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
A89563	A defence of infant-baptism: in answer to two treatises, and an appendix to them concerning it; lately published by Mr. Jo. Tombes. Wherein that controversie is fully discussed, the ancient and generally received use of it from the apostles dayes, untill the Anabaptists sprung up in Germany, manifested. The arguments for it from the holy Scriptures maintained, and the objections against it answered. / By Steven Marshall B.D. minister of the Gospell, at Finchingfield in Essex.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1646 (1646)	Wing M751; Thomason E332_5; ESTC R200739	211,040	270

whether that signified Baptisme or no which by the usuall language of the Grecians I have made good against your exception and so I passe from your examen of this Author and follow you to the next In the third place you come to sift Origens testimony Where first you question the authority of the booke secondly you say if it be Origens yet hee calls Paedo-baptisme but an Apostolicall tradition and from thence you draw forth some conclusions In all which I hope to manifest your mistakings and so to discover the weaknesse of your premises that they shall not in any indifferent man his judgement be able to draw these conclusions after them First you question the authority of these passages cited out of Origen whether they are his or no and you call the Author of them supposed Origen It had been your part before you had so branded them first to have made it manifest by some undenyable evidence or other that they were not Origens you question but prove not and I am not the first that hath produced these testimonies to prove Infant-Baptisme many learned men handling this question have done the same before me You seek also to weaken the authority of these testimonies by the Censures of two judicious men Erasmus and Perkins the former of them who was vir emunctae naris in giving judgement of the writings of the Ancients saith that when a man reads his Homilies on Leviticus and on the Epistle to Romans translated by Ruffinus hee cannot be certaine whether he reads Ruffinus or Origen Yet Erasmus saith not that these Homilies set forth under his name were Ruffinus his Homilies and not Origens If Ruffinus had wronged Origen in that point now in question why should not that have been laid in his dish by some of the Antients discoursing on this question who no doubt would have been forward enough to have taken notice of it to Ruffinus his prejudice as well as other things which they object against him To this you adde Reverend Perkins his testimony who puts his commentary on the Romans amongst his counterfeit works as being not faithfully translated by Ruffinus It may be Origen might suffer by his Translators for Translations are various some affect in their Translations to follow their Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to trace the very footsteps of the words they translate other Translations are metaphrasticall or by way of paraphrase they expound as they translate thus severall men have their severall fancies though they adhere to the Author which they translate even when they keep not in all things to his words Hierom gives instance in the Septuagint Translators whose testimony I need not name to you Ruffinus acknowledges in translating Origens Homilies on Leviticus that hee added some things to what Origen said and what they were hee expresses ea quae ab Origene in auditorio Ecclesiae ex tempore non tam explanationis quam aedificationis intentione perorata sunt the things which were spoken by Origen to his auditory he translated them by way of explanation or did more fully lay them forth in a popular way and therein Ruffinus dealt candidly telling us what were the things hee added in this Erasmus acknowledges his faire dealing But as for his Commentary on the Romans Ruffinus confesseth se hoc opus totum ad dimidium traxisse there was no addition of Ruffinus Erasmus here blames him for cutting off what Origen delivered more at large but neither doth Ruffinus confesse nor Erasmus challenge him here for any addition to what Origen said I shall onely desire the Reader to take notice that none of the testimonies by me cited out of Origen are denyed by Erasmus to be Origens neither can they be conceived to bee any of the additions mentioned before by Ruffinus therefore your exception is not proved by Erasmus nor Perkins testimony You adde in the passages which I cite there are plaine expressions in them against Pelagians which makes you thinke they were put in after the Pelagian heresie was confuted by Hierome and Augustine though they make against the Pelagians yet who can necessarily inferre that all these Homilies in which these passages occurre were written after the Pelagian Heresie was broached Iust Martyr maintaines the Divinitie of Jesus Christ yet we know hee lived long before Arius the ring-leader of that cursed Sect which denied it can any man conclude that Iust Martyr did not beare witnesse to the divine Nature of Christ because hee lived before Arius started up Then you tell us Origen calls Infant-baptizing an Apostolicall tradition according to the observance of the Church This cavill I prevented when I quoted the testimony which seemes to have some weight in it for you grant what I said about Traditions which is warrant enough to me to adde no more to justifie it otherwise besides the testimony of Scripture which I named in 2 Thess 2. 15. many other out of Antiquitie may be added where Tradition is taken in that sense Epiphanius calls Baptisme and other mysteries observed in the Church which are brought forth out of the Gospell and setled by Apostolique authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where by the way you may see that hee grounds the Baptisme then in use in the Church and even then Infants were Baptized on the Scriptures and authoritie of the Apostles as well as other mysteries of the Christian Religion But I follow you Because say you in neither of these places taken notice of by mee Origen cites any Scripture for baptizing Infants therefore it must bee understood of an unwritten Traedition had it appeared as a new notion not heard of in the Church before then had it been fit he should have confirmed what he said but it being a position which as he sayes the Church observed hee needed not to prove it Ignatius presses upon Hiero to attend to reading and exhortation and cals those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 traditions yet addes no Scripture to confirm what he sayes because they were things well known to the Church to bee consonant to the Scripture So Origen tells us Infant-Baptisme was generally observed by the Church and had any appeared to plead against the lawfulnesse of it he would no doubt by Scripture have maintained it as well as affirmed it to come from the Apostles which he did These are your premises which now being answered your conclusions infer'd from thence of themselves must fall to the ground for if Infant-baptisme came from the Apostles and was generally observed in the Church in Origens time then you have no reason to challenge it as a thing not known before his time nor delivered over to the Church in his time albeit he exprest it under the name of an Apostolicall Tradition The last Greek Author alledged by me was Gregory Nazianzen who cals Baptism signaculum vitae cursum ineuntibus against which testimony you have nothing to object onely whereas I

