Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	church_n	faith_n	infallible_a	3,610	5	9.7555	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47046	Of the rule of faith a sermon at the visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God, William Lord Bishop of Lincolne, holden at Bedford August 5, 1674 / by William Jackson ...	Jackson, William, 1636 or 7-1680.	1675 (1675)	Wing J95; ESTC R16801	18,948	43

written word if they have it is surely a sufficient Basis for any or all the Articles of their Faith and tradition or the voice of the Church being but an humane testimony cannot cause a Divine infallible Faith Yes The testimony of the Church say they is divine and infallible But here they lie cross one to another For by the voice of the Church some of them mean a traditional delivery of the Faith from age to age without writing as the Roman Catholick writers of England especially Others mean the voice or sentence of the present Pope or Church as the great Pontiff and Court of Rome with the Iesuits and other their close Adherents And these are as profest adversaries to one another as they are to us Those laying the stress upon the indefectibility of Oral and Practical tradition These upon an infallible assistance given to the present Pope or Church And so far hath the opposition between them proceeded that our Countreymen have been about twelve years since condemn'd at Rome of Heresie by a solemn censure of the Inquisition for their stiff maintaining tradition in opposition to the present Infallibility And on the other side they of Rome have been condemn'd by them in England for their illimited Pretences to Infallibility And which is worst of all both have forsaken the Faith of their Trent-Fathers For they profess to receive the written word and unwritten traditions pari Pietatis affectu Reverentiâ with equal devotion and submission But our assertors of Tradition are for it alone in opposition to the Scripture and the pretenders to a present Infallibility think themselves able to overrule both Scripture and Tradition Whereby you may see that since they have quitted the old foundation they have not been able to fix any that all their members can agree in And withall may be seen how necessary an implicite Faith is for those that will be of the Romish Communion since did they use but half an eye they must needs discover instead of A Guide in Controversies an endless Maze wherein it is no wonder that many even of the greatest Wits lose all Religion and take up in Atheism But we have many and greater arguments for this point more and more convincing then for any one point either in Reason or Religion except it be for the Existence of a God It will be impossible to speak to all and it will be too great an ingratitude to the goodness of God to omit all I shall therefore mention two or three of them I. This book alone contains a Doctrine and institution without error and which therefore by vertue of that qualification can alone be an infallible Rule of our Faith It is strange to consider that for so long a time as it hath been in the world so much read and canvass'd and written upon more then any other book whatsoever nay I might say but that it would look like a solaecism more then all other books put together so many Commentaries Annotations Paraphrases Versions Animadversions Scholia critica Anticritica Collationes Lucubrationes Diatriba Exercitationes Myrothecia Antitheses and a hundred more sorts of disquisitions and discussions of the truth of it Yet not the least error or misprision of error hath been found in it An abundant proof that there is none in it that it is the dictate of an infallible understanding which could not be put forth into the world for any other end then to be a standing and infallible Rule to Mankind who is of their naturall condition confessedly overrun with Error II. The Scripture contains the onely doctrine that ever could prevail upon Mankind in that way which the Rule of Faith onely doth and can prevail And that is by the strength and power of the light and truth that shines in it and by the assistance of that Almighty arm which never vouchsafed to give the Testimony of a Miracle to any thing but to Truths of the greatest Consequence Did it not think you seem strange to those that lived in the times when it was first published and did observe a doctrine so unlikely to take either with the weakness and humour of Mankind in Generall or with the pomp and powers of the world in Particular as the worship of a poor beggerly Iew which was our Saviours condition while he lived and a crucified and derided Malefactor which were the terms whereon he suffered That this weak and creeping pretender unarm'd and unattended by any but poor and ignorant men that in worldly respects were indeed as they confess'd of themselves the very refuse of Mankind like Master like Apostles That it should notwithstanding in less then fifty years obtain so great and universall an Interest in all parts of the world as to shake and in few years after to overthrow all Religions that had had so long undisturbed and unquestioned possession Maugre that multitude of Priests and Daemons by which they were maintained and all that might and opposition which the supream Powers of the world the malice and cunning of the devil yea the very bent and inclination of all Mankind could set against it And this without any humane helps but onely the bare preaching and proposall of it Which from the mouths of such ragged and forlorn Commissioners as were employed must and did much prejudice the promotion of it Especially considering what absolute obedience it required of bringing down even every imagination and what hard terms is propos'd of mortification taking up the Cross and forsaking all that was before counted dear in this world and which is hardest of all requiring self condemnation and that in instances of greater and more pungent concernment then the world had before been acquainted with What could any sober man in those days Iudge from these things and many more of the like Nature but that it was a Doctrine given by the Supream Lord and Lawgiver of the World to be an absolute Rule both of Faith and practice to all the World III. The Scripture contains that doctrine which alone of all doctrines that ever were publish't doth entirely agree with the Soul of Man and with the principles of reason within him And which consequently can alone be an infallible help to his understanding and propose a Rule of Faith to him It teaches us the same lessons that we learn from the light of Nature that there is a God that he made the World and governs it that he punishes the Evil and rewards the Good It instructs us in the knowledge and belief of these and many more such doctrines more clearly and convincingly then all the Philosophy in the World so fully and undeniably as force the Soul to have what arguments and discourses she drawes from her own bottom and to betake her self to this word as the onely safe and impregnable rock and hold of Truth It informs and extricates our Souls from those errors and perplexities concerning our own nature and condition which

