Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostle_n	church_n	creed_n	2,605	5	10.2206	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44019	Tracts of Mr. Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury containing I. Behemoth, the history of the causes of the civil wars of England, from 1640 to 1660, printed from the author's own copy never printed (but with a thousand faults) before, II. An answer to Arch-bishop Bramhall's book called the catching of the Leviathan, never before printed, III. An historical narration of heresie and the punishment thereof, corrected by the true copy, IV. Philosophical problems dedicated to the King in 1662, but never printed before.; Selections. 1682	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.	1682 (1682)	Wing H2265; ESTC R19913	258,262	615

that is Gods Vicegerent upon Earth and hath next under God the Authority of governing Christian Men and to observe for a Rule that Doctrine which in the Name of God he hath Commanded to be taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance c. And if he disavow them then no more to obey their Voice or if he Approve them then to obey them as Men to whom God hath given a part of the Spirit of their Soveraign Upon his Principles the case holdeth as well among Jews and Turks and Heathens as Christians Then he that Teacheth Transubstantiation in France is a true Prophet he that Teacheth it in England a false Prophet He that Blasphemeth Christ in Constantinople a true Prophet he that doth the same in Italy a false Prophet Then Samuel was a false Prophet to Contest with Saul a Soveraign Prophet So was the Man of God who submitted not to the more Divine and Prophetick Spirit of Jeroboam And Elijah for Reproving Ahab Then Michaiah had but his deserts to be clapt up in Prison and fed with Bread of Affliction and Water of Affliction for daring to Contradict God's Vice-gerent upon Earth And Jeremiah was justly thrown into a Dungeon for Prophecying against Zedekiah his Liege Lord. If his Principles were true it were strange indeed that none of all these Princes nor any other that ever was in the World should understand their own Priviledges And yet more strange that God Almighty should take the part of such Rebellious Prophets and justifie their Prophesies by the Event if it were true that none but the Soveraign in a Christian the Reason is the same for Jewish Commonwealth can take notice what is or what is not the Word of God T. H. To remove his Lordships doubt in the first place I confess there was true Prophesie and true Prophets in the Church of God from Abraham down to our Saviour the greatest Prophet of all and the last of the Old Testament and first of the New After our Saviour's time till the Death of St. John the Apostle there were true Prophets in the Church of Christ Prophets to whom God spake Supernaturally and Testified the truth of their Mission by Miracles Of those that in the Scripture are called Prophets without Miracles and for this cause only that they spake in the Name of God to Men and in the name of Men to God there are have been and shall be in the Church Innumerable Such a Prophet was his Lordship and such are all Pastors in the Christian Church But the Question here is of those Prophets that from the Mouth of God foretell things Future or do other Miracle Of this kind I deny there has been any since the Death of St. John the Evangelist If any Man find fault with this he ought to Name some Man or other whom we are bound to acknowledge that they have done a Miracle cast out a Devil or cured any Disease by the sole Invocation of the Divine Majesty We are not bound to trust to the Legend of the Roman Saints nor to the History written by Sulpitius of the Life of St. Martin or to any other Fables of the Roman Clergy nor to such things as were pretended to be done by some Divines here in the time of King James Secondly he says I make little difference between a Prophet and a Mad-man or Demoniack To which I say he accuses me falsly I say only thus much That I see nothing at all in the Scripture that requireth a belief that Demoniacks were any other thing than Madmen And this is also made very probable out of Scripture by a worthy Divine Mr. Meade But concerning Prophets I say only that the Jews both under the Old Testament and under the New took them to be all one with Mad-men and Demoniacks And prove it out of Scripture by many places both of the Old and New Testament Thirdly that the pretence or arrogating to ones self Divine Inspiration is argument enough to shew a Man is Mad is my opinion but his Lordship understands not Inspiration in the same sence that I do He understands it properly of God's breathing into a Man or pouring into him the Divine Substance or Divine Graces and in that sence he that arrogateth Inspiration into himself neither understands what he saith nor makes others to understand him which is properly Madness in some degree But I understand Inspiration in the Scripture Metaphorically for Gods guidance of our minds to Truth and Piety Fourthly whereas he says I make the pretence of Inspiration to be pernicious to Peace I answer that I think his Lordship was of my Opinion for he called those Men which in the late Civil War pretended the Spirit and New Light and to be the only faithful men Phanaticks for he called them in his Book and did call them in his Life time Phanaticks And what is a Phanatick