Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	acknowledge_v	church_n	true_a	2,461	5	5.0683	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74667	An answer to Monsieur de la Militiere his impertinent dedication of his imaginary triumph, to the king of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman Catholick religion. / By John Bramhall D.D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry.	Bramhall, John, 1594-1663.; La Milletière, Théophile Brachet, sieur de, ca. 1596-1665. Victory of truth for the peace of the Church.	1653 (1653)	Thomason E1542_1	53,892	235

insolent forms of prayer conteined in your books even ultimate prayers if we take the words as they sound directed to the Creatures that they would protect you at the hour of death and deliver you from the devill and confer spirituall graces upon you and admit you into Heaven precibus meritisque by their prayers and merias You know what merit signifies in your language a Condignity or at least a Congruity of defer● The exposition of your Doctors is that they should do all this for you by their prayers as improper a form of speech as if a suppliant intending only to move an ordinary Courtier to mediate for him unto the King should fall down upon his Knees before the Courtier and beseech him to make him an Earl or a Knight or to bestow such an Office or such a Pardon upon him or to do some other Grace for him properly belonging to the Prerogative Royall How agrees this with the words Precibus meritisque A begger doth not deserve an Alms by asking it This is a snare to ignorant persons who take the words to signifie as they sound And it is to be feared doe commit down-right Idolatry by their Pastors faults who prescribe such improper forms unto them The Roman Court most Tyrannicall Concerning Tyranny which makes up the arriere of the first supposed Maxim Wee do not accuse the Roman Church of Tyranny but the Roman Court If either the unjust usurpation of Sovereign power or the extending thereof to the destruction of the Laws and Canons of the Church yea even to give a Non obstante either to the Institution of Christ or at least to the uniform practise of the Primitive Ages or to them both If the swallowing up of all Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and the arrogating of a supercivill power paramont If the causing of poor people to trot to Rome from all the Quarters of Europe to wast their livelihoods there If the trampling upon Emperours and the disciplining of Monarchs be Tyrannicall either the Court of Rome hath been Tyrannicall or there never was Tyranny in the world I doubt not but some great persons when they have had bloody Tragedies to act for their own particular ends have sometimes made the Roman Church a stalking horse and the pretence of Catholick Religion a blind to keep their Policies undiscerned But if we consider seriously what cruelties have been really acted throughout Europe either by the Inquisitors Generall or by persons specially delegated for that purpose against the Waldenses of old and against the Protestants of later dayes against poor ignorant persons against women and children against mad-men against dead carkasses as Bucer c. upon pretence of Religion not onely by Ordinary forms of punishment and of death but by fire and faggots by strange new devised tortures we shall quickly find that the Court of Rome hath died it self red in Christian blood and equalled the most Tyrannicall persecutions of the Heathen Emperours Our second supposed Maxim The other Maxim whereupon you say that our Reformation was grounded was this That the onely way to reform the Faith and Liturgy P. 21. and government of the Church was to conform them to the dictates of holy Scripture of the sense whereof every private Christian ought to be the Judge by the light of the Spirit excluding Tradition and the publick Judgement of the Church You add P. 26. that We cannot prove Episcopacy by Scripture without the Help of Tradition And if we do admit of Tradition we must acknowledge the Papacy for the Government of the Catholick Church as founded in the Primacy of St. Peter Your second supposed ground is no truer than the former Much mistaken we are as far from Anarchy as from Tyranny As we would not have humane Authority like Medusa's head to transform reasonable men into sensless stones So we do not put the reigns of Goverment into the hands of each or any private person to reform according to their phantasies And that we may not deal like blunderers or deceitfull persons to wrap up on involve our selves on purpose in confused Generalities I will set down our sense distinctly When you understand it I hope you will repent of your rash censuring of us of whom you had so little knowledge The Scripture the rule of supernatural truths Three things offer themselves to be considered first concerning the Rule of Scripture Secondly the proper Expounders thereof and thirdly the manner of Exposition Concerning Scripture we believe That it was impossible for humane reason without the help of divine Revevelation to find out those supernaturall truths which are necessary to Salvation 2. That to supply this defect of naturall reason God out of his abundant goodness hath given us the holy Scriptures which have not their authority from the writing which is humane but from the Revelation which is divine from the holy Ghost Thirdly that this being the purpose of the Holy Ghost it is blasphemy to say he would not or could not attain unto it And that therefore the holy Scriptures do comprehend all necessary supernaturall truths So much is confessed by Bellarmine that All things which are necessary to be believed L. 4. de verbo Dei cap. 11. and to be done by all Christians were preached to all by the Apostles and were all written 4. That the Scripture is more properly to be called a Rule of supernaturall truths than a Judge or if it be sometimes called a Judge it is no otherwise than the Law is called a Judge of civill Controversies between man and man that is the rule of judging what is right and what is wrong That which sheweth what is streight sheweth likewise what is crooked Secondly Who are the proper expounders of Scripture and ho●… far concerning the proper Expounders of Scripture we do believe that the Gospell doth not consist in the words but in the sense non in superficie sed in medullâ And therefore that though this infallible rule be given for the common benefit of all yet every one is not an able or fit Artist to make application of this Rule in all particular cases To preserve the common right and yet prevent particular abuses we distinguish Judgement into three kinds Judgement of Discretion Judgement of Direction and Judgement of Jurisdiction As in the former Instance of the Law the ignorance whereof excuseth no man every subject hath Judgement of Discretion to apply it particularly to the preservation of himself his estate and interest The Advocates and those who are skilfull in the Law have moreover a Judgement of Direction to advise others of less knowledge and experience But those who are Constituted by the Soveraign power to determine emergent difficulties and differences and to distribute and administer justice to the whole body of a Province or Kingdom have moreover a Judgement of Jurisdiction which is not onely discretionary or directive but authoritative to impose an Obligation

