Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	church_n	faith_n	infallibility_n	2,066	5	11.7830	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59860	The protestant resolution of faith being an answer to three questions : I. How far we must depend on the authority of the church for the true sense of Scripture? II. Whether a visible succession from Christ to this day makes a church, which has this succession, an infallible interpreter of Scripture, and whether no church, which has not this succession, can teach the true sense of Scripture? III. Whether the Church of England can make out such a visible succession?	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1683 (1683)	Wing S3332; ESTC R22228	24,360	46

Church in those days which pretended to be the Infallible Interpreter of Scriptures We Protestants have the same way to understand the Scriptures have the same Reason and Foundation of our Faith which the Nicene Fathers themselves had or which any Christian could have before there was any general Council and if the Church of Rome do not think this enough we cannot help that we are abundantly satisfied with it The Authority of a general Council in those days was deservedly sacred and venerable not as an Infallible Judge which they never pretended to but as the most certain means they could possibly have to understand what was and in all Ages had been the received Doctrine of the Catholick Church They met together not to make new Articles of Faith which no Council in the World ever had any Authority to do but to declare what was the truly ancient and Apostolick Faith and to put it into such Words as might plainly express the Catholick sense and meet with the Distempers of that Age. For this end Grave and Reverend Bishops assembled from all parts of the Christian World not meerly to give their private Opinions of things but to Declare what was the received Doctrine of those Churches over which they presided and I know no better Argument of an Apostolick Tradition than the consent of all Churches as remote from each other as East and West which were planted by several Apostles and differed very much from each other in some External Rites and Usages but yet all agreed in the same Faith And this is the true Authority of those ancient Councils that they were most likely to understand the true sense of Scripture and of the Catholick Church This is the Protestant Resolution of Faith and the Nicene Fathers themselves had no other way nor pretended to any other Nay the Church of Rome her self as much as she talks of Infallibility makes very little use of it She has never given us an infallible Comment on Scripture but suffers her Doctors to write as fallible Comments and in many things as contrary to each other as any Protestant Divines do And I cannot imagine what good Infallibility does if an infallible Church has no better means of understanding Scripture than the Comments of fallible men that is no better means than every fallible Church has for no man can understand the Scripture ever the better for the Churches being infallible unless this infallible Church improve this glorious Talent of Infallibility in Expounding Scripture which she has not done to this day and I believe never will Indeed it is apparent that Infallibility as it is pretended to by the Church of Rome can be of no use either in the Resolution of Faith or in Confuting Hereticks who deny this Infallibility and then I cannot imagine what it is good for but to multiply Disputes instead of ending them As for the Resolution of Faith suppose I ask a Papist why he believes such Articles as the Divinity of Christ or the Resurrection of the dead to be contained in Scripture if he answer as he must do Because he is taught so by the Church which is infallible my next Question is How he knows the Church to be infallible If he says he learns this from Scripture I ask him how he comes to understand the Scripture and how he knows that this is the sense of it If he know this by the infallible interpretation of the Church then he runs round in a Circle and knows the Scripture by the Church and the Church by the Scripture as I observed before if he can find out the Churches infallibility by the Scripture without the help of an infallible Judge then it seems the Scripture is to be understood without the infallible interpretation of the Church and if men can find out infallibility in Scripture without the Church I am confident they may find out any thing else in Scripture as well without the Churches infallibility For there is no Article of our Creed so hard to be found there as the Churches infallibility is But however that be after all this boast of infallibility a Papist has no more infallible Foundation for his Faith than a Protestant has nor half so much We believe the Articles of the Christian Faith because we find them plainly taught in Scripture and universally received as the sense of Scripture by the Catholick Church in the best and purest Ages of it A Papist believes the Church to be infallible because he thinks he finds it in Scripture though the Catholick Church for many Ages never found it there and the greatest part of the Christian Church to this day cannot find it there Now if they will but allow that a Protestant though a poor fallible Creature may reason about the sense of Scripture as well as a Papist and that the Evidence of reason is the ●●me to both then we Protestants stand upon as firm ground as the Papists here and are at least as certain of all those Doctrines of Faith which we find in the Scripture and are ready to prove by it as they are of their Churches infallibility but then we have an additional Security that we Expound the Scriptures right which they want and that is the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church which confirms all the Articles of our Faith and Rules of Worship and Discipline but gives not the least intimation that the Pope or Church of Rome was thought infallible by them and if the Primitive Church was ignorant of this which is the best witness of Apostolical Tradition it is most probable that no such thing is contained in Scripture though some mercenary Flatterers of the Pope have indeavoured to perswade the World that they found it there So that we have a greater assurance of all the Articles of our Religion from Scripture and Catholick Tradition than a Papist can have of the Churches Infallibility and yet he can have no greater assurance of any other Doctrines of Religion which he believes upon the Churches Infallibility than he has of Infallibility it self So that in the last Resolution of Faith the Protestant has much the advantage of the Papist for the Protestant resolves his Faith into the Authority of the Scriptures Expounded by the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church the Papist resolves his into the Infallibility of the Church which he finds out only by Expounding Scripture by a private Spirit without the Authority of any Church but that whose Authority is under dispute And as the Doctrine of Infallibility is of no use in the last Resolution of Faith so it is wholly useless in disputing with such Hereticks as we are who deny Infallibility for it is a vain thing to attempt to impose any absurd or groundless and uncatholick Doctrines upon us by the Churches infallible Authority who believe there is no such infallible Judge but are resolved to trust our own Eyes and to adhere to Scripture and the Catholick