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	faith_n	tradition_n	4,048	5	9.0072	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33231	Animadversions upon a book intituled, Fanaticism fanatically imputed to the Catholick Church, by Dr. Stillingfleet, and the imputation refuted and retorted by S.C. by a person of honour.	Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 1609-1674.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Fanaticism fanatically imputed to the Catholick Church.	1673 (1673)	Wing C4414; ESTC R19554	113,565	270

inform his indifferent Reader of the sence of those hard places do but make the understanding thereof the more intricate and that the Commentary is not less obscure than the Text and nothing is more wonderful than that the illustration he makes to facilitate the understanding of what is conceived obscure by the Prayer in our Churches Liturgy which he says was borrowed from the Roman and I say was translated out of our own Lord from whom all good things come grant us thy humble servants that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good and by thy merciful guiding we may perform the same I say it is strange that he does not so far discern that this Prayer is so easie that no one pretends not to understand the perfect meaning and extent thereof whereas he cannot but know that some men of more than common understanding profess not to comprehend the other and therefore it is too magisterial a determination that whosoever hath not a capacity to understand Sancta Sophia is an enemy to mental Prayer which no body can be who understands it or in the least degree hath endeavoured to practise it Since it is the best if not the only way to keep the mind fixed upon the subject it is solicitous for and the object to whom the Prayers are directed which in the loud pronunciation of many words is it may be to many men the most difficult thing in the sacrifice of Prayer especially if there be any affectation of words which insensibly carries the mind away from what it should be intent upon and the least moment of diversion puts a period to mental prayer which without any sensible motion hath a vehemence that cannot bear interruption and as little any prescription of method from another man To the personal reflexions and invectives against the Doctor fuller of causeless passions and of bitterness and virulence than I have ever observed in so little room in any book I shall answer in a more proper place anon After Mr. Cressy hath spent many pages in commending to his friends the having a good opinion of Visions and Revelations and Miracles and very pathetically advises them to read the Histories of the lives of Saints which the more they have done they may probably be the less inclined to conform to his opinions he professes that the only ground of the Catholicks faith is divine Revelation made to the Church by Christ and his Apostles and conveyed to posterity in Scripture and Tradition and we say that the ground of the Faith of the Church of England is the same leaving out the two last words and tradition not that the Church of England is an enemy to or disclaims the use of tradition but is not guided and governed by it by reason of the incertainty of it Where the tradition is universal and uncontradicted we have as much resignation to it as they have and therefore we do acknowledge the reception of the Scripture to be by unquestionable and never doubted tradition and that having thereby received it it hath in it self enough to convince the Reader that it could not be formed and invented by the wit of man nor that it hath not been disguised or corrupted by the malice of man and so we are possessed of the Scriptures by the same tradition that they are and whatever they believe by as confessed a tradition we believe likewise as well as they But when they urge many things as necessary to be believed by the authority of tradition we do not reject the authority but deny the tradition and say there is no tradition that will warrant it and how fallible that pretence is needs no other manifestation than that controversie of the observation of Easter which continued half a hundred years only upon the point of tradition with so much bitterness and animosity the Greek Church alledging that tradition was for them and the Roman Church the contrary and if tradition was so doubtful a guide in those Primitive times when so few years had run out what must it be now when five times as many are since expired They therefore do not deal ingenously who amuse their auditors with telling them that we reject all tradition consider not antiquity submit to no authority but every man chuses a Religion according to his own spirit Whereas they well know that the Church of England doth as much respect tradition when it is agreed upon as all evidence must be that is submitted to and requires as much subjection to authority and leaves as little to the private fancy and imagination of men and pays as much reverence to the primitive Fathers where they concur together in opinion as the Church of Rome doth but denies any subjection to that Church and believes that her own children with others she