a right Pope these last hundred years These are no other but your own Mediums Such luck you have with your irrefragable demonstrations P. 68. His Majesties Apostacy is not the way to his restitution In case his Majesty will turn Roman Catholique you promise him restitution to his Kingdomes Great undertakers are seldom good performers when you are making your Proselytes you promise them golden Mountains but when the work is done you deal with them as he did with his Saint who promised a Candle as big as his Mast and offred one no bigger than his finger Do you however think it reason that any man should change his Religion for temporall respects though it were for a Kingdom Jeroboam did so you may remember what was the success of it You propose this as the readiest means to restore him Others who penetrate deeper into the true state of his affairs look upon it as the readiest way to ruine his hopes by the alienation of his friends by the confirmation of his foes and in some sort the justification of their former feigned fears Do you think all Roman Catholique Princes desire this change as earnestly as your self Give them leave first to consult with their particular Interests A common Interest prevails more with Confederates than a common faith The Sword distinguisheth not between Protestants and Papists But what is the ground of this your great Confidence no less than Scripture Seek ye first the kingdom of God and the righteousness of it and all other things shall be added unto you You say the word of God deceives no man True but you may deceive your self out of the word of God The Conclusion alwayes follows the weaker part such as this are commonly your mistaken grounds when they come to be examined The text saith Seek the kingdom of God You would have his Majesty desert the kingdom of God The promise is of all things necessary or convenient you will be your own Carver and oblige God Almighty to Kingdoms and particular conditions The promise is made as all temporall promises are with an implicite exception of the Cross unless God see it to be otherwise more expedient for us He that denies us gold and gives us patience and other graces more precious than Gold 1 Pet. 1.7 that denies a temporall Kingdom to give an eternall doth not wrong us This was out of your head That the Scots had an antienter Obligation to fidelity towards his Majesty P. 70. The obligation of the Scots to his Majesty the greatest of any Subjects in the known world and that Royall Family than the English is a truth not to be doubted or disputed of I think I may safely adde than any Nation in Europe or in the known world to their Prince his Majesty being the hundred and tenth Monarch of that line that hath sweyed the Scepter of that Kingdom successively The more the pitty that a few treacherous Shebas and a pack of bawling seditious Orators under the vizard and shadow of pure Religion to the extreme scandall of all honest professors should be able to overturn such an antient fabrick and radicated succession of Kingly Government Their Treachery But take heed Sir how you beleeve that any ingagement of the Presbyterian faction in Scotland proceeded either from conscience or gratitude or fidelity or aimed at the resetling of his Majesty upon his throne No no their hearts were double their treaties on their parts were meer treacheries from the beginning I mean not any of those many loyall patriots that never bowed their knees to Baal-berith the God of the Covenant in that Nation The loyall Scots excepted Nor yet any of those serious converts that no sooner discovered the leger de main of a company of canting impostors but they sought to stop the stream of Schism and sedition with the hazard of their own lives and estates Nor even those whose eyes were longer held with the Spirit of slumber by some stronger spels of disciplinarian charmers but did yet later open their eyes and come in to do their duties at the sixth or ninth hour All these are expunged by me out of this black Roll. Let their posterities enjoy the fruit of their respective loyalties And let their memories be daily more and more blessed But I mean the obstinate Ring-leaders The disloyall Scots deciphered and Standard-bearers of the Presbyterian Covenant of both robes and the setters up of that mishapen Idoll It is from these I say that no help or hope could in reason be expected They who sold the Father and such a Father were not likely to proove loyall to the Son They who hanged up one of the most antient Gentlemen in Europe the gallant Marquess of Montrose being then their lawfull Vice-roy like a dog in such base and barbarous manner together with his Majesties Commission to the publike dishonour of their King in the chief City of that Kingdom in a time of Treaty They who purged the Army over and over as loth on their parts willingly to leave one dram of honesty or loyalty in it who would not admit their fellow subjects of much more merit and courage than themselves to assist them They who would not permit his Majesty to continue among the Souldiery lest hee should grow too popular They who after they had proclamed to the world his Title and right to that Crown yet sought to have him excluded from the benefit of it and from the execution of his Kingly Office P. 70. untill he should abjure his Religion cast dirt upon his Parents alienate his loyall subiects and ratifie the asurpations of his Rebels These there I say were most unlikely persons to be his restorers Was it ever heard before that subjects acknowledged a Soveraign and yet endeavoured to exclude him from his rights untill he had granted whatsoever seemed good in their eyes No hope from that party untill they repent Others may be more severe in their judgements but I for my part could be well contented that God would give them the Honour to be the repayrers of the breach who have been the makers of the breach to be the restorers of Monarchy who have been the ruiners of Monarchy to be the re-establishers of peace who have been the chiefest Catalines and promoters of War But that can never be whilst they justifie their former rebellious practises and after they have eaten and devoured wipe their mouths and say what have we done untill they acknowledge their former errors Repentance onely is able to knit the broken bone why should they be more afraid to confess their faults and shame the Devill than to commit them P. 73. God must not be limited to time or means of deliverance Yet I cannot say with you that this hath robbed his Majesty of all hopes and means of recovery We may not limit God to any time who commonly with-holds his help untill the Bricks be doubled untill the