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
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

to Apostolicall traditions nor unwritten fundamentalls But we admit genuine Universall Apostolicall traditions As the Apostles Creed the perpetuall Virginity of the Mother of God the Anniversary Festivals of the Church the Lenton fast Yet we know that both the duration of it and the maner of observing it was very different in the Primitive times We believe Episcopacy to an ingenuous person may be proved out of Scripture without the help of Tradition but to such as are froward the perpetuall practise and tradition of the Church renders the interpretation of the Text more authentique and the proof more convincing What is this to us who admit the practise and tradition of the Church as an excellent help of Exposition Use is the best interpreter of Laws and we are so far from beleeving that We cannot admit tradition without allowing the Papacy that one of the principall motives why we rejected the Papacy as it is now established with Universality of Jurisdiction by the Institution of Christ and superiority above Oecumenicall Councils and Infallibility of Judgement was the constant tradition a● the Primitive Church So Sir you see your demonstration shaken into pieces You who take upon you to remove whole Churches at your pleasure have not so much ground left you as to see your Instrument upon Your two main ground-works being vanished all your Presbyterian and Independent superstructions do remain like so many Bubbles or Castles in the air It were folly to lay closer siege to them which the next puff of wind will disperse ruunt subductis tecta Columnis Howsoever though you have mistaken the grounds of our Reformation and of your discourse yet you charge us that we have renounced the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation the seven Sacraments Justification by inhaerent righteousness merits Invocation of Saints prayer for the dead with Purgatory and the Authority of the Pope Are these all the necessary Articles of the new Roman Creed that we have renounced Surely no you deal too favourably with us We have in like manner renounced your Image-worship your half Communion your prayers in a tongue unknown c. It seems you were loath to mention these things Of the Sacrifice of the Mass First you say we have renounced your sacrifice of the Mass If the Sacrifice of the Mass be the same with the Sacrifice of the Cross we attribute more unto it than your selves We place our whole hope of Salvation in it If you understand another propitiatory Sacrifice distinct from that as this of the Mass seems to be for confessedly the Priest is not the same the Altar is not the same the Temple is not the same If you think of any new meritorious satisfaction to God for the sins of the world or of any new supplement to the merits of Christs Passion You must give us leave to renounce your Sacrifice indeed and to adhere to the Apostle Heb. 10.14 By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Surely you cannot think that Christ did actually sacrifice himself at his last Supper for then he had redeemed the world at his last Supper then his subsequent sacrifice upon the Cross had been superfluous nor that the Priest now doth more than Christ did then We do readily acknowledge an Eucharisticall sacrifice of prayers and praises we profess a commemoration of the sacrifice of the Cross And in the language of holy Church things commemorated are related as if they were then acted As Almighty God who hast given us thy Son as this day to be born of a pure Virgin In the Collects for these ●easts And whose praise the younger Innocents have this day set forth And between the Ascension and Pentecost which hast exalted thy Son Jesus Christ with great Triumph into Heaven we beseech thee leave us not comfortless but send unto us thy holy Spirit We acknowledge a Representation of that sacrifice to God the Father we acknowledge an Impetration of the benefit of it we maintain an Application of its vertue So here is a commemorative impetrative applicative sacrifice Speak distinctly and I cannot understand what you can desire more To make it a suppletory sacrifice to supply the defects of the onely true sacrifice of the Cross I hope both you and I abhor The next crime objected by you to us is Of Transubstantiation that we have renounced Transubstantiation It is true we have rejected it deservedly from being an Article of our Creed you need not wonder at that But if we had rejected it 400. years sooner that had been a Miracle It was not so soon hatched To find but the word Transubstantiation in any old Author were sufficient to prove him a counterfeit Of 7. Sacraments Your next Article of the septenary number of the Sacraments is not much older Never so much as mentioned in any Scripture or Councill or Creed or Father or antient Author Anno 1439 1528. 1547. first devised by Peter Lombard first decreed by Eugenius the fourth first confirmed in the Provinciall Councill of Senes and after in the Councill of Trent Either the word Sacrament is taken largely and then the washing of the Disciples feet is called a Sacrament then the onely sprink●ing of Ashes on a Christians head is called a Sacrament then there are God knows how many Sacraments more than seven Or else it is taken strictly for a visible sign instituted by Christ to convey or confirm invisible Grace to all such partakers thereof as do not set a bar against themselves according to the Analogy between the Sign and the thing signified And in this sense the proper and certain Sacraments of the Christian Church common to all or in the words of our Church generally necessary to Salvation are but two Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. More than these St. Ambrose writes not of in his Book de Sacramentis because he did not know them These we admit for genuine and generall Sacraments Their Sacramentall vertue we acknowledge The rest we retein more purely than your selves though not under the Notion of such proper and generall Sacraments As Confirmation Ordination Matrimony Penitence though we neither approve of your preposterous manner of Absolution before satisfaction nor of your Ordinary penitentiary tax and lastly the Visitation of and Prayer for the sick which onely is of perpetual necessity The Unction prescribed by St. James Jam. 5.14 being appropriable to the miraculous gift of healing or recovering men out of sicknesses then in use Whereas your custome is clean contrary never or rarely to enoyl any man untill he be past all hope of Recovery The Ordinary and most received custome of preparing sick persons for another world in the primitive Church was Prayer and Absolution or the benefit of the Keys and the Viaticum of the body and blood of Christ which we retein Concerning Justification Of Justification we believe that all good Christians have true inherent Justice

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