meddles not should have the same reverence for her determinations as those others have for the Roman since her determinations are made with as much regularity as lawful authority and with the unanimous advice of as learned men as by the others of which we shall say more in the conclusion of this discourse If Mr. Cressy was not very confident that all for whom he writes will confidently believe all he says and had not a marvellous contempt of all other persons he would not so positively say That when examination is made of miracles in order to the Canonization of any Saint the testimony of women will not be received pag. 68. and gives the reason for it because naturally imagination is stronger in them than judgment and whatsoever is esteemed by them to be pious is easily concluded by them to be true which may likewise be the reason that his beloved Sancta Sophia is so much valued by women and his Miracles so much believed by them only and neither the one or the other in any degree regarded by any learned men of the Roman Church But his averment that the testimony of women is rejected in those cases is without any ground Was not the single testimony of the Nurse the only evidence of the first miracle that was wrought by his adored S. Benedict in the mending the Sieve or putting together the broken pieces of the Earthen pot If he were much conversant in the acts of Canonization as he ought to be before he publishes the Rules observed there he would have found that the seventh miracle wrought by Philip Nereus the Founder of the order of the Oratorians for which he was Canonized was that he cured diseases oftentimes by his word as particularly in the case of Maria Felici à Castro in Monasterio Turris speculorum Moniali quae continua febri correpta Philippo jubente statim convaluit And his eighth was that he cured many sick people meerly by his apparition Ac Drusilla Fantina quae praecipiti casuprostrata ac horribili capitis oculorum totius corporis collisione semiviva jacens tribus Philippi apparitionibus mirabiliter

Plantation of Christianity that where the age and the people were most inclined to superstition which in the first conversion and growth of Religion they were not disposed to at least to that worship and reverence which shortly after degenerated into superstition there was least care taken to introduce Forms and Ceremonies into the Church but when prophaneness broke in as a torrent and the lives of Christians discredited the doctrine of Christ and the power of Princes was found necessary to reform the manners of the Church such Forms and Ceremonies were brought into the exercise of Religion as were judged most like to produce a reverence into the professors towards it and to manifest that reverence in providing whereof General Councils medled very little knowing very well that they could not be the same in all places and that every State and Kingdom knew best what ways and means were most like to contribute to the general end the reverence for Religion and sure there cannot be too intent a care in Kings and Princes to preserve and maintain all decent Forms and Ceremonies both in Church and State which keeps up the veneration and reverence due to Religion and the Church of Christ and the duty and dignity due to Government and to the Majesty of Kings in an age when the dissoluteness of manners and the prophaneness and pride of the people too much inclines them to a contempt of Religion to a neglect of order and to an undervaluing and contending with the most Soveraign authority That the Secular power cannot provide for Ecclesiastical Reformations because Kings and Princes are not qualified to perform the offices and functions of Religion because they do not pretend to consecrate Bishops to ordain Priests or to administer the Sacraments is an argument to exclude them as well from the temporal as spiritual jurisdiction in the determination of matters of right between private men in the punishment of the most enormous crimes and offences Justice must be administred according to the established rules of the Law and not the will and inclination of the Iudge and it cannot be presumed that Kings can be so well versed in the Laws and customs which must regulate the proceedings of Justice and therefore may be excluded from the authority and power of judging the people and they are wonderful careful that you may not believe that they would bereave them of that inherent power and authority which they confess is committed to them alone but why the one and not the other since they can as well provide for the one as for the other is not so easie to be comprehended by any rules of right reason Kings provide for the good administration of justice by making learned men Iudges whose province it is to execute the Law in all cases and they provide for the advancement and preservation of Religion by making pious and learned men Bishops and use their advice and assistance in matters relating to the Church as he doth that of the Judges in cases pertaining to the Law and as he doth other Counsellors in such things as have an immediate dependance upon the Wisdom of State and both Bishops and Iudges are bound to render an