Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostolical_a	church_n	tradition_n	4,989	5	9.5918	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56384	A defence and continuation of the ecclesiastical politie by way of letter to a friend in London : together with a letter from the author of The friendly debate.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.; Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707. Friendly debate.	1671 (1671)	Wing P457; ESTC R22456	313,100	770

take it ill in good earnest if we only deny them the Liberty and free Exercise of their Religion till they are willing to give us some security of their being governable § 12. The second part of Protestancy is the Reformation of Doctrine and here the design was to abolish the Corruptions and unwarrantable Innovations of the Church of Rome and to retrieve the pure and primitive Christianity It was not their aim to exchange Thomas Aquinas his Sums for Calvin's Institutions or Bodies of School-Divinity for Dutch Systems but to reduce Christianity to the prescript of the Word of God and the practice of the first and uncorrupted Ages of the Church to clear the Foundations of our Faith from all false and groundless Superstructures and once more recover into the Christian World a pure and Apostolical Religion And therefore the only Rule of our Churches Reformation were the Scriptures and four first general Councils She admits not of any upstart Doctrines and new Models of Orthodoxy but all the Articles of her Belief are ancient and Apostolical and if she her self should teach any other Propositions she protests against their being matters of Faith and of necessity to Salvation And for this reason she imposes not her own Articles as Articles of Faith but of Peace and Communion Nor does she censure other Churches for their different Confessions but allows them the Liberty she takes to establish more or less Conditions of Communion as the Governours of the Church shall deem most expedient for peace and unity And she only requires of such as are admitted to any Office Imployment in the Church subscription to them as certain Theological Verities not repugnant to the Word of God which she has particularly selected from among many other to be publickly taught and maintain'd within her Communion as necessary or highly conducive to the preservation of Truth and prevention of Schism and for this reason she passes no other censure upon the Impugners of her Articles than what she has provided against the Impugners of the Publick Liturgy Episcopal Government and the Rites Ceremonies of Worship because they are all intended to the same end the avoiding Disorders and Confusions These then are the conditional Articles of the Communion of the Church of England and they are necessary and excellent provisions for peace and unity For among all the Disputes and Divisions of Christendom it is but reasonable she should take security of those Mens Doctrines and Opinions whom she intrusts in publick Imployments to prevent her being embroil'd in perpetual Quarrels and Controversies So that Subscriptions to the Articles is required chiefly upon the same account as the Oath of Supremacy whose Penalty is That such who refuse it shall be excluded such places of Honour and Profit as they hold in the Church or Commonwealth And 't is very reasonable that Princes should be particularly secured of the Fidelity of those Subjects that they entrust with their publick Offices And thus all the punishment that the Church of England is willing to have inflicted upon Dissenters from her Articles is to deprive them of their Ecclesiastical Preferments as being unfit for Ecclesiastical Imployments For though she is not so careless of her own peace as to impower Men in the exercise of her publick Offices at all adventure so neither is she so rigorous as to make Inquisition into their private Thoughts And therefore we are not so harsh and unmerciful as somebody you wot of who would be thought a warm Bigot for Toleration and yet has sometime profest he would give his Vote to banish any Man the Kingdom that should refuse their Subscription But as for the absolute Articles of the Faith of the Church of England they are of a more ancient date they were not of her own contriving but such as she found establish't in the purest and most uncorrupted Ages of the Church and in the times nearest to the primitive and Apostolical simplicity That is the measure of her Faith and the standard of her Reformation here she fixes the bounds of her Belief and seals up the Symbol of her Creed to prevent the danger of endless Additions and Innovations But as for all other matters I say with the late Learned Archbishop as he discourses against Fisher If any Errour which might fall into this as any other Reformation can be found then I say and 't is most true Reformation especially in cases of Religion is so difficult a work and subject to so many Pretensions that 't is almost impossible but the Reformers should step too far or fall too short in some smaller things or other which in regard of the far greater benefit coming by the Reformation it self may well be passed over and born withal And withal by virtue of this Fundamental Maxim may in due time and manner be redrest By the wisdom and moderation of this Principle the Church secures her self against the Prescription of Errour So that if she should at any time hereafter discover any defect in any particular instance of her Laws and Constitutions and in a work so great so various and so difficult 't is not impossible as the Archbishop observes for the greatest caution and prudence to be overseen in some smaller things she has reserved a just power in her self to reform and amend it This in brief is a true and honest account of the Protestancy of the Church of England But so it hapned that beyond the Seas there arose another Generation of pert and forward Men the vehemence of whose Zeal and Passion transported them from extream to extream so that they immediately began to measure Truth not by its agreement with the Scriptures and the purest Ages of the Church but by its distance from the See of Rome and the Apostacy of latter times whereby it so came to pass that they did but barter Errours in stead of reforming Corruptions and in lieu of the old Popish Tenets only set up some of their own new-fangled conceits But above all the rest there sprung up a mighty Bramble on the South-bank of the Lake Lemane that such is the rankness of the Soil spred and flourish't with such a sudden growth that in a few days partly by the industry of its Agents abroad and partly by its own indefatigable pains and pragmaticalness it quite over run the whole Reformation and in a short time the right Protestant Cause was almost irrecoverably lost under the more prevailing Power and Interest of Calvinism That proud and busie Man had erected a new Chair of Infallibility and enthroned himself in it and had he been acknowledged their Supreme Pastour he could not have obtruded his Decrees in a more peremptory and definitive way upon the Reformed Churches Nothing can be rightly done in any Foreign Church or State but by his Counsels and Directions He must thrust himself in for the Master-workman where-ever they were hammering Reformation He must be privy to all the Counsels