but a Mad-man and what can be more pernicious to Peace than the Revelations that were by these Phanaticks pretended I do not say there were Doctrines of other Men not called Phanaticks as pernicious to Peace as theirs were and in great part a cause of those troubles Fifthly from that I make Prophetical Revelations subject to the examination of the Lawful Soveraign he inferreth that two Prophets prophecying the same thing at the same time in the Dominions of two different Princes the one shall be a true Prophet the other a false This consequence is not good for seeing they teach different Doctrines they cannot both of them confirm their Doctrine with Miracles But this I prove in the page 232 he citeth that whether either of their Doctrines shall be Taught Publickly or not 't is in the power of the Soveraign of the Place only to determine Nay I say now further if a Prophet come to any private Man in the Name of God that Man shall be Judge whether he be a true Prophet or not before he obey him See 1 John 4.1 Sixthly whereas he says that upon my grounds Christ was to be reputed a false Prophet every where because his Doctrine was received no where His Lordship had Read my Book more negligently than was fit for one that would confute it My ground is this that Christ in right of his Father was King of the Jews and consequently Supream Prophet and Judge of all Prophets What other Princes thought of his Prophesies is nothing to the purpose I never said that Princes can make Doctrines or Prophesies true or false but I say every Soveraign Prince has a right to prohibite the publick Teaching of them whether false or true But what an oversight is it in a Divine to say that Christ had the Approbation of no Soveraign Prince when he had the Approbation of God who was King of the Jews and Christ his Vice-Roy and the whole Scripture Written Joh. 20.31 to prove it

in defence of the Civil Power that must be punish'd by him whose Rights he defended like Vzza that was slain because he would needs unbidden put forth his Hand to keep the Ark from falling But what if a whole Nation should revolt from the Pope at once what effect could Excommunication have upon the Nation A. Why they should have no more Mass said at least by any of the Popes Priests Besides the Pope would have no more to do with them but cast them off and so they would be in the same Case as if a Nation should be cast off by their King and left to be governed by themselves or whom they would B. This would not be taken so much for a punishment to the People as to the King and therefore when a Pope Excommunicates a whole Nation methinks he rather Excommunicates himself than them But I pray you tell me what were the Rights that the Pope pretended to in the Kingdoms of other Princes A. First An Exemption of all Priests Friars and Monks in Criminal Causes from the Cognizance of Civil Judges Secondly Collation of Benefices on whom he pleased Native or Stranger and exaction of Tenths First Fruits and other Payments Thirdly Appeals to Rome in all Causes where the Church could pretend to be concern'd Fourthly To be the Supream Judge concerning Lawfulness of Marriage i. e. concerning the Hereditary Succession of Kings and to have the Cognisance of all Causes concerning Adultery and Fornication B. Good A Monopoly of Women A. Fifthly A Power of absolving Subjects of their Duties and of their Oaths of Fidelity to their lawful Sovereigns when the Pope should think fit for the extirpation of Heresie B. This Power of absolving Subjects of their Obedience as also that other of being Judge of Manners and Doctrine is as absolute a Sovereignty as is possible to be and consequently there must be two Kingdoms in one and the same Nation and no Man be able to know which of his Masters he must obey A. For my part I should rather obey that Master that had the Right of making Laws and of inflicting Punishments than him that pretendeth only to a Right of making Canons that is to say Rules and no Right of Co-action or otherwise punishing but by Excommunication B. But the Pope pretends also that his Canons are Laws and for punishing can there be greater than Excommunication supposing it true as the Pope saith it is that he that dies Excommunicate is damn'd Which supposition it seems you believe not else you would rather have chosen to obey the Pope that would cast you Body and Soul into Hell than the King that can only kill the Body A. You say true for it were very uncharitable in me to believe that all English men except a few Papists that have been born and called Hereticks ever since the Reformation of Religion in England should be damn'd B. But for those that die Excommunicate in the Church of England at this day do you not think them also damn'd A. Doubtless he that dies in sin without repentance is damn'd and he that is Excommunicate for disobedience to the Kings Laws either Spiritual or Temporal is Excommunicate for sin and therefore if he die Excommunicate and without desire of reconciliation he dies impenitent You see what follows but to die in disobedience to the Precepts and Doctrines of those Men that have no Authority or Jurisdiction over us is quite another Case and bringeth no such danger with it B. But what is this Heresie which the Church of Rome so cruelly persecutes as to depose Kings that do not when they are bidden turn all Hereticks out of their Dominions A. Heresie is a word which when