Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	authority_n	church_n	infallible_a	2,260	5	9.5871	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51177	The coppy of a letter sent from France by Mr. Walter Mountagu to his father the Lord Privie Seale, with his answere thereunto also a second answere to the same letter by the Faukland.	Montagu, Walter, 1603?-1677.; Falkland, Lucius Cary, Viscount, 1610?-1643.; Manchester, Henry Montagu, Earl of, 1563?-1642.	1641 (1641)	Wing M2472; ESTC R6266	23,462	40

others other out of which by comparing their doctrine with the Scripture men may draw a perfect body of Truths and though they delivered few other Truths yet in delivering Scripture wherein all necessary Truths is containd they deliver all and by that rule whosoever regulates his life and doctrine I am confident that though he may mistake errour for Truth in the way hee shall never mistake Hell for Heaven in the end Seventhly His next reason is their common Achilles the fourth of the Ephesians which he chuseth onely to employ like his Triarios his mayn battell leaving his Velites his light armed Souldiers some places too allegorical even in his own opinion to stand examinatiō The words are these He hath given some Prophets some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and some Doctors for the instauration of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edification of the body of Christ till wee all meet in the unity of Faith and the knowledge of the Sonne of God unto a perfect man and unto the measure of the age of the fulnesse of Christ That we may be no more children tost and carried away with every winde of doctrine c. Verse 11 12 13. Now out of this place I see not how a succession may be evinced rather I thinke it may that the Apostle meant none For first he saith not hee will give but he hath given and who could suppose that the Apostle could say that Christ had given then the present Pope and the Doctors who now adhere to him Secondly allow that by he hath given were meant he hath promis'd which would be a glosse not much unlike to that which one of the most witty and most eloquent of our modern Divines Doctor Dun notes of Statuimus i. Abrogamus yet since these severall Nowns are all governed by the same Verb and no distinction put it would prove as wel a necessity of a continual succession of Apostles Prophets and Evangelists as of Pastors and Doctors which is more then either they can shew or pretend they can so that it seemeth to me to follow that these were then given to do this till then and not a succession of them promised till then to doe this and so wee receiving and retaining the Scriptures wherein what they taught is contain'd as wee would any thing else that had as generall and ancient a tradition if there were any such need no more for if hee say that men are tost for all the Scriptures I answer so are they for all these Doctors nay if these keep any from being tost it is the Scripture which does it upon which their authority is by them founded upon their own interpretation and reason who yet will not give us leave to build any thing upon ours out of plainer places and though they tell us that wee cannot know the Scripture but from the Church they are yet fain as appeares to prove the Authoritie of the Church out of Scripture which makes mee aske them in the wordes of their owne Campian and with much more cause Nihilne pudet Labyrinthi Eigthly there follows an other reason to this sense that Reason not being able to shew away to eternall happinesse and without such an one man would fail of the end to which he was ordained it must be propos'd by an infallible authority in so plain a manner as even the simple might be capable of it which being performed by our Saviour it must be convai'd to succeeding ages by those who heard it from him and whensoever this thread failed mankind was left without a guide to inevitable ruine I answere that though all this be granted it proves not against us for we have the Scripture come downe to us relating Christs Doctrine and written by those that heard it and which the simple are capable of understanding I mean as much as is plaine and more is not necessary since other Questions may as well be suffered without harme as those betweene the Jesuites and Dominicans about Predetermination and betweene the Dominicans and almost all the rest about the Immacultate conception and those who are not neither are they capable out of Scripture to discerne the true Church Much lesse by any of these notes which require much understanding and large learning as conformity with the Ancients and such like Ninthly the same answere I give to this serves also to the following words of Saint Austin for whereas Master Mountague concludeth that he could not meane the Scriptures as a competent rule to mankind which consisteth most of simple persons because there hath been continuall altercations about the sense of important places I answere that I may as well conclude by the same Logick that neither is the Church a competent guide because in all ages there have also beene disputes not onely about her authority but even which was shee and to whatsoever reason he imputes this to the same may we the other as to negligence pride prejudication and the like and if he please to search I verily beleeve he will find that the Scriptures are both easier to bee knowne then the Church and that it is as easie to know what these teach as when that hath defin'd since they hold no Decrees binding de fide without a confirmation of the popes who can never bee knowne infallibly to be a Pope because a secret simony makes him none no not to be a Christian because want of due intention in the Baptizer makes him none whereof the latter is always possible and the first in some ages likely and in hard Questions a readinesse to yeeld to the Scriptures when they shall be explan'd me thinks should serve as well as a readinesse to assent to the decrees of the Church when those shall bee pronounced Tenthly Hee saith the Scripture must be kept safe in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of them which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved that free from corruption then its selfe in a continuall visibility I answer that neither to giving authority to Scripture nor to the keeping of them is required a continuall visibility of a no ways erring body of Christians the writers of them give them their authority amongst Christians nor can the Church move any other and that they were the writers of them we receive from the generall Tradition and testimony of the first Christians not from any following Church who could know nothing of it but from them for for those parts which were then doubted of by such as were not condemned for it by the rest why may not wee remayn in the same suspence of them that they did for their being kept and convey'd this was not done onely by their Church but by the Greeks and there is no reason to say that to the keeping and transmitting of Records safely it is required to understand them perfectly since the old Testament was kept

