Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	authority_n	church_n	err_v	2,923	5	9.8588	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52134	Mr. Smirke; or, The divine in mode: being certain annotations upon the animadversions on The naked truth : together with a short historical essay, concerning general councils, creeds, and impositions, in matters of religion / by Andreas Rivetus, Junior, anagr. Res Nuda Veritas.	Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678.	1676 (1676)	Wing M873; ESTC R214932	95,720	92

Bishops and Presbyters which as being the most easie to be answered he therefore referred to a Bishop But in good earnest after having confider'd this last Chapter so Brutal whether as to Force or Reason I have changed my resolution For he argues so despicably in the rest that even I who am none of the best Disputers of this World have conceiv'd an utter contempt for him He is a meer Kitchin-plunderer and attacks but the Baggage where even the Suttlers would be too hard for him P. 18. Does the Exposer allow that under Constantinus Pogonatus to have been a free General Council In the same page If the Exposer would have done any thing in his Dic Ecclesiae he should have proved that a General Council is the Church that there can be such a General Council or hath been that the Church can impose new Articles of Faith beyond the Express Words of Scripture that a General Council cannot erre in matters of Faith That the Church of his making cannot erre in matters of Faith Whereas our Church Article 19. saith thus far The Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not onely in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith This is an Induction from Particulars and remark the Title of the Article being of the Church Ours defines it The Visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments be duly ministred according to Christs Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same And then if the Reader please to look on the 20. and 21. Articles following one of the Authority of the Church the other of the Authority of General Councils unless a man will industriously mis-apply and mis-construe them those three are a Compendious and irrefragable Answer not onely to wh●… he saith here upon the Appendix but to his whole Book from one end to the other p. 19. I ask him when the Greek Church is excommunicate by the Roman when the Protestants left the Roman Church when we in England are neither Papists Lutherans nor Calvinists and when in Queen Maries time we returned to the Roman Church what and where then was the Catholick Church that was indefectible and against which the Gates of Hell did not prevail Was it not in the Savoy Moreover I ask him what hinders but a General Council may erre in matters of Faith when we in England that are another World that are under an Imperial Crown that are none of them as the Exposer words it but have a distinct Catholick Faith within our Four Seas did in the Reign before mentioned and reckon how many in that Convocation those were that dissented again make our selves one of them unless he has a mind to do so too which would alter the Case exceedingly P. 20. He quotes the Act I Eliz. cap. I. let him mind that clause in it by the express and plain words of Canonical Scripture and then tell me what service it hath done him whether he had not better have let it alone but that it is his fate all along to be condemn'd out of his own mouth which must alwayes succeed so when man urges a Real Truth against a Real Truth P. 23. I have reason to affirm and he will meet with it and has already in the Author that those General Councils howsoever called were no Repraesentatio totius nominis Christiani but nominally yea that such a Representation could not be P 22. He expounds Scriptures here and thinks he does wonders in it by assuming the Faculties of the whole Body to the Mouth which Mouth he saith and in some sense 't is very true if a man would run over the Concordance is the Clergy But I know not why the Mouth of the Church should pretend to be the Brain of the Church and understand and will for the whole Laity Let every man have his word about and 't is reason We are all at the same Ordinary and pay our souls equally for the Reckoning The Exposer's Mouth which is unconscionable would not onely have all the Meat but all the Talk too not onely at Church but at Council Table Let him read Bishop Taylor of Liberty of Prophecy P. 25 The Exposer that alwayes falsly Represents his Adversary as an Enemy to Creeds to Fathers as afterwards he does to Ceremonies to Logick to Mathematicks to every thing that he judiciously speaks and allows of here P. 25. saith the Author who delivers but the Church of Englands Doctrine herein and would not have Divine Faith impos'd upon nor things prest beyond Scripture in this matter of General Councils is guilty of unthought of Popery for the Papists really I think he partly slanders them herein cannot endure Councils General and Free They allow many a General Council more than we do If the Pope do not for some reason or other delight in some that are past or in having