account of their actions to Kings who have intrusted them and if they have been corrupt in the discharge of their several Offices they are equally liable to the Kings displeasure and to such punishments as the Laws have provided for such enormities which are inflicted upon them by the Kings authority And as no foreign power can be so competent as the King 's to administer this Justice since it must either controul it or be controuled by it so it is no easie matter for the Pope to prove himself a more spiritual Person than Kings are who have been in all Ages thought to have somewhat of the Priest and the Prophet by their very Office whereas some Popes have been pure Lay-men when they have been chosen to that Supreme office which is all the qualification they have to be more Ecclesiastical after and very many have been chosen Popes who never were Bishops which is not a necessary qualification for that dignity every Deacon-Cardinal being as capable to be elected Pope as the Priest and Bishop Cardinal and he that was a Bishop before consecrates no Bishops himself after he is Pope but that function is performed by other Bishops by vertue of his Commission or Bull and the same may as regularly be done by Bishops by vertue of Kings Commissions in their several Kingdoms otherwise it would be in the power of Popes to extinguish the function of Bishops in any Princes Dominions and therefore the French Ambassador declared in his Masters name to Innocent the Tenth that if he persisted in the refusal to make Bishops in Portugal upon that King's nomination they should chuse a Patriarch of their own who should supply that defect But God be thanked that senseless usurpation and exemption of the Clergie from the common justice of Nations is pretty well out of countenance and since the Republick of Venice so notoriously baffled Paul the Fifth upon that very point other Kings and Princes have chastised their own Clergie for transcendent crimes without asking leave of his Holiness or treating them in any other manner than they do their ordinary Malefactors For the unity proposed and professed by us in the Creed I believe one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church if it be well considered in what time that Creed was made which is not yet defined or determined by any Church and if it had been made by the Apostles themselves according to the fancy of some men that every one of the Apostles should contribute his Article it would then be Canonical Scripture which it is not pretended to be yet I think it is agreed by most learned men that it was framed in the infancy of Christianity and in or very soon after the time of the Apostles themselves and then it can have no other signification than Credo Sanctam Apostolicam Ecclesiam esse Catholicam which was a necessary Article at that time when the believing that the Church was to be universal and to consist equally of Gentiles as well as Iews was one of the most difficult points of Christianity and most opposed and for the Confirmation whereof the Apostles took most pains after they were all reconciled to it themselves and as it could have no other sence then so the restraining it to any one Church now or to make it serve for a distinction between Churches and Nations and to produce a separation between them must be very unnatural if any sence at all To conclude then this discourse of unity I know not how Mr. Cressy can refuse to submit to that good rule and determination that S. Gregory long since gave upon the third Interrogation administred to him by Austin the Monk Cum una sit fides cur sunt Ecclesiarum diversae consuetudines altera consuetudo Missarum

the care of their Souls is committed than him who is a stranger to them or if they have heard of him they ought the less to believe him Whoever knows the Doctor and Him or hath carefully perused their writings cannot be blamed for preferring the former before the latter But then how can these people who read the Scripture and appeal to it know that they have the true Scripture which is the word of God which is a worn-out question that hath been as often answered as asked The Church of Rome hath no other evidence of the truth of it than we have and the Tradition that hath derived it doth as much belong to the Church of England as to the other there is no difference between us in any particular that relates to Tradition where the tradition is as universal or as manifest as it is in that of the Scripture The Doctor is so far from saying or thinking that every Christian is to be a judge of the sence of Scripture that he doth not believe that every Church is fit to be a judge of it nor doth it appear that the Church of Rome it self which would be thought to be Catholick and instar omnium doth pretend to understand much less to judge of the sence of the whole Scripture and yet a very weak member of either may clearly understand the sence of those particular places which are necessary to be understood for his salvation as no man is so ignorant as not to know what the sence of Adultery and of Theft and Murder and the like which he is forbid to be guilty of and if he be so ignorant he will not be the more inclined to