providence and goodnesse which Saint Augustine affirmes for his opinion directly in his Booke de vtil cred. cap. 16. saying if divine providence does preside over our humane affairs it is not to be doubted but that there is some authority constituted by the same God upon which going as upon certain steps we are carried to God Nor can it bee said hee meant the Scripture onely by these steps since experience shewes us by the continuall altercation about the right sense of severall of the most important places of it that what is contained there cannot be a competent rule to mankind which consisteth more of simple then learned men and besides the Scripture must have supposed to have beene kept in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of them which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved the Scripture free from all corruption then that it hath maintained it selfe in a continua●● 〈…〉 isibility which Saint Augustine concludeth to be a marke of the true Church in these words in his booke contra Cecill 104. The true Church hath this certain signe that it cannot bee hid therefore it must bee knowne to all Nations but that part of the Protestant Donatist is unknown to many therefore cannot bee the true No inference can be stronger then from hence that the concealment of a Church disproves the truth of it Lastly not to insist upon the allegation of the sense of all the Fathers of the Church in severall ages which seemed to mee most cleere that which in this cause weighed much with mee was the Confession and Testimony of the approved Doctors themselves of the Protestant Church as Hooker in his booke of Eccles. Pol. pag. 126. God always had and must have some visible Church upon earth And Doctor Field the first of Eccle. cap. 10. It cannot bee but those that are the true Church must be knowne by the Profession and further the same Doctor saies how should the Church bee in the World and no body professe openly the saving truth of God And Doctor White in his defence of the way cap. 4. pag. 790. The providence of God hath left monuments and stories for the confirmation of our Faith and I confesse truly that our Religion is false if a continuall descent of it cannot be demonstrated by these monuments downe from Christs time this appeareth unto mee a direct submission of themselves to produce those apparent testimonies of the publique profession of their faith as the Catholikes demand but this I could never read nor know of any that performed For D. White himself for want of proof of this is fain to say in another place in his way to the Church p. 520. The Doctors of our faith have had a cōtinual succession though not visible to the world so that he flies from his undertaking of a conspicuous demonstration of the monuments of his faith to an invisible subterfuge or a beleefe without appearance for hee saith in the same Book in an other place pag. 4. All the externall government of the Church may faile so as a locall and personall succession of Pastors may be interrupted and pag. 40● We doe not contest for an externall succession it suffiseth ●hat they succeed in the Doctrine of the Apostles and faithfull who in all ages did embrace the same truth so as here hee removeth absolutely all externall proofes of succession which before hee consented to be guided by I cannot say I have verbally cited these Authors because I have translated these places though the Originall be in English yet I am sure their sense is no way injured and I have chosen to alleadge Doctor Whites authority because he is an Orthodox professor of the Protestant Church the reflection of the state of this question wherein I found the Protestants defend themselves onely by flying out of sight by confessing a long invisibility in their Church in apparence of Pastors and Doctors left mee much loosened from the fastnesse of my professed Religion but had not yet transported me to the Catholike Church for I had an opinion that our Divines might yet fill up this vacuitie with some more substantiall matter then I could meet with so I came back into England with a purpose of seeking nothing so intentively as this satisfaction and to this purpose I did covertly under another mans name send this my scruple to one in whose learning sufficiencie I had much affiance in these termes Whether there was no visible succession to be proved in the Protestant Church since the Apostles time downe to Luther and what was to be answered to that objection Besides the confession of invisibilitie for so many ages to this I could get no other answer but that the point had been largely and learnedly handled by Doctor White and many others of our Church upon this I resolved to informe my selfe in some other points which seemed to mee unwarrantable and superstitious in the Ceremónies of the Church of Rome since I had such an inducement so little satisfaction in a point which seemed to mee so essentiall and in all these scruples I found mine owne mistake in the belief of the Tenets of the Roman Church gave me the onely occasion of scandall not the practice of their doctrine and to confirme mee in the satisfaction of all them I found the practice and authority of most of the ancient Fathers and in the Protestant Refutation of these Doctrines the Recusation of their Authorities as men that might erre so that the question seemed then to me whether I would rather hazard the erring with them then with the later Reformers which consequently might erre also in dissenting from them since then my resolution of reconciling my selfe to the Roman Church is not lyable to any suspition of too forward or precipitate resignation of my selfe my judgment may perchance be censured of seducement my affection cannot bee of corruption Upon these Reasons I did soone after my returne last into England reconcile my selfe to the Roman Catholike Church in the belief and convincement of it to be the true ancient and Apostolicall Church by her externall marks and her internall objects of faith and doctrine and in her I resolve to live and die as the best way to salvation when I was in England I did not studie dissimulation so dexterously as if my fortune had read it to me nor doe I now professe it so desperatly as if it were my fortunes Legacie for I doe not believe it so dangerous but it may recover for I know the Kings wisdome is rightly informed that the Catholike Faith doth not tend to the alienation of the subject it rather super-infuseth a reverence and obedience to Monarchie and strengtheneth the bands of our obedience to our naturall Prince and his grace and goodnesse shall never finde any other occasion of diversion of them from the naturall and usuall exercise of themselves upon