Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	authority_n	church_n	faith_n	5,185	5	6.2589	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33462	Capel's remains being an useful appendix to his excellent Treatise of tentations, concerning the translations of the Holy Scriptures : left written with his own hand / by that incomparably learned and jucicious divine, Mr. Richard Capel, sometimes fellow of Magdalen-Colledge in Oxford ; with a preface prefixed, wherein is contained an abridgement of the authors life, by his friend Valentine Marshall.	Capel, Richard, 1586-1656.; Marshall, Valentine.; Capel, Richard, 1586-1656. Tentations.	1658 (1658)	Wing C471; ESTC R5922	60,793	168

So I dare lay it on the same God that he in his providence is so with the Church of the Gentiles that they have and do preserve the Greek Text uncorrupt and clear As for some scapes by Transcribers that comes to no more then to censure a book to be corrupt because of some scapes in the printing and 't is certaine that what mistake is in one print is correctin another A second Proposition is That God never did suffer his Church to be without a sufficient Rule and there can be no rule but translations to the Vulgar Therefore I make no question but the sweet providence of God hath held the hearts and hands and pens of translators so in all true Churches in all times that the virnacular and popular translation into mother tongues have beene made pure without any considerable tincture of errour to endanger the soules of his Church For what if Interpreters and Translators were not Prophets yet God hath and doth use so to guide them that they have been are and shall be preserved from so erring in translating the Scriptures that the souls of his people may have that which will feed them to eternal life that they shall have sufficient for their instruction and consolation here and salvation hereafter This is the opinion of Bellarmine himselfe albeit he appropriates it to their vulgar Translation yet I think the eye of providence provides for all vulgar and vernacular translations in their mother tongue for all true Churches in the world Translations are sufficient with all their mistakes to save the Church I will deliver this in the words of Master Baine Faith cometh by hearing of the word from a particular Minister who by confession of all is subject to errour As God hath not immediately and infallibly assisted Ministers that they cannot erre at all so we know that he is in some measure with them that they cannot altogether erre A Translation that erreth cannot beget faith so farre forth as it erreth The word Translated though subject to errour is Gods Word and begetteth and increaseth faith not so farre forth as man through frailty erreth but as he is assisted through speaking and translating to write the truth So he This gives full satisfaction to me and I hope it will to others The maine Conclusion for a ground of all is the evidence and seale of the Spirit of God which perswadeth us of the saving truth in the Translation and by way of Ministry to come to saving faith by the preaching of the Word by our several Ministers Papists cry up the inerrable and infallible authority of the Church and yet they themselves deny not but their particular preachers whom they heare are as subject to erre as any of ours are I know no authority the Church hath whatever the Church doth is but Ministerial The Papists and we agree in this That Translations Originals Reading Preaching is of no saving effect without the Revelation and Testimony of the Spirit Canus I rather choose to mention him the oftener because Dr. John Rainolds saith that he was of better minde and sounder judgement then Popish Doctors are the most of them It is a great errour saith he in them who think they can either understand or interpret the Scripture without the peculiar gift of the holy Ghost And againe The last resolution of our faith must be in the inner efficiency of God moving to beleeve We believe not for that John or any man else saith it but because God hath revealed it Now that God hath revealed his minde we do immediately believe it by special instinct And again The formal reason of our assent is the light of God which God doth infuse into us and for this he cites Aquinas Lect. 2. ad Rom. 10. And as the understanding in us discernes of natural things and the taste in matters of sense so when the minde of a man is inlightened by the Spirit we are inabled to discerne doctrines necessary to salvation from errours which are not of God This his resolution is often up and down in his book Bellarmine is for the same conclusion A man cannot saith he without the special illustration of God believe the mysteries of faith And again Faith cannot arise in the heart but by divine revelation which is either immediately from God alone or by the instrument of the Word reade or preached I think it hath truth in it which Canus observes That Peter had heard the Testimony of John Baptist when with open voice he proclaimed Christ to be the Son of God John 1. 84. and had moreover with his own eyes seene many miracles of Christ yet after all these Christ doth ascribe Peters confession of his saith to none of of these but onely to divine revelation So then Protestants and Papists we and they concurre in this That at last we must sit down by the evidence and sealing testimony of the Spirit but with this difference They say The Spirit gives light and evidence to the authority of the Church we say To the Sovereignty of the Scriptures Nothing can be seene without some light or other Things of Reason cannot be conceived without the light of reason nor things of the Spirit without the light of Faith and of the Spirit Though Wotton hath cast an unhappy stone or two at translations yet when he comes to answer Fisher who said That the Spirit of God teacheth and perswadeth men to believe the Church Are you saith Wotton they who mock at private spirits and yet are glad to flie that help Is it not as likely the Spirit should teach men which is the Scripture as which is the Church and assure them of a translation as of this or that mans Ordination and Priesthood So he thus at last he is for the divine authority of translations But is not this to fall upon private revelations No such matter for we call not in for the Testimony of revealing of the Spirit to teach us any thing but what is revealed in the word that wer to bring in privat revelations But because none doth or can know the secrets of God but the Spirit of God therefore we say that we are made to see the evidence of truth first revealed in the Word and then by that light which the Spirit kindleth in our hearts both the Scripture to be the Word of God and the minde of the Sripture is not onely revealed but confirmed to us by the Testimony of the Spirit in us and to us So here is no use of the Spirit to reveal new lights but to shew us the evidence of these truthes which are in the Word A private spirit is to lead us from this is to lead us to the Word And all this is done by illightning our understandings and sanctifying our wills to discern and to approve the evidence of truth which is in the Scripture and no other They

