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	interpretation_n	4,397	5	10.0901	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44239	The Holy fast of Lent defended against all its prophaners, or, A Discourse shewing that Lent-fast was first taught the world by the apostles, as Dr. Gunning, now Bishop of Ely learnedly proved in a sermon printed by him in the year 1662 by His Majesties special command together with a practical direction how to fast.	Gunning, Peter, 1614-1684.	1677 (1677)	Wing H2525; ESTC R40999	45,046	54

of it profess from Generation to Generation to have observed it from the first planting of Christianity amongst them and wheresoever Lent is not observed its Non-observers do profess only from such a time to have not observed it and their Ancestors before that time for divers Generations ever since they cannot well tell when had blindly observed it whence it is manifest that the observation of Lent is the ancient Christian practice and its non-observance a Novelty And indeed had the keeping of Lent been a Novelty and not heard of in the Primitive times its observance being so burthensome and contrary to flesh and blood and besides as its Opposers say Superstitious also it s not possible it should be introduced not into one but into all the Christian Countrys of both the Eastern and Western Church in a short time and with a small industry of its Introducers and without great opposition both from good Men for its Superstition and from bad Men for its troublesomeness to Corrupt nature But no Ecclesiastical History though far lesser matters be Recorded makes mention of any such opposition made against Lent in its first bringing in or how or by whom it was brought in even into so much as one particular Diocess But all Records testifie that the prime Doctors both of the Greek and Latin Church in the fifth and sixth Century have been most Religious Observers and Zealous defenders of it which certainly they would never have been had Lent been a Superstitious Novelty and not heard of in the first 300. years And indeed whosoever maturely considers the genius and temper of the Christian Doctors and Bishops for the first five hundred years after our Saviour will find it impossible for all the power of Hell to impose a Novelty upon them For they were not like the seeming Zelots of our Age pretenders to new Lights but their Profession was not to correct Antiquity but faithfully to deliver to Posterity what they immemorially from the Apostles had received from their Ancestors and their great Answer to Introducers of new Doctrines or Practices was Nihil novandum nisi quod traditum est We must Innovate nothing but stick close to what has been delivered to us by our Fore-fathers Does a Montanus upon pretext of Divine Inspiration endeavor to impose upon Christians the observation of three Lents in the year the Church of Christ replys by one of her prime Doctors S. Hierom We Fast one Lent within the compass of the whole year according to the Tradition of the Apostles The Montanists keep three Lents in the year as if three Saviours had suffered For other Instances I refer my Reader to the Golden Treatise of S. Vincentius Lerinensis against Innovations As for Pretenders to discover new truths by reading of the Holy Scriptures it s easily conceivable how such persons may be imposed upon by subtil Sophisters and lead into Superstitious practices and made to believe Erroneous Doctrines to wit by bad and new Interpretations of good and antient Scriptures But on the other side how shall a Teacher of Novelties deceive a Country which is resolved to hold fast whatsoever Doctrin or Practice was taught them by their immediate Progenitors who received the same Doctrin or Practice by an uninterrupted delivery from Father to Son from the Apostles Let him pretend Scriptures and bring a thousand places out of the Law Psalms Prophets and Apostles what will the Reply be The Scriptures you alledge we Reverence and have ever been taught to Reverence them as Divine but we have been taught to interpret and understand them in another manner and sense then you alledge them Let him pretend Authority of Doctors as Learned as Origen or as Holy as Cyprian nay if he will a whole Provincial-Council as numerous as that in Africa which determin'd Re-baptization of Persons Baptized by Hereticks they reply We must not Innovate we must hold to what was taught us by our Ancestors What means then to make persons thus disposed to leave their antient faith and practice and admit of a Novelty you must prove to them that you and they and other Christians in several Countrys have been taught so to believe by your immediate Predecessors and uninterruptedly from Father to Son from the Apostles but then you cease to be a Preacher of Novelties contrary to the supposition Apply what has been said to our present Controversie Now that the study of the Christian Church in the fifth Century was not to deliver to Posterity Doctrins of her own devising but carefully to keep what she had