Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	according_a	faith_n	spirit_n	2,347	5	5.0849	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26363	Christos autotheos, or, An historical account of the heresie denying the Godhead of Christ	Addison, Lancelot, 1632-1703.	1696 (1696)	Wing A516; ESTC R11751	46,659	120

We did therefore enquire into and accurately discuss all things which seem'd to yield the least Occasion of Ambiguity or Dissention But how great and horrid were the Blasphemies concerning our great Saviour concerning our Hope and Life How have some openly spoken and profess'd that they believe things which are contrary to the Divinely inspired Scriptures and to the sacred Faith After that no fewer than three hundred Bishops and upwards admirable both for Moderation and Acuteness of Understanding have unanimously confirmed one and the same Faith which according to the Verity and accurate Disquisition of the Divine Law can only be the Faith Arius possess'd with a Diabolical Spirit was found to be the only Person who with an impious Mind disseminated this Mischief first amongst you and afterwards amongst others Let us embrace that Opinion which God has delivered Let us return to our beloved Brethren from whom this impudent Servant of the Devil has separated us Let us with Diligence hasten to the common Body and to our own genuine Members For it becomes our Prudence Faith and Sanctity that since his Error who hath been evidently prov'd to be an Enemy of the Truth is confuted we should return to the Divine Grace For that which was approved of by three hundred Bishops can be judged nothing else but the Determination of God For doubtless the Holy Ghost residing in the Minds of such great and worthy Persons hath disclosed to them the Will of God Wherefore let none of you continue dubious let none of you make Delays But you all with great Chearfulness return to the right Way that when we come unto you which shall be as soon as possible we may together with you return due Thanks to God who inspects all things because he has revealed the pure Faith and thereby restored to you that mutual Love which was the subject of good Mens Prayers My beloved Brethren God preserve you Thus wrote the Emperour to the People of Alexandria And from his affectionate Letter we may conclude That the Determination of the Faith was not made unadvisedly and in Haste but with a mature Disquisition and diligent Examination of the Matters in Controversie every thing being exactly poiz'd and consider'd by the Council and nothing pass'd by in Silence that was fit to be spoken of every Man having Liberty to produce and urge what he was able in Behalf of his Opinion So that the Controversie was not inconsiderately determined but with great Accuracy first discuss'd Insomuch that all things whatsoever which seem'd to produce Matter of Ambiguity or Dissention were wholly cleared and removed And things being so prudently and piously manag'd and the Disputes carried on with that heavenly Calmness and Temper the Emperour thought the Determination of all those there assembled could be nothing else but the Will of God and he stuck not to affirm That the Unanimity of so many and such eminent Prelates was procur'd by the Holy Ghost But the Conduct of the Synod tho' it was even prudent to a Wonder yet there were those who thought it to be orberwise and who reflected upon the Nicene Bishops as so many Idiots and ignorant Fellows of which Number was Sabinus the Ring-leader of the Macedonian Heresie This Man was not ashamed to asperse even Eusebius Caesariensis with the Imputation of Ignorance and to accuse the whole Synod of Rashness and Indiscretion not considering that altho ' the Fathers in that Synod had been Idiots yet in regard they were illuminated by God and directed by the Holy Ghost they cou'd in no wise err from the Truth The Emperour having writ in particular to the Alexandrians he sent another Lettter to the Bishops and People of other Countries wherein he sets down what had been decreed against Arius and those who embrac'd his Opinion and that seeing he had followed the Practices of wicked and prophane Persons it was but just that he shou'd undergo the same ignominy with them And that as Porphyrus an Enemy of true Piety found a just Recompence for composing impious Volumes against Religion and such a Recompence as had rendred him ignominious to Posterity and cover'd him with Infamy and Reproach So it seemed reasonable to term Arius and those of his Opinion Porphyrians and that they should derive a Name from him whom they so exactly imitated And the Emperour commands that if any Book could be met with that was writ by Arius