it is used without passion signifies a private Opinion So the different Sects of the old Philosophers Academians Peripateticks Epicureans Stoicks c. were called Heresies but in the Christian Church there was in the signification of that word comprehended a sinful opposition to him that was chief Judge of Doctrines in order to the salvation of Mens Souls and consequently Heresie may be said to bear the same relation to the Power Spiritual that Rebellion doth to the Power Temporal and is suitably to be persecuted by him that will preserve a Power Spiritual and Dominion over Mens Consciences B. It would be very well because we are all of us permitted to read the Holy Scriptures and bound to make them the Rule of our Actions both publick and private that Heresie were by some Law defined and the particular Opinions set forth for which a man were to be condemned and punished as a Heretick for else not only Men of mean capacity but even the wisest and devoutest Christian may fall into Heresie without any will to oppose the Church for the Scriptures are hard and the Interpretations different of different men A. The meaning of the word Heresie is by Law declared in an Act of Parliament in the first year of Queen Elizabeth wherein it is ordain'd That the persons who had by the Queens Letters Patents the Authority Spiritual meaning the High Commission shall not have Authority to adjudge any Matter or Cause to be Heresie but only such as heretofore have been adjudged to be Heresie by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four General Councils or by any other General Council where the same was declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures or such as hereafter shall be adjudged Heresie by the High Court of Parliament of this Realm with the Assent of the Clergy in their Convocation B. It seems therefore if there arise any new error that hath not yet been declared Heresie and many such may arise it cannot be judged Heresie without a Parliament for how foul soever the error be it cannot have been declar'd Heresie neither in the Scriptures nor in the Councils because it was never before heard of and consequently there can be no error unless it fall within the compass of Blasphemy against God or Treason against the King for which a man can in Equity be punished Besides who can tell what is declared by the Scripture which every man is allowed to read and interpret to himself Nay more what Protestant either of the Laity or Clergy if every General Council can be a competent Judge of Heresie is not already condemned for divers Councils have declared a great many of our Doctrines to be Heresie and that as they pretend upon the Authority of the Scriptures A. What are those Points that the first four General Councils have declared Heresie B. The first General Council held at Nicaea declared all to be Heresie which was contrary to the Nicene Creed upon occasion of the Heresie of Arrius which was the denying the Divinity of Christ. The second General Council held at Constantinople declared Heresie the Doctrine of Macedonius which was that the Holy Ghost was created The third Council assembled at Ephesus condemned the

lawful for a man to value his own life or his limbs more than his God How much is he wiser than the three Children or Daniel himself who were thrown the first into a fiery Furnace the last into the Lions Denn because they refused to comply with the Idolatrous Decree of their Soveraign Prince T. H. Here also my words are truly cited But his Lordship understood not what the word Worship signifies and yet he knew what I meant by it To think highly of God as I had defined it is to honour him But to think is internal To Worship is to signifie that Honour which we inwardly give by signs external This understood as by his Lordship it was all he says to it is but a cavil J. D. A fourth Aphorism may be this That which is said in the Scripture it is better to obey God than man hath place in the Kingdom of God by Pact and not by Nature Why Nature it self doth teach us it is better to obey God than men Neither can he say that he intended this only of obedience in the use of indifferent actions and gestures in the service of God commanded by the Common-wealth for that is to obey both God and man But if divine Law and humane Law clash one with another without doubt it is evermore better to obey God than man T. H. Here again appears his unskilfulness in reasoning Who denyes but it is alwayes and in all causes better to obey God than Man But there is no Law neither divine nor humane that ought to be taken for a Law till we know what it is and if a divine Law till we know that God hath commanded it to be kept We agree that the Scriptures are the Word of God But they are a Law by Pact that is to us who have been Baptized into the Covenant To all others it is an invitation only to their own benefit 'T is true that even nature suggesteth to us that the Law of God is to be obeyed rather than the Law of man But nature does not suggest to us that the Scripture is the Law of God much less how every Text of it ought to be interpreted But who then shall suggest this Dr. Bramhall I deny it Who then The stream of Divines Why so Am I that have the Scripture it self before my eyes obliged to venture my eternal life upon their interpretation how learned soever they pretend to be when no counter-security that they can give me will save me