received from her Fore-elders and faithfully to teach her Children what she had been taught by her Fathers is manifest out of S. Vincent cited above who lived in that Age and testifies that often asking of very many his Contemporaries famous for their Sanctity and Learning how he might be able to discern the truth of the Catholick Faith from the falsity of heretical pravity he always received this Answer in a manner from them all That if he desired to remain sound in his Faith he must fortifie it first with the Authority of the divine Law and then with the Tradition of the Catholick Church that is as he explicates himself afterwards He must examin what has always all over the Christian Church and by all Christian Doctors or in a manner by all been Believed and hold to that against all Novelties though defended by private Doctors never so Holy or never so Learned or producing never so many Scriptures for themselves if interpreted after a new manner But saies the same S. Vincent chap. 2. Here perhaps some body may ask seeing the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect and is it self sufficient and more than sufficient for all things what need is there to add to it the Authority of the Ecclesiastical or Churches understanding of it Because the holy Scripture by reason of its depth is not by all taken in one and the same sense for Photinus expounds it one way Sabellius another Donatus another Arrius another And chap. 41. He tells us how the third General Council held in his days at Ephesus proceeding according to this rule Condemned Nestorius For the Fathers of that Christian Synod in number about 200. having consulted the sentiment of their Predecessors the eminent Doctors of the Oriental and Western Church S. Peter of Alexandria S. Athanasius S. Theophilus S. Gregory Nazianzen S. Basil S. Gregory Nyssen S. Felix S. Iulius S. Cyprian S. Ambrose concerning their Controversie in debate they resolved to hold their Doctrin to follow their Counsel to believe their Testimony to obey their Judgment Quae tandem c. What were at length saies S. Vincent the Voyces and Votes of them all but that what was anciently delivered should be kept what was of late invented should be exploded After which we admired and proclaimed the great Humility and Sanctity of that Council In which so many Priests in a manner also the greater part

observance which was preparatory to the greatest Feast which was followed with the 50. days Solemnity Thus Philo contemporary of the Apostles concerning the Hebrew Christians in and about Alexandria where S. Mark was set Bishop by S. Peter I omit the Testimony of the 68. Canon of the Apostles for that Ecclesiastical Writers do not unanimously agree that those Canons at least all of them were made by the Apostles although the sixth General Councel Celebrated above a 1000. years agoe received and approved 85. of them There can be no doubt but they are very antient Bishop Gunning thinks they were made in the second Century by the Successors of the Apostles who in that Age were commonly as he says called Apostles The 68●h Canon runs thus If any Bishop or Priest or Deacon or Lector or Cantor shall not Fast the sacred Lent Quadragesimam before Easter or Wednesday or Friday let him be deposed unless he be hindred by weakness of body But if he be a Laick let him be deprived of the Communion Indeed the Canon does not seem first to institute Lent but rather supposes it and urges its observance by inflicting a penalty upon Non-observers All which makes for my designed purpose for who could so early except the Apostles be the first Authors of such an Institution when as yet there had been no General Council except that of the Apostles at Hierusalem But have we no Scripture for the Observation of Lent Fast We have Scripture that our B. Saviour Fasted 40. days and we have also in Scripture that if any man says he is in Christ he ought to walk as he walk'd Moreover we have yet more express Scriptures as interpreted not by some one or two Fathers but by the whole body of Catholick Christians as Bishop Gunning well observes out of Tertullian cited above They that is the Catholick Christians who are called by him Psychici surely think that in the Gospel those days are determin'd for Fasts in which the Bridegroom was taken away and a little after the Paschal Fast those days in which the Bridegroom was taken away Those words then of our B. Lord in excuse of his Disciples not Fasting whilst he was with them Can you make the Children of the Bridegroom fast while the Bridegroom is with them But the days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them then shall they fast in those days Those words I say in the sense of the Primitive Church in the second Century were intended by our B. Saviour to signifie that Christians after his departure should Fast yearly upon Good-Friday the day of his death and the rest of the Pascal or Lent-Fast those days in which the Bridegroom was taken away I add whether those words in those days did in the