it should be immediately burnt That by this Means not only his wicked Doctrine might be wholly destroyed but also that not one Monument of him should be left to Posterity And the Emperour in the same Letter further declared that if any Person should be found to conceal any Book compil'd by Arius and did not immediately produce and burn it he should suffer Death immediately upon his being found guilty To this Letter of the Emperour Athanasius alludes in his Epistle ad Solitar and blames him for endeavouring to admit the Arians into the Church seeing that he himself had fixt upon them the ignominious and execrable Name of Porphyrians It is evident this Letter did not concern the Council of Nice For it makes not any Mention of it But it did proceed from the Emperour 's pious Zeal to have the Heretick Arius utterly suppress'd against whom and the Followers of his Opinion he wrote several other Letters which he caus'd to be published in every City according to the Custom of the Roman Emperours which was to propose to publick View those Rescripts they wrote to the Cities And at the Close of every Rescript they added this Word Proponatur let it be published So Constantine when he wrote many Letters against Arius and his Followers commanded they should be propounded to publick View in the Forum And in all his Letters against Arius he represents him as an infamous Person and rebukes him with great Warmth and Sharpness Now Arius his Opinion and all Books and Persons favouring it being censur'd and anathematiz'd Two of his most eminent Abettors namely Eusebius and Theognis began to retract what they had done upon which they sent a Libel of Repentance to the most considerable Bishops declaring their Agreement to the Exposition of the Faith given by the Nicene Fathers Hereupon they were by Imperial Order recall'd from Exile and re-admitted to their Sees This happen'd in the third Year after the Synod that is in the 328th Year of Christ Upon their Restauration those who had been ordain'd in their Places were removed Eusebius put out Amphion and Theognis Crestus The Libel containing the Recantation of Eusebius and Theognis being very remarkable I thought it very proper here to insert it The Libel of Recantation made by Eusebius and Theognis two notorious Sticklers for Arius WE having sometime since been condemned by your Piety without having our Cause declar'd or defended ought quietly to bear what has been determin'd by your holy Discretion But because it is absurd by silence to give Occasion of

and the very Apostles themselves received and taught the same things that they asserted and that the same was taught till the Times of Victor who from Peter was the thirteenth Bishop of Rome but that when Zephyrinus was made Pope the same Opinion began to be adulterated which saith Eusebius out of the Little Labyrinth might seem probable if it were not contradicted by the sacred Scriptures and the Writings of some Christians ancienter than the Times of Victor who lived in the End of the second Century For Justin who died about the Year 166 and Tatianus who lived about the same time as also Clemens wrote in the Defence of the Truth against the Gentiles and the Heresies of their own Times and these in all their Books have maintained the Divinity of Christ And who is he that is ignorant of the Books of Irenaeus Melito the Sardian Bishop and others which declare Christ to be God and Man Pliny in his Epistle to Trajan tells him how it was the Custom of the Christians to compose Psalms and Hymns in Honour of Christ in which they attributed Divinity to him and sang forth his Praises as God These very Psalms and Hymns written at the Beginning of Christianity by its faithful Professors yield an undeniable Attestation of their believing Christ to be God So that the Hereticks who first held the contrary had no reason to say that their Opinion was the Creed of the Primitive Christians And it is a shameless Falsity to affirm that Victor Bishop of Rome was of their Judgment For Victor was so far from abetting those who held Christ to be a meer Man that he condignly punished them as was evident in the Case of Theodotus the Tanner the Founder of this Apostacy whom Victor excommunicated and proscrib'd Which certainly he would not have done had he been of the same Judgment with him Thus stood Affairs in the Times of Victor and in what Posture they were in the Days of his Successor Zephyrinus who was made Bishop of Rome about the ninth Year of Severus's Empire comes now to be recounted The Person that compil'd the Book concerning the execrable Heresie now treated of relates a very remarkable Passage that happened in the Days of Zephyrinus