will not so far submit my self to the power of his Malice as to make Protestations to the World or Appeals to Heaven as some tender Constitutions would have done But I defie all the weak Attempts of malevolent Tongues False Slanders as they spread so they vanish like Lightning and to Men wise and honest the flash appears and dis-appears at once and he that is concerned for the good Opinion of such as are neither puts himself upon an harder Game then I am willing to play or able to manage And though in three Lines I could not onely answer but shame his base and proofless Surmises of the Unworthiness of my Aims by making it appear that so far I was from having any ill design that I was not in a Capacity of having any at all yet I will rather chuse utterly to neglect this and all his other mean and unworthy Arts of Malice as being satisfied that when Men would discredit their Adversaries by such unhandsom Reflections upon their Persons and private Affairs as are altogether impertinent to the Matters in debate they prove nothing but the strength of their Malice and weakness of their Cause Nay so outragious is our Author that when he comes to reflect upon my Satyr against Atheism he blows upon it with as much scorn and rancour as upon the sharpest and most pointed Invectives against themselves As if no Man could write against their Party but he must immediately be stricken with a Spirit of Infatuation and forfeit all use of his Reason and his Understanding and were not able to discourse pertinently upon the most pregnant and most noble Argument in the World But so it is though you speak with the Tongues of Men and Angels and though you understand all Mysteries and all Knowledge yet if you have not Charity for them you are no better then sounding Brass and a tinkling Cymbal And yet had he onely slighted and scorn'd my weak Essay upon this Theme it would have been none of the most remarkable Instances of his Incivility but to spit his rankest Venom at it is unexemplified Candour and Ingenuity And among all the ugly Suggestions he has darted at me he has not aimed any with more malice and bitterness of spirit then those he has bolted upon this occasion but whatsoever foul Language I may deserve upon other accounts I appeal to the hottest Zealot of his own Dispensation whether it were discreetly or civilly done to cast Reproaches at me whilst I was exposing Prophaneness and Irreligion to publick shame A man that had not been utterly transported with Rage and Envy would have had the discretion to have vented his Choler upon more seasonable opportunities for now alas he effectually defeats his own Malice by treating me with the same rudeness when I deserve well as when I deserve ill from which way of procedure what else can the World conclude but that the Man raves and cares not what he says so he may abuse and defame me But upon this occasion he has intimated a considerable Truth viz. That there is less danger in this kind of Atheism that vents its self in little Efforts of Wit and Drollery then in those Attempts that under Pretences of sober Reason propagate such Opinions and Principles as have a direct Tendency to the Subversion of the Grounds of Religion It is well advised and they would do well to consider it that invalidate the Rational Accounts of the Christian Faith and destroy all sober Grounds of the Divine Authority of the holy Scriptures that undermine the Evidence of Miracles and Universal Tradition and resolve the Motives of its Credibility into vain and frivolous Pretences What greater Advantage can any Man give to the Enemies of Religion then to inform them That the Alcoran may vie Miracles and Traditions with the Scripture and then in their stead produce no other proof of its Divine Authority then what the Alcoran may as well plead without their concurrence and such is the Testimony of the Spirit if it convince not in a rational way and by the use of Motives and Arguments for remove their Evidence and then all pretences to Inspiration become uncertain and unaccountable and there remains no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to distinguish between a true and a false Testimony And what greater disservice can any man do to the Interest of Religion then to draw bold and horrid Consequences in behalf of Atheists Papists and Antiscripturists from every petty Controversie Does not he effectually invite Men to a neglect of the holy Scriptures that tells them they can have neither Truth nor Certainty if there be various Readings in the Original Texts and yet confesseth that Ocular Inspection makes it manifest that there are various Readings both in the Old Testament and the New and it 's confessed there have been failings in the Transcribers who have often mistaken and that it is impossible it should be otherwise I must acknowledge my self a little surprised to hear our Author question whether there be such a thing as speculative Atheism in the World and yet himself can discover a wide door to it in every Proposition even in the Lords Prayer it self It is somewhat prodigious that when so many Men in all Ages have made so many Attempts to enter at this Door they should never be able to light upon such an easie and such an open passage § 9. Another passage that he chides and cavils at is the account I gave why I instill'd so much tartness and severity into some Expressions from the Example of our Saviours behaviour in the Temple where I observed that there was but one single instance in which Zeal or an high Indignation might be just and warrantable and that is when it vents its self against the Arrogance of haughty peevish and sullen Religionists The Rashness of this Assertion he checks and controuls with authentick Precedents and Examples out of the old Testament though every illiterate Peasant could have inform'd him of the vast difference between the Jewish and the Christian Oeconomy theirs was a more harsh and severe institution the temper of their Zeal was more fierce and warlike and in some Cases to kill a Brother out of hatred to Idolatry was a commendable Action and at some times Swords and Daggers were the means of Grace as they lately were of Reformation Their Zealots were priviledged to execute any more notorious Offender without the Forms and Solemnities of Legal Process But their Examples are no warrantable Precedents for our Practice and our Author might as pertinently have prescribed to my imitation the Act of Elias for a blameless and a justifiable instance of Zeal as that of Phinehas And as for the Example of our blessed Saviour he pretends grievous Resentments for the Irreverence of my Expressions towards him such as hot fit of Zeal seeming Fury and transport of Passion though I know not how I could have expressed my self in more