new ones it does not follow that the Papists do not I think those were Papists that ruffled the Pope too here in the West and that at the Council of Constance burnt John Hus and Hierome of Prague and resolv'd that Faith was not to be kept with Hereticks But pray Mr. Exposer if we must give divine Faith to General Councils let the Author ask you in his turn which are those General Councils How shall we know them Why onely such as accord with Scripture Why then we I mean you Mr. Exposer make our selves you still Judges of the General Councils the fault you so much condemn the Author for But what Popery thought or unthought of are you in the very next line guilty of that call the Popes Supremacy the Quintessence of Popery So that it seems the Quintessence of the Controversie betwixt ou●… Church and theirs is onely which shall be Pope for the Articles of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compulsion though the Non-conformists may I thank you Mr. Exposer for your News I had often heard it before I confess but till now I did never and scarce yet can believe it it is rather to be wish'd then hoped for a thing so surprizingly seasonable But for the good news Mr. Exposer I will give you four Bottles which is all I had by me not for mine own use but for a friend upon occasion of the First Second Third and Fourth Essence But the Quintessence I doubt would be too strong for your Brain especially in the morning when you are writing Animadversions P. 28. of Ceremonies he sports unworthily as if the Author spoke Pro and Con Contradictions while as a Moderator he advises our Church to Condescension on the right and the Dissenters to submission on the left how are men else to be brought together He had as good call every man because he has two hands an Ambidexter He would turn every mans Stomach worse than the

grown so cumbersom and great that the Emperor's highway was too narrow for any two of them and there could have been no passage without the removal of a Bishop But soon after the Council was over Eusebius the Bishop of Nicomedia and Theognis the Bishop of Nice who were already removed both by banishment and two others put in their places were quickly restor'd upon their petition wherein they suggested the cause of their not Signing to have been only because they thought they could not with a safe conscience subscribe the Anathema against Arrius appearing to them both by his writings his discourses and Sermons that they had been auditors of not to be guilty of those errors As for Arrius himself the Emperor quickly wrote to him It is now a considerable time since I writ to your Gravity to come to my Tents that you might injoy my countenance so that I can scarce wonder sufficiently why you have so long delaid it therefore now take one of the publick Coaches and make all speed to my Tents that having had experience of my kindness and affection to you you may return into your own Country God preserve you most dear Sir Arrius hereupon with his comarade Euzoius comes to Constantine's Army and offers him a petition with a confession of Faith that would have pass'd very well before the Nicene Council and now satisfied the Emperor Socr. l. 1. c. 19. 20. insomuch that he writ to Anathasius now Bishop of Alexandria to receive him into the Church but Anathanasius was of better mettle then so and absolutely refus'd it Upon this Constantine writ him another threat'ning Letter When you have understood hereby my pleasure see that you afford free entrance into the Church to all that desire it for if I shall understand that any who desires to be admitted into the Church should be either hindred or forbidden by you I will send some one of my Servants to remove you from your Degree and place another in your stead Yet Athanasius stood it out still though other Churches received him into Communion and the Heretick Novatus could not have been more unrelenting to lapsed Christians then he was to Arrius But this joyned with other crimes which were laid to Athanasius his charge at the Council of Tyre though I suppose indeed they were forged made Athanasius glad to fly for it and remain the first time in exile Upon this whole matter it is my impartial opinion that Arrius or whosoever else were guilty of teaching and publishing those errors whereof he was accused deserved the utmost Severity which consists with the Christian Religion And so willing I have been to think well of Athanasius and ill of the other that I have on purpose avoided the reading as I do the nameing of a book that I have hear'd tells the story quite otherwise and have only made use of the current Historians of those times who all of them tell it against the Arrians Only I will confess that as in reading a particular History at adventure a Man finds himself inclinable to favor the weaker party especially if the Conqueror appear insolent so have I been affected in reading these Authors which does but resemble the reasonable pity that men ordinarily have too for those who though for an erroneous conscience suffer under a Christian Magistrate And as soon as I come to Constantius I shall for that reason change