Infant-Baptisme hath been perpetually observed in the Christian Church for there is no ancient Doctor that doth not acknowledge that Infant-Baptisme was constantly administred by the Apostles 4. That notwithstanding all this evidence I have brought from Antiquity yet I build as little upon Antiquitie as any other man I acknowledge what learned Rivet saith to be very true that Tradition is in most points uncertaine and therefore he that will build sure must build upon the Scripture Proinde necessario veniendum erat ad argumenta ex Scripturis quae si rem non evincant frustra traditionem advocabimus Animadv in Annot. Grotii in Cassandrum Art 9. Pag. 71. And I would have you and every Reader to remember that I doe not build my faith upon humane Traditions in this Argument nor did the ancients build upon humane traditions in this thing the very Pelagians themselves acknowledge it upon this ground Parvulos baptizandos esse concedunt saith Augustine of the Pelagians qui contra authoritatem universae Ecclesiae procul-dubio per Dominum et Apostolos traditam venire non possunt lib. 1. de peccat merit et Remiss cap. 26. Nay they were forced to their owne prejudice to acknowledge that Infants were baptized secundum regulam universalis Ecclesiae Evangelii sententiam lib. cont Caelest Pelag Now that which was pressed from the scope of the Gospell was not pressed as a Tradition and that which was acknowledged by the Pelagians to be the practise of the universall Church according to the rule of the Gospell was not built upon tradition I will therefore close up my testimonies produced out of the ancient writers with that savoury passage of learned Calvin in his Instructions against the Anabaptists Caeterum minime peto ut in eo probando nos Antiquit●s ●●llo modo juvet c. I doe not desire saith hee to borrow any helpe from Antiquity for the proofe of this point any whit farther then the judgement of the Ancients shall be found to bee grounded on the Word of God for I know full well that as the custome of men doth not give authority to the Sacraments so the use of the Sacrament cannot hee said to be right and regular because regulated by custome PART II. HAving made good the practise of Antiquity for the Baptizing of Infants I follow you in that which you are pleased to make the second part of my Sermon which you call prejudices against Antipaedo-baptists from their noveltie and miscarriages Where first you blame me for seeking by prefacing and setting downe a briefe touch of the Anabaptists carriage in Germany to create prejudice in my Auditors To which I answer that I yet never learned that a briefe setting downe the Originall History and State of a Controversie or the weight and consequence of it thereby the more to ingage the Readers attention was against any Rule or Law of Art either divine or humane but in case it were a fault Quis tulerit Gracchos You who begin your booke with telling how nine moneths since you sent thus many Arguments in Latine drawne up in a Scholastique way c. and never yet received any Answer and in the end of your booke intimated that though you allowed me but a moneth yet I have kept your booke a whole yeere unanswered and throughout your whole Treatise strive to make an ostentation of reading and put abundance of scoffes and jeeres upon them who are of a contrary mind to you and seeke to loade the opinion you write against as if it carried all kind of mischiefes in the wombe of it All which things you know well enough are apt to take the people but have no weight with them who use onely to weigh Proofe with Proofe and Argument with Argument you I say of all other should pardon such a peccadillo and might very well have passed over what either my selfe or Dr. Featlies Frontispice or Mr. Edwards his expressions might seeme to bee lyable to of exception in this kind In your second Section you blame mee for two things first that I gave you no more light out of Augustine to know who they were that questioned Paedo-Baptisme in his dayes you have searched and cannot finde any the Pelagians you acknowledge opposed it not the custome was so universall and esteemed so sacred that they durst not oppose it All the further light I shall now give in a matter of no greater consequence is that if you cannot finde any in Augustines dayes who questioned it I am contented you shall beleeve there were none Secondly you blame me for making such a leape from Augustines time to Baltazzar Pacommitanus as if be were the first who opposed it where as you alledge many who opposed it 400. yeeres before his time To which I answer I sayd not hee was the first whose judgement was against it but the first that made an head against it or a division or Schisme in the Church about it It is possible men may hold a private opinion differing from the received doctrine and yet never make a rent or divide the Church into factions about it But let us examine your instances you alledge the famous Berengarius as one 2. The Albingenses 3. Out of Bernard you mention another namelesse Sect. 4. Petrus Cluniacensis charges the same upon the Petro-Brusians To all which I answer first in generall That these instances of yours having occasioned mee to make a more dilligent search into the doctrine and practise of those middletimes between the Fathers and the beginning of Reformation in L●●bers time I dare confidently think that you will have an hard taske to prove out of any impartiall Authors that there were any company of men before the Anabaptists in Germany who rejected the baptizing of Infants out of the confession of their faith possibly some private man might doe it but I shall desire you to shew that any company or Sect if you will so call them have ever denied the lawfulnesse of baptizing of Infants produce if you can any of their confessions alledge any Acts of any Councells where this doctrine was charged upon any and condemned in that Councell you know the generalitie of the visible Christian world was in those dayes divided into the followers of the Beast and the small number of those who followed the Lambe who bare witnesse to the truth of the Gospel in the times of that Antichristian Apostasie these were called by severall names Berengarians Waldenses poore men of Lyons Albingenses Catharists Petr-Brusians and severall other names as may bee seene in Bishop Vshers book of the Succession and State of the Christian Churches Now all grant that the Church of Rome even in those dayes owned the baptizing of Infants and so did all those persecuted Companies or Churches of the Christians for any thing I can find to the contrary Severall Catalogues of their confessions and opinions I finde in severall Authors and more