concerning one Natalis who as Valesius conjectures was that Caecilius Natalis who by a Dispute of Octavius Januarius's before Minucius Felix at Rome was converted to the Christian Faith as Minucius Felix relates in his Dialogue and the Name the Time and the Profession of this Person do all agree to make this probable This Natalis was a Confessor and lived at the Time when the Little Labyrinth was composed but by the Craft of Asclepiodotus and Theodotus the Banker both Disciples of Theodotus the Tanner he was seduced to their Opinion and persuaded by them to be elected a Bishop of their Heresie And the most prevailing Argument with Natalis to accept of this Office was the Consideration of a monthly Salary amounting to an hundred and fifty Pence which they promised duly to pay him Natalis being thus made a Bishop turned a vehement Assertor of the Heresie of Theodotus but he did not long therein continue with any Sedateness or Complacency For by Visions in his Sleep he was frequently admonished by our Lord whose Compassion towards him was so great that he would not let him who had been a Witness of his own Sufferings to perish in his Heresie and under Excommunication But Natalis being bewitch'd with the Bait of Primacy among those of his Sect and with the Lucre he got by being their Bishop he regarded not the Visions he had in his Sleep but continu'd as zealous in the Defence of his Opinion as if he had never been warned from Heaven to reject it Whereupon it pleased the compassionate God to send his holy Angels to chastize him who for a whole Night having loaded him with severe Stripes he was therewith so far awaken'd that he thought of nothing but a speedy Recantation and Repentance And rising very early the next Morning he put on Sackcloth and besprinkled himself with Ashes and with Tears in his Eyes prostrated himself before Zephyrinus the Bishop and fell down not only at the Feet of the Clergy but of the Laity also and with Tears mov'd the Compassion of the Church which having view'd the print of the Stripes he had received and observed his sorrowful Carriage and other Tokens of his Repentance at last tho' with great Difficulty she admitted him into her Communion But besides the Little Labyrinth out of which Eusebius transcribed this Story of Natalis he takes notice of other Books written against the Hereticks that denied Christ to be God which Books represent them to have been Persons of the vilest Impiousness and Immorality And such as impudently adulterated the sacred Scriptures rejected the Canon of the primitive Faith and were ignorant of Christ For they neglected the holy Bible and instead of enquiring into its Meaning they laboured to obscure the Light thereof bestowing their Pains in finding out such Schemes of Argumentation as might confirm the System of their Impiety If any propos'd unto them a Text of the divine Scriptures they examined whether a connex or a disjunctive Proposition might be made out of it and instead of studying the Word of God they applied themselves to Geometry and to the reading of Euclid Aristotle Theophrastus and Galen admiring the Books the last had written concerning the Forms of Syllogisms and the whole Body of Philosophy They made use also of the Arts of Infidels for the Confirmation of their Heretical Opinion and by the Craft of some Atheists they adulterated the sincere Authority of the divine Scriptures on which they impudently laid their Hands saying that it ought to be corrected They put out several Copies of the Bible which Copies upon Examination and comparing them one with another were found to be very disagreeing For the Copies of Asclepiodotus were much different from those of Theodotus and the Disciples of each of them laboured diligently to amend the Corrections of their Masters The Copies of Hermophilus differed from those of Asclepiodotus and those Copies of Scripture written by Apollonides differed one from another But all the Copies agree in an audacious wresting and deforming the Word of God And we may well imagine that these Hereticks were not ignorant of their wicked Acting in depraving the divine Scriptures For either they did not believe the divine Scriptures to have been dictated by the Holy Spirit and then they were Infidels Or if they did believe this and yet went about to correct them then they must think themselves wiser than the Holy Ghost and what were they then but mad Men For they cannot deny this their bold Fact in correcting the Scriptures to have been done by them because the Copies were written by their own Hands And they did never pretend to have received such Copies as they produc'd from those who were their Instructers nor could they