make it our necessary duty to teach what they prescribe Otherwise we can never answer it to God who hath made us accountable to them nor can we give them any security that their people shall be brought up Orthodox in the Faith or obedient and peaceable in the State And it proves the better defence of the Faith the more eminent they are whose tender years are well seasoned as those of the best strength of naturall parts and quickness of wit and inclination to learning Those that are naturally disposed to be religious lest they prove Zealots in a wrong way Those that are likely to become Ministers of holy things and Stewards of this Faith Those that are of more then ordinary quality even in worldly respects as Birth Riches or Favour especially the families of Grands and Princes What advantages the Iesuits above other Orders have made of this is not unknown and any one may see that so long as these are made sound and resolute for the Faith there is the less danger of error in the rest 5. The fifth means is by conflicting with and suppressing all Hereticks and Dissenters from the Faith and extinguishing their Heresies and Errors This is properly to Contend because it is against the adversaries of the Faith And is done three ways especially I. By confutation of their errours And that first by Personall Congress and disputation This way our adversaries have of late been a little shy of having found that neither their art nor their zeal will maintain a bad cause before Iudges who are not afore-hand at their devotion which they of Rome are not to expect in a Reformed Church and I hope the rest will no longer find in the Church of England And secondly Their writings are to be answered with writings And this way their Arguments have been so sifted and run so far that controversies are on both sides drawn to the very dregs of opposition and nothing new hath been objected of late that is materiall Yet so long as they continue their batteries we are not to sit down in silence but to stand upon our Guard lest we should betray that Faith to their importunity which hath been so well defended against their arguments II. The second way to suppress Heresies is by acts of Convocation and solemn Censures of the Church This was the way of old The Fathers met in Synods or Generall Councils as the cause required to make provision against Heresies as they rose and infested the Church But the late Disciplinarians have it seems thought the preservation of the Faith an easier work and not of such Publick and Catholick concernment and have therefore in their new Model ordered Heresie to be Iudged in the Kirk-Session or Consistory where are no more then the Minister of the place and one Lay Elder or two As if Heresie were so small a crime as to be fit for the cognizance of two or three no better Iudges Or as if any but the Clergy had power to Iudge of it This is utterly a great mistake and miscarriage for Heresie being at least a perversion and so in effect a denial of some point of Faith is a crime of the highest nature as striking at the Churches foundation And the Ministers alone are the Guardians of the Faith And the Clergy in Convocation next to a Generall Council of the whole Church are the supream Iudges of all Controversies about it So God himself ordained in that Church which of all the Churches of the first Plantation was most troubled with Hereticks and that was the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 14. 32. The Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets That is the doctrines of private Teachers in every Church are to submit to and so to be allowed or condemned by the concurrent Iudgement of all the Pastors of that Church which is not to be had but in a Council of that Church or a Convocation As in all sciences and callings the concurrent Iudgement of those whose proper employment and study they are is the most likely the most legall and authentick and the derniere determinations The King onely calls the Clergy together and proposes to them leaves them to debate and determine And though the Statute-Law set the temporall penalty for Heresie yet it takes from the Iudgement of the Church what Doctrines are Hereticall A prudent and a Christian constitution For should the secular Power undertake without the Church to Iudge what is Heresie it would give the People Iust reason to suspect that it was not matter of Faith but reason of State that swayed the determination which is the next way to cast all Faith and Religion out of their minds Whereas on the other hand a publick condemnation of Heretieall doctrines by the Ioint voices of them whose cure and calling it is must in reason have the most universall influence in any Christian Church that is not neer its Apostasie What is the cause why nothing hath of late been this way done against the many Sects and Heresies that trouble us I may not say but I must needs think that the want of it is a main reason that they are not lessened but rather increased And if this want continue long will be followed with a diminution and decay of the Churches power of the purity and stability of the reformed Religion professed in the Church of England and in fine if not redressed with the ruine of both III. The third way for the suppressing of Heresie is the making and executing of good laws for the silencing of Hereticks and Dissenters from the Faith and hindring their practices And herein the secular Arm is to interpose as the nursing Father of the Church and Defender of the Faith For though the Church solely denounce Hereticks yet she hath no power now to punish them temporally but what the Civil Magistrate invests her with who is therefore constantly to assist her And this not without absolute necessity for they are a sort of People that have obstinacy in their very Nature and definition and are generally insensible of spirituall coercion In this work the Godly Emperors of old were very diligent as appears by severall of the ancient Laws especially in the first book of the Code And how the rules of Government come since to be so much changed that the giving liberty to the inveterate and avow'd enemies of the Church and Religion established shall be now thought the best and onely way to make them obedient and fit to be trusted in the Church deserves well to be considered Certainly had their practises been as well obstructed by the execution of good laws as their opinions have been fully confuted by the writings of learned Men there had been by this time no pretence for a debate about Indulgence to Dissenters And what ever event may in point of prudence be expected from this It cannot be thought but that the many extravagant and blasphemous fancies so freely published in