detest them by reading the School-men and if he be of the Church of England he knows whither to repair for advice and counsel in difficult cases and refuses not to submit to it But that no authority may be able to do us good he hath obtained a very extraordinary faculty to answer and avoid it and which is the nearest to smelling it out with his Nose that I have been informed of The Doctor to prove that the Christians in all times were indulged and exhorted to read the Scriptures besides many other arguments backs his demonstrations as Mr. Cressy confesses with an army of the ancient Fathers who are cited by him and their doctrine acknowledged by several late Catholick Divines of the most eminent account and which he himself confesses to be true but he says notwithstanding that no Catholick nor he thinks any other man in his right wits will grant that every Porter Cobler or Lawndress is capable to instruct themselves by reading the Scriptures alone or to clear the doctrine of the mystery of the Holy Trinity the Incarnation of our Saviour the Procession of the Holy Ghost c. In all which I do not know that he hath an adversary After he hath asked the Doctor a question or two of his own judgment concerning the Fathers concessions in those cases whether they did not suppose that they to whom they gave this license would for the sence of difficult points have submitted their judgments to the Church But then he undertakes to know that if there had been such an Architect of principles as the Doctor in the time of the Fathers they would not have been so zealous in their exhortations to a promiscuous reading of Scriptures For he says and hopes you will take his word for it that the Doctors principles do evidently contain the most pernicious Soul-destroying Heresie that ever assaulted Gods Church principles which banish peace charity humility and obedience utterly from the Church and State which if true as they could never have entred into the Doctors thoughts by reading the Scriptures so there can be no such antidote to expel those poysons as by the Scriptures for I will undertake to shew very plain places in Scripture of the sence whereof there is no doubt made for the confutation of all those principles and if he be of the Philosophers mind that more Syllogisms can be made for truth than against it he will not think the worse of reading the Scriptures for those principles yet he concludes that if the Fathers had foreseen these mischiefs they would never have given such advice yet he does confess that the four first general Councils never put any such restraint upon the reading the Scriptures for which he gives as good a reason as his answer concerning the Fathers because of the difference between the Heresies of those times and the Heresies of these times The Inventors of the ancient Heresies he says were great learned Prelates and subtle Philosophers and the object of their Heresies were sublime mysteries of Faith examined and framed by them according to the grounds of Plato ' s and Aristotle's Philosophy c. Hence he says it come to pass that in those days the Scriptures might be read freely enough by ordinary Christians without danger especially considering their intention of reading them was not to find out a new Religion but to instruct themselves in piety and to inflame their hearts in the Divine love pag. 161 162. But our modern Heresies he says are of a quite different complexion they are conversant about matters obvious to the weakest capacities as the external administration of Sacraments the jurisdiction of Superiors Civil and Ecclesiastical the manner of mens devotions the institution of Religious Orders the obligation of Vows the Ordinances of the Church touching Fasting Matrimony Celibacy paying of Tithes c. Or if about sublime mysteries men are taught to examine such mysteries by natural reason and the verdict of their outwardsenses Is not the English or sence of all this that towards the conviction of the highest and the greatest Heresies which ever were in the Church and which were only worthy of the name of Heresies and were condenned as such by the pure and strong evidence of Scripture the reading of the Scriptures might be permitted at least might be read without danger especially because the intention of reading them then was that men might be the better for it But that now in these modern Heresies upon the Sacraments and the institution of Religious Orders and Vows c. the reading the Scriptures are pernicious and serves only to find out a new Religion I can in truth collect no other sence than this from Mr. Cressy's distinction between the ancient and modern Heresies or for his conclusion that those godly Fathers who are cited by the Doctor and truly cited as he confesses had lived amongst us or if such Heresies had been then spread amongst their Disciples they would not have been so zealous in their exhortations to a promiscuous reading of Scripture I think they would because I am sure they would have had the same reason and would have wondered how any differences of opinion upon the Civil or Ecclesiastical jurisdiction upon the manner of mens devotions or upon the institution of Religious