harmless If not the stream of Divines who then The lawful Assembly of Pastors or of Bishops But there can be no lawful Assembly in England without the Authority of the King The Scripture therefore what it is and how to be interpreted is made known unto us here by no other way than the Authority of our Soveraign Lord both in Temporals and Spirituals The Kings Majesty And where he has set forth no Interpretation there I am allowed to follow my own as well as any other man Bishop or not Bishop For my own part all that know me know also it is my opinion That the best government in Religion is by Episcopacy but in the King 's Right not in their own But my Lord of Derry not contented with this would have the utmost resolution of our Faith to be into the Doctrine of the Schools I do not think that all the Bishops be of his mind If they were I would wish them to stand in fear of that dreadful Sentence All covet all lose I must not let pass these words of his Lordship If divine Law and humane Law clash one with another without doubt it is better evermore to obey God than man Where the King is a Christian believes the Scripture and hath the Legislative power both in Church and State and maketh no Laws concerning Christian Faith or divine Worship but by the Counsel of his Bishops whom he trusteth in that behalf if the Bishops counsel him aright what clashing can there be between the divine and humane Laws For if the Civil Law be against God's Law and the Bishops make it clearly appear to the King that it clasheth with divine Law no doubt he will mend it by himself or by the advice of his Parliament for else he is no professor of Christ's Doctrine and so the clashing is at an end But if they think that every opinion they hold though obscure and unnecessary to Salvation ought presently to be Law then there will be clashings innumerable not only of Laws but also of Swords as we have found it too true by late experience But his Lordship is still at this that there ought to be for the divine Laws that is to say for the interpretation of Scripture a Legislative power in the Church distinct from that of the King which under him they enjoy already This I deny Then for clashing between the Civil Laws of Infidels with the Law of God the Apostles teach that those their Civil Laws are to be obeyed but so as to keep their Faith in Christ entirely in their hearts which is an obedience easily performed But I do not believe that Augustus Caesar or Nero was bound to make the holy Scripture Law and yet unless they did so they could not attain to eternal life J. D. His fifth conclusion may be that the sharpest and most successful Sword in any War whatsoever doth give Soveraign Power and Authority to him that hath it to approve or reject all sorts of Theological Doctrines concerning the Kingdom of God not according to their truth or falshood but according to that influence which they have upon political affairs Hear him But because this Doctrine will appear to most men a novelty I do but propound it maintaining nothing in this or any other Paradox of Religion but attending the end of that dispute of the Sword concerning the Authority not yet amongst my Country-men decided by which all sorts of Doctrine are to be approved or rejected c. For the points of Doctrine concerning the Kingdom of God have so great influence upon the Kingdom of Man as not to be determined but by them that under God have the Soveraign Power Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat Let him evermore want success who thinketh actions are to be judged by their events This Doctrine may be plausible to those who desire to fish in troubled Waters But it is justly hated by those which are in Authority and all those who are lovers of peace and tranquillity The last part of this conclusion smelleth rankly of Jeroboam Now shall the Kingdom return to the house of David if this people go up to do Sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem whereupon the King took counsel and made two Calves of Gold and said unto them It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem behold thy Gods O Israel which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt But by the

there is an Ens a God a Man c. So also if there be any real thing that is white or black hot or cold the same may be considered by it self but whiteness blackness heat coldness cannot be considered unless it be first supposed that there is some real thing to which they are attributed These real things are called by the Latine Philosophers Entia subjecta substantiae and by the Greek Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The other which are Incorporeal are called by the Greek Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but most of the Latine Philosophers use to convert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into substantia and so confound real and corporeal things with incorporeal which is not well For Essence and Substance signifie divers things And this mistake is received and continues still in these parts in all Disputes both of Philosophy and Divinity For in truth Essentia signifies no more than if we should talk ridiculously of the Isness of the thing that is By whom all things were made This is proved out of St. John cap. 1. vers 1 2 3. and Heb. cap. 1. vers 3. and that again out of Gen. 1. where God is said to create every thing by his sole Word as when he said Let