is to take us off from the Scriptures and to cast us and our consciences on the authority of the Church We list not to dispute with them about the Infallibility of that which they call their Church For I doubt not but that the learned among them do not themselves beleeve what themselves do write But our work lies not in that road We grant what they would have as touching the Church by way of Ministry but for that which they call the Churches Authority we know not any such authority the Church as Church being not a Domination but a Ministration But that we may not leave any rubb in the consciences of the weak as touching the authority of the Scriptures as touching the Originals and Translations we will shut up all in brief For the Originals though we have not the Primitive Copies written by the finger of God in the Tables or by Moses and the Prophets in the Hebrew or by the Apostles and the rest in the Greek for the New Testament yet we have Copies in both languages which Copies vary not from the Primitive writings in any matter which may stumble any This concernes onely the learned and they know that by consent of all parties the most learned on all sides amongst Christians do shake hands in this that God by his providence hath preserved them uncorrupt What if there be variety of readings in some Copies and some mistakes in writing or Printing this makes nothing against our doctrine sith for all this the fountaine runs clear and if the fountain be not clear all translations must needs be muddie Besides 't is a saying of a wise Philosopher That what some say is like to be false what many say may be false But what all say is more then like to be true Now Christians of all parties do agree as touching the Originals that they are kept pure Onely some of and among the Papists passionate men do bite at the Originals but herein they do but bl●t their own vulgar translation sith they confesse it to be drawn out of the Originals I confesse some men by their picking quarrels with the Originals as a matter whereof they talk as though there were no certainty of faith as touching them have troubled the spirits of some men with a thorny tentation which my b●sinesse is to do what I can to remove which I now endeavour to do as briefly as I can The foundation I first lay is That we may have a certainty moral of things whereof we have no evidence which is sufficient to settle us in an acquired faith free from all feare and material doubt of the contrary We beleeve without making any question of it that there is such a place as Rome though we never saw it that such a man is our father such a woman our mother and we out of conscience do duties to them albeit we have no evident certainty of it but by belief that such a Prince is true heir to a Crown and out of conscience we do performe obedience and yet we can have no more certainty of this but moral For who hath or can have an evidence of this that such an heire is the true begotten of such a King It 's agreed on by almost all Divines of all sides that if one of the Propositions be in the Scripture and the other be but a moral certainty which leaves no dubitation behinde it the conclusion bindes the conscience As thus every childe is bound in conscience to honour his Parents this is an act of faith grounded on the Scripture such or such a man is my father this is but a moral certainty yet hence it followes that in conscience I stand bound in conscience to honour such a man as my Father And that he is my Father all the certainty I can have is but moral built on the credit of my mother If these reasonings were not firme it would destroy all Policy and Order in this life nor could Gods Law to honour father and mother binde the conscience nor can a man tell that he was baptized in his youth but by such Testimonies as these Therefore I like that of Bellarmine who stands upon it that of such like things a certainty may be had from the testimonies of men in some sort comparable to natural evidence it self for that it leaves no scruple or dubitation in our minds But what of all this Why it shewes that the general consent of in a manner all Hebricians and Grecians in the Christian world consenting that our Originals are by the good hand of God preserved uncorrupt and pure is a sufficient perswasion to breed a moral certainty answerable to natural evidence excluding all reasonable dubitation to the contrary That the Originals were for the provision and food of the soules of his Church kept pure and uncorrupt by the Prophets and Jewes for the old by the Apostles and Christian Churches for the New Testament sealed up by St. John the Secretary of Christ as Scotus calls him Else the Lord must have been wanting to his Church which cannot be imagined And that acquired faith makes way for infused faith to act I have learned long since out of Scotus Thus the case stands The Originals are to be received and believed That the Hebrew and Greek are the true Originals we believe by humane testimonies which leave the mind without perplexitie without all doubting and so it follows that by mans testimonie the Originals are to be received and believed by us so that the heart stands free from any true cause of any doubting at all which being equivalent to the highest certainty that is it cannot but lay a foundation to build our faith upon this certainty being a meanes by which we come to the other of the Scriptures being the last ground on which we build our faith we are not to look for demonstrations in arguments of this nature It 's a foolish thing to expect from a Mathematician to deale by perswasion his Art lies in evident and ocular demonstration Now 't is as absurd to expect demonstration from an Orator or Moralist his businesse lies in perswasion But yet in our point in hand our perswasions must be grounded on such moral certainty as is to us without question and without feare of the contrary It is a piece of wise counsel of Aristotle That it is the wisdome of a learned man so farre forth to seek after proofs of truth in any matter as the nature of the subject matter will beare And it is agreed upon that in all learning in the highest science of all the principles are proving but not proved For that which is the first cannot be proved by any thing before it else the first were not the first as the first mover is never moved And in all Inferiour Sciences the first principles of that Science must be proved in an higher Schoole Now the first principle in the School of