as Feasts of Commemorations clearly are Though this is a Proposition sufficiently distant upon this pitiful ground without any more ado do men put off all which can be fetcht out of the Old Testament whereas though Christ abolisht the Ceremonial Law he left all other Laws and Rules as he found them But as Christ observed Feasts not instituted by divine Authority so possibly doth Mr. Cr the command in Scripture for Sunday being not so very clear that Mr. Cr. cannot but doubt to be Irreligion and Will-worship in his notions of those terms No man can ground it on the fourth Commandement that doth not take the seventh and first to be the same day i. e. Seven and one to be the same number If he will interpret the Seventh-day to signifie one in seven I desire to know whether the Iews might have observed which of the seven days they pleased and whether then the Reason of the fourth Commandement was not strangely impertinent to the Matter of it That being expressed to be For in the Seventh day God rested c. seeing that was the very seventh and no other and a command in the New-Testament for it I suppose is not to be found The next three leaves 57 58 59. are spent in proving what none ever denyed That There are several things in the Form of our Service and Discipline not commanded in the Word of God A thing comes to be unlawful sure by being forbid not by being uncommanded Seeing this is the only fault I ask Is the Directory the Form there prescribed in the Word of God I desire a direct Answer to that Can that pretend to anything but to be the result of Prudence and Authority Both Directory and Common-Prayer agree in that which the Directory was made to differ from the Liturgy in both were made by Men. The only imaginable difference is the one was made by those who had Authority the other by those who had none That the Scripture is a compleat Rule of Faith And what cannot be proved thereby as it is interpreted by that Original and unquestionable Tradition by which we receive the Scripture it self is not to be believed as a revealed Article of Faith We not only assert but in the defence of this Practice of ours whereby we are said to over-throw the Scriptures being a compleat Rule we contend for it as an advantagious Truth in this Cause Because this Doctrine Nothing is to be in Discipline or Order but what we find in Scripture is a Doctrine in Scripture no where to be found So that the very Accusation is the same Crime it would be thought to reprove And what is clear concerning this Principle is as clear concerning their Practice Till the Form and Order in the Directory prescribed be shewed to be so in the Bible too The demand of the Written Word for every particular of Order and Discipline is hugely plausible and senseless I will not throw away Reason upon unreasonable men to show the vanity of that admired tenent That whatever though but of Order Decency Discipline is not in the Written Word which is a compleat Rule for all is Will-Worship c. I shall

approved at Rome The clearing of this should in all Reason commend Episcopacy to those men who make opposition to Rome the rule of their Faith But oh the intolerable though holy villany of those godly Cheats who Preached up this Tenent for Popery which all who understand what Popery means know to be the bane of it and was at Trent by the See of Romes most skilful Advancers discarded as such It seems some not esteemed Iesuites can lie for God and pious frauds can be used and rayled at It is said by the Oxf. men in their third ground of their first exception That they are not satisfyed of that Phrase in the Covenant Lest we be partakers of other mens sins They do not apprehend how they are guilty of those sins suppose them to be sins which is not yet proved unless they endeavour by fire and sword to root them out To which Mr. Cr. Replyes p. 76. That they are so guilty but hath not one word to prove it That Saints in Scripture did weep for other mens sins I read But that they esteemed them to be made their own if they did not fight them down I do not read There were Kings of Israel who were Idolaters and the Law was general that they who were such should be put to death yet I do not find the Prophets telling the People that it was the same thing for them not to stone the King as it was for him to worship stones And yet this is the Import of that expression Those are our sins we are partakers of them if we do not pull them down The Foundation of the second Article of the Covenant is harder then all the Laws of God besides if it self be one It binds us to the extirpation of all Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness or whatever shall be found contrary to the Power of Godliness and this they make to be every mans duty and swear him to it under no milder expressions then these Lest we be partakers of other mens sins and so in danger to receive their plagues And here if we consider the way of endeavouring this Covenant practised and required viz. Fire and Sword and with this their Invitation to Foraign Churches where there are no Parliaments with pretence of share in the Government so that they must only be looked upon as so many private men on whom yet this duty is incumbent It teaches us this by that Engagement Lest we partakers of other mens sins c. That a godly man can never be at peace with himself till he be at war with every one he knows or thinks wicked He must perpetually expect Gods vengeance on himself when he is not executing it upon another The first thing of moment against this Article is p. 78. That the Universal alleadged Practise of 1500 years will more weaken then strengthen the Divine Right for the most pure estate was before that in the first 140. years I shall not at all insist upon the Catalogues of Bishops in unquestionable Histories to be had even from the beginning But only say this That all Christian Churches in those dayes should deviate from the Primitive pattern and all the same way no common cause imaginable inducing them to err the same way is a thing highly incredible As to that which is ordinarily urged viz. Ambition it could not if we consider the Persons or Times have been universal nor if we consider the thing have been at all Being a Bishop having only the priviledge of being burnt next Mr. Cr. in the following Pages makes demands for Texts Though the Article insists only on Practise and so is not concerned Which if not granted good National Parochial Churches The Canon of the Scripture and the Lords-Day are lost Nor is this Truth utterly past by in Scripture though if it had considering that the intent was to deliver to us Doctrine not the precise Form of Discipline we might rationally have appealed to Antiquity in that Point i. e. to the Practise of those from whom we receive the Canon of the Scripture and without whose Suffrage were it once questioned it were not possible without immediate Revelation to have it sufficiently attested to be what it pretends to be Mr. Cr. tells us that Bishops and Presbyters are intrusted with the same Power of Governing But I cannot be satisfied in this particular since I find Timothy and Titus being single men are without any intimation of others being equal with them directed how to receive accusations and to rebuke and censure Evidences in my apprehension pregnant enough of sole Iurisdiction To disprove the Universal alleadged Practise he tells us That the King of Denmark in the year 1537. exstirpated it and so did the Scots since Goodly goodly And so did those he pleads for the long Parliament I cannot apprehend but that either he droles or is utterly ignorant of the nature of Tradition as taking it to be what none ever contradicted a notion of it which they that understand what it means have not Sure I am at that rate the Deity of Christ cannot approve it self to be Catholick Doctrine because there were Arians of old and are Socinians now The mutual correspondence by Letters which was at that time used in the Church forbad any Church to be ignorant of what all the Churches do hold so that Innovations could not but be discovered And to suppose that the same Imposture should be imposed upon all the Churches together in those early dayes as an Apostolick Tradition upon so many various Countries and Inclinations upon men whose choisest care was in delivering and dying for that Faith they had once received from the Apostles is to suppose all the World to be out of their wits together If they tell us It was the ambition of Pastors that introduced that Order no account can be given how this should be universal and yet not perceived or resisted and this is as strange as to the Exemplar Piety of those Times And yet more in the nature of the thing it is absurd For their ambition in that case could tend to nothing but a more quick and severe Martyrdom to be sooner burnt then their fellows The Heathens spite was at the Bishops as well as the Presbyterians Aerius being called a Heretick for promoting that Opinion himself glories in he qualifieth with this That Austin only calleth it Proprium dogma p. 87. Which term in St. Austin's esteem signifieth nothing less In his judgement for a private man to oppose his own private Opinion dictated by discontent as some late ones are known to have been for not being Bishops themselves in a matter of fact against all Records Histories and the owned Practise of all the Churches was Spiritual Pride and Folly And St. Austin in that case would if pertinaciously held not at all have stickt to have called it Heresie If the expression he useth do not import as much In the Answer to the fourth Exception handled I know