there be Light and there was Light And then that Christ was that Word and in the beginning with God may be gathered out of divers places of Moses David and other of the Prophets Nor was it ever questioned amongst Christians except by the Arians but that Christ was God Eternal and his Incarnation eternally decreed But the Fathers all that write Expositions on this Creed could not forbear to philosophize upon it and most of them out of the Principles of Aristotle Which are the same the School-men now use as may partly appear by this that many of them amongst their Treatises of Religion have affected to publish Logick and Physick Principles according to the sense of Aristotle as Athanasius and Damascene And so some later Divines of Note still confound the Concreet with the Abstract Deus with Deitas Ens with Essentia Sapiens with Sapientia Aeternus with Aeternitas If it be for exact and rigid Truth sake why do they not say also that Holiness is a Holy man Covetousness a Covetous man Hypocrisie an Hypocrite and Drunkenness a Drunkard and the like but that it is an Error The Fathers agree that the Wisdom of God is the eternal Son of God by whom all things were made and that he was incarnate by the Holy Ghost if they meant it in the Abstract For if Deitas abstracted be Deus we make two Gods of one This was well understood by Damascene in his Treatise De Fide Orthodoxâ which is an Exposition of the Nicene Creed where he denies absolutely that Deitas is Deus lest seeing God was made man it should follow the Deity was made man which is contrary to the Doctrine of all the Nicene Fathers The Attributes therefore of God in the Abstract when they are put for God are put Metonymically which is a common thing in Scripture for Example Prov. 8.28 where it is said Before the mountains were setled before the Hills was I brought forth the Wisdom there spoken of being the Wisdom of God signifies the same with the wise God This kind of speaking is also ordinary in all Languages This considered such abstracted words ought not to be used in Arguing and especially in the deducing the Articles of our Faith though in the Language of God's eternal Worship and in all Godly Discourses they cannot be avoided And the Creed it self is less difficult to be assented to in its own words than in all such Expositions of the Fathers Who for us men and our Salvation came down from Heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Uirgin Mary and was made Man I have not read of any exception to this For where Athanasius in his Creed says of the Son He was not made but begotten it is to be understood of the Son as he was God Eternal whereas here it is spoken of the Son as he is man And of the Son also as he was man it may be said he was begotten of the Holy Ghost for a Woman conceiveth not but of him that begetteth which is also confirmed Mat. 1.20 That which is begotten in her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of the Holy Ghost And was also Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate He suffered and was buried And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of the Father And he shall come again with Glory to judge both the Quick and the Dead Whose Kingdom shall have no end Of this part of the Creed I have not met with any doubt made by any Christian. Hither the Council of Nice proceedeth in their general Confession of Faith and no further This finished some of the Bishops present at the Council seventeen or eighteen whereof Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea was one not sufficiently satisfied refused to subscribe till this Doctrine of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be better explained Thereupon the Council Decreed that whosoever shall say that God hath parts shall be Anathematized to which the said Bishops subscribed And Eusebius by Order of the Council wrote a Letter the Copies whereof were sent to every absent Bishop that being satisfied with the reason of their subscribing they also should subscribe The reason they gave of their Subscription was this That they had now a form of words prescribed by which as a Rule they might guide themselves so as not to violate the Peace of the Church By this it is manifest that no man was an Heretick but he that in plain and direct words contradicted that Form by the Church prescribed and that no man could be made an Heretick by Consequence And because the said Form was not put into the body of the Creed but directed only to the Bishops there was no reason to punish any Lay-person that should speak to the contrary But what was the meaning of this Doctrine That God has no Parts Was it made Heresie to say that God who is a real substance cannot be considered or spoken of as here or there or any where which are parts of places Or that there is any real thing without length every way that is to say which hath no Magnitude at all finite nor infinite Or is there any whole substance whose two halves or three thirds are not the same with that whole Or did they mean to condemn the Argument of Tertullian by which he confuted Apolles and other Hereticks of his time namely Whatsoever was not Corporeal was nothing but Fantasm and not Corporeal for Heretical No certainly no Divines say that They went to establish the Doctrine of One individual God in Trinity to abolish the diversity of species in God not the distinction of here and there in substance When St. Paul