my compassion and be doubly ingaged on the Orthodox party But as to the whole matter of the Council of Nice I must crave liberty to say that from one end to the other though the best of the kind it seems to me to have been a pityful humane business attended with all the ill circumstances of other worldly affairs conducted by a spirit of ambition and contention the first and so the greatest Aecumenical blow that by Christians was given to Christianity And it is not from any sharpness of humor that I discourse thus freely of Things and Persons much less of Orders of men otherwise venerable but that where ought is extolled beyond reason and to the prejudice of Religion it is necessary to depreciate it by true proportion It is not their censure of Arianism or the declaring of their opinion in a controverted point to the best of their understanding wherein to the smalness of mine they appear to have light upon the truth had they likewise upon the measure that could have moved me to tell so long a story or bring my self within the danger and aim of any captious Reader speaking thus with great liberty of mind but little concern for any prejudice I may receive of things that are by some men I dolized But it is their Imposition of a new Article or Creed upon the Christian world not being contained in express words of Scripture to be believed with Divine Faith under Spritual and Civil Penalties contrary to the Priviledges of Religion and their making a Precedent follow'd and improv'd by all succeeding ages for most cruel Persecutions that only could animate me In digging thus for a new Deduction they undermined the fabrick of Christianity to frame a particular Doctrine they departed from the general Rule of their Religion and for their curiosity about an Article concerning Christ they violated our Saviour's first Institution of a Church not subject to any Addition in matters of Faith nor liable to Compulsion either in Belief or in Practice Farr be it from me in the event as it is from my Intention to derogate from the just authority of any of those Creeds or Confessions of Faith that are receiv'd by our Church upon clear agreement with the Scriptures nor shall I therefore unless some mens impertinence and indiscretion hereafter oblige me pretend to any further knowledg of what in those particulars appears in the ancient Histories But certainly if any Creed had been Necessary or at least Necessary to have been Imposed our Saviour himself would not have left his Church destitute in a thing of that moment Or however after the Holy Ghost upon his departure was descended upon the Apostles and They the Elders and Brethren for so it was then were assembled in a legitime Council at Jerusalem it would have seemed good to the Holy Ghost and them to have saved the Council of Nice that labor Or at least the Apostle Paul 2 Cor. 12. 2. and 4. who was caught up into Paradise and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for any man to utter having thereby a much better opportunity then Athanasius to know the Doctrine of the Trinity would not have been wanting through the abundance of that revelation to form a Creed for the Church sufficient to have put that business beyond controversy Especially seeing Heresies were sprung up so early and he foresaw others and therefore does prescribe the method how they are to be dealt with but no Creed that I read of Shall any sort of men presume to interpret those words

it self under all Persecutions to the Heathen Emperours and merited their favour so far till at last it regularly succeeded to the Monarchy should under those of their own profession be more distressed But the Answer is now much shorter and certainer and I will adventure boldly to say the true and single cause then was the Bishops And they were the cause against reason For what power had the Emperours by growing Christians more then those had before them None What obligation were Christ an Subjects under to the Magistrate more then before None But the Magistrates Christian authority was what the Apostle describ'd it while Heathen not to be a terror to good works but to evil What new Power had the Bishops acquired whereby they turned every Ponti●… into a Gaiaphat None neither 2 Cor. 10. 8. Had they been Apostles The Lord had but given them Authority for edification not for destruction They of all other ought to have Preached to the Magistrate the terrible denunciations in Scripture against usurping upon and persecuting of Christians They of all others ought to have laid before them the horrible Examples of God's ordinary Justice against those that exercised Persecution But provided they could be the Swearers of the Prince to do all due Allegiance to the Church and to preserve the Rights and liberties of the Church however they came by them they would give him as much scope as he pleased in matter of Christianity and would be the first to solicite him to break the Laws of Christ and ply him with hot places of Scripture in order to all manner of Oppression and Persecution in Civils and Spirituals So that the whose business how this unchristian Tyranny came and could entitle it self among Christians against the Christian priviledges was only the case in Zech. 13. 