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	doctrine_n	tradition_n	4,188	5	9.0800	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30419	A sermon preached on the fast-day, Decemb. 22, 1680 at St. Margarets Westminster before the Honourable House of Commons / by Gilbert Burnet.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1681 (1681)	Wing B5874; ESTC R19858	25,524	46

when they were called to give their last Testimony to it But what is all this to us Are we living under the influences of that love do our hearts burn with the sense of it what reverence have we for the person or what obedience pay we to the Doctrine of our Crucified Saviour If any of this remain it is much spent at least and ready to dye The second thing charged on these Churches was their being apt to be carried away by the cunning slight of those who lay in wait to deceive and their being too easily disposed to vitiate Christianity with the mixtures of Judaism or Hethenism or other errors Our vices have taken us off from the practice of the plain and indispensable duties of our holy Religion and then it is no wonder we find no pleasure in that Doctrine which can give no true comfort to such as continue in their sins This disposes people to seek that elsewhere which they cannot have among us and therefore a Religion made up of pomp and shew wherein God and his Saints were offered to be bribed in which they knew the rares of sin and the price of Heaven found us but too well prepared to become Profylites to it Our sins have been also so visible and scandalous that they have made our Communion grow loathsom to many well disposed but weak minds and have tempted them to separate from our Assemblies when they saw such mixed multitudes among us so that they have run into Sects that had the appearance of greater gravity and strictness 3. And we are no less faulty in the third particular of contending out of measure for things that are no way essential to salvation Things of so indifferent a nature that succeeding ages will wonder how men could manage such long and eager contests about them We have fallen into passions concerning them these have grown up to a hatred which hath broken out into most violent and dismal effects and seems now setled into a formed rent and separation Where is that charitable healing and compassionate temper which becomes Christians and reformed Christians especially when they are as it were strugling for life Oh shall nothing make us wiser shall neither the advantages our enemies take nor the prejudices Religion suffers by our contests dispose us to bear with one anothers infirmities and to manage our differences if we cannot entirely bury them with a more Christian and decent temper There have been extreams on all hands neither side can free themselves from being too much exasperated The resentment for what has been done in the several turns of affairs has gone too far with us It is not so much our differences that divide us one from another as our alienation one from another which widens our differences and makes them appear to be greater than indeed they are So on all accounts we must acknowledge that when our works are weighed in those just ballances they cannot be found perfect before God I hope we are all in some measure convinced of this The thing is alas too visible What is then to be done but to set about a real Reformation with all possible seriousness and sincerity And in order to this and to direct us in it here is a rule and standard given by which we may govern our selves in the means or methods to it and that is the second thing I proposed to speak to 2. The Rule by which are to examine our selves and by which God will judge us is the Doctrine which the Churches received from the Apostles Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard Here is a certain fixed rule we are neither left to the heats of our own fancies nor to the uncertainties of Tradation nor to the impostures of such as may pretend to the government of our Consciences but are conducted by a more certain thread It is true in the Apostles days this Doctrine was at first preached and received before it was written There was no great danger as long as they lived who might be appealed to in any difficulty which could arise concerning their Doctrine so it is a vain way of arguing to infer from the mention of Tradition in the Epistles that we after so many ages are past and so many impostures have been discovered should be obliged to receive what may be obtruded on us as Apostolical Tradition Tradition while the Apostles lived was what the Scripture is now And indeed so uncertain a conveyance is Oral Tradition that in the very Apostles days or soon after when there were no advantages to be made by such cheats and so there was less to tempt men to them yet many false Gospels were given out and false Doctrines were infused into some weaker people We know how unfaithful a conveyor Tradition was of Natural Religion among the Gentile Nations The Gospel tells us how the Jews doted on the Traditions of their Fathers and by them made the Commandments of God of none effect The uncertainty of Tradition where it was not put in writing appeared within an age after the Apostles in the contests concerning the observation of Easter both sides vouching the practice of the Apostles and that even while some were alive that had seen them and had lived with them But after that wealth and greatness had corrupted the Church and this holy Religion was made an Engine to advance the ambition and interests of designing men then what a swarm of supposititious writings appeared every where to support some opinions or designs many of these were discovered and branded but others passed without a censure so that it was long before Criticks in this and the former age could find out what was genuine and what was counterfeit The most advantagious Imposture was coined and received in the 9th Century a whole Volume of the Epistiles of the first Bishops of Rome from the Apostles days downwards was pretended to be found in which they were represented as governing the Church in the former ages with the same fulness of power that their Successors have pretended to since This was rejected by some in that age but kindly entertained by those that were more concerned for their own greatness than for Truth and by the Presidents in these Epistles they justified what they did till their Tyranie came to be generally submitted to And now when these Epistles are found to be spurious they have been forced to throw them away but stand upon possession and prescription tho it began at first upon this and some other impostures not unlike it such as the Donation of Constantine and many more They well know that their cause cannot be defended if the Scriptures are appealed to these in many points are directly against them as in the worship of Images and Angels the praying in an unknown tongue and the denying the Chalice or saying that Christs body which is now in Heaven is in the Sacrament in other things they are silent such as the Popes