6. 7 And one shall say unto him what are these wounds in thy hands then he shall answer those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends Because they were all Christians they thought forsooth they might make the bolder with them make bolder with Christ and wound him again in the hands and feet of his members Because they were friends they might use them more coursly and abuse them against all common civility in their own house which is a Protection to Strangers And all this to the end that a Bishop might sit with the Prince in a Junto to consult wisely how to preserve him from those people that never meant him any harm and to secure him from the Sedition and Rebellion of men that seek nor think any thing more but to follow their own Religious Christian Worship It was indeed as ridiculous a thing to the Pagans to see that work as it was afterwards in England to strangers where Papists and Protestants went both to wrack at the same instant in the same market and when Erasmus said wittily Quid agitur in Augliâ Consulitur he might have added though not so elegantly Comburitur de Religione Because they knew that Christian Worship was free by Christ's institution they procured the Magistrate to make Laws in it concerning things unnecessary As the Heathen Persecutor Julian introduced some bordering Ragan Ceremonyes and arguing with themselves in the same manner as he did Soz. l. 5. c. 16. That if Christians should obey those Lawes they should be able to bring them about to something further which they had designed But if they would not then they might proceed against them without any hope of pardon as breakers of the Laws of the Empire and represent them as turbulent and dangerous to the Government Indeed whatsoever the Animadverter saith of the Act of Seditious Conventicles hero in England as if it were Anvill'd after another of the Romane Senate the Christians of those Ages had all the finest tooles of Persecution out of Julian's Shop and studied him then as curiously as some do now Machiavel These Bishops it was who because the Rule of Christ was incompatible with the Power that they assumed and the Vices they practised had no way to render themselves necessary or tolerable to Princes but by making true piety difficult by Innovating Laws to revenge themselves upon it and by turning Makebates between Prince and People instilling dangers of which themselves were the Authors Hence it is that having awakened this jealousy once in the Magistrate against Religion they made both the Secular and the Ecclesiastical Government so uneasy to him that most Princes began to look upon their Subjects as their Enemies and to imagine a reason of State different from the Interest of their People and therefore to weaken themselves by seeking unnecessary grievous supports to their authority Whereas if men could have refrain'd this cunning and from thence forcible governing of Christianity leaving it to its own simplicity and due Liberty but causing them in all other things to keep the King 's and Christ's peace among themselves and towards others all the ill that could have come of it would have been that such kind of Bishops should have prov'd less implemental but the good that must have thence risen to the Christian Magistrate and the Church then and ever after would have been inexpressible But this discourse having run in a manner wholly upon the Imposition of Creeds may seem not to concern and I desire that it may not reflect upon our Clergy nor the Controversies which have so unhappyly vex'd our Church ever since the reign of Edward the Sixth unto this day Only if there might somthing be pick'd out of it towards the Compromising of those differences which I have not from any performance of mine the vanity to imagine it may have use as an Argument a Majori ad Minus their disputes having risen only from that of Creeds ours from the Imposition only of Ceremonies which are of much inferior consideration Faith being necessary but Ceremonies Despensable Unless our Church should lay the same weight upon them as the Animadverter has done thorow his whole Studious Chapter on that Subject and because p. 34. this is the time of her settlement that there is a Church at the end of every Mile that the Sovereign Powers spread their wings to cover and protect her that Kings and Queens are her Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers that she hath stately Cathedrals there he so many arguments now to make Ceremonies Necessary which may all be answered with one Question that they use to ask Children Where are you proud But I should rather hope from the wisdom and Christianity of the present guids of our Chruch that they will after an age and more after so long a time almost as those Primitive Bishops I have spoke of yet suffered the Novatian Bishops in every Diocess have mercy on the Nation that hath been upon so slender a matter as the Ceremonies and Liturgy so long so miserably harass'd That they will have mercy upon the King whom they know against his natural inclination His