intention of our Saviour signifie Lent-Fast or no it 's evident had not the Primitive Christians Fasted Lent they would never have interpreted our Lords words as they did which is sufficient for my purpose to wit to evince that the most Primitive pure Church did Fast Lent And besides according to common sense who are more likely to understand aright our B. Saviours or his Apostles words they who lived in the next Age to them or we who live sixteen hundred years after Do we or any other Nation in the world understand our written Laws according to the sense a crafty witty Lawyer can wrest them to signifie or accordingly as they have been immemorially understood since the first making of them and as cases and disputes have by our Learned Judges been decided by them More-over suppose but only the Primitive Christians for whose sake the Holy Scriptures were written rightly understood them and let after Generations interpret the same Scriptures in the sense they were interpreted by their Ancestors and let this be their great enquiry how their Fore-elders understood them and its impossible they should ever be mis-understood but leave their Interpretation to every private mans sentiment and you open a gap to all Innovations and Heresies as Bishop Gunning judiciously observes Reason says he pag. 23. and experience and the direction of all Wise men in the Church of God Antient and Modern the House of Wisdom Councels Reverend Fathers and Writers and our Church in particular have directed and commanded us not to interpret the Scripture in things of publick concernment to the Churches rule of believing and doing but as we find it interpreted by the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church as they had received it from those before them For that the leaving of every man to make any thing of any Text upon any device out of his own head to the founding of any new and strange Doctrin or Practice as necessary there from or to the opposing any constantly received Doctrin or Practice of the Church-Vniversal for in other matters they may happily with leave quietly abound in their own sense leaves all bold Innovators which can draw any disciples after them to be as much Law-givers to the Church by their uncontrolable Law interpreting as any Pope or Enthusiast can or need pretend to be and hath been and ever will be to the end of the World the ground of most H●resies and Schisms brought into the Church by Men who departing from the teaching and stable Interpretation of the Church in their own Instability and Science falsly so called pervert the Scriptures to their own and others their obstinate followers destruction And indeed he who has so much Pride and Self-conceit as to prefer his own seeming sense of holy Scriptures before the sense which Holy Fathers and Christian. Doctors unanimously attest to have received from their Fore-elders is nextly disposed to vilifie and reject the whole Letter of Sacred Scriptures upon pretext of being uncertain whether the Letter now commonly owned and approved by the unanimous consent of Christian Doctors be indeed that Letter which was left the World by the Apostles But if a yearly Religious Observation of the Holy Fast of Lent be of such singular benefit and Spiritual advantage to all Christians and if also the Apostles of our Lord Jesus did recommend such an Observation to the several Countrys by them Converted to the Christian Faith how comes it to pass that none of all their Writings which have come to our hands makes express mention of it Hear Bishop Gunning p. 138. Ritual Observances being Visible and as it were legible in the Vniversal Churches constant practice needed not to be set down in her written rule Or those which are therein set down not necessarily so evidently but that they might need the Interp●etation of such the Churches practice And indeed whoever will impartially consider the nature of the Books of the New Testament will be so far from wondering that all the Rituals of Christianity are not expresly declared in them that he will rather wonder there is so much in them of the exterior Rites of Christian Religion as there is Had any

Magistrates is a great shame Reflect also with him upon the Prayer for the first Sunday or Lent O Lord who for our sake didst Fast 40. days and 40. nights give us Grace to use such Abstinence that our Flesh being subdued to the Spirit we may ever obey thy Godly motions in Righteousness and true Holiness c. How unworthy it would be to make that Holy Prayer to bear such a sense as this O Lord who for our sakes didst Fast forcy days and forty nights give us Grace to use such Abstinence that our Sea-faring Men and Marriners and young Cattle and the like may be mainta●ned In fine Abstinence from certain Meats upon certain days is against no Law that I know of but the Law of sin in our own sinful bodys our corrupt greedy desire of eating what we will when we will and as much as we will But still you say you are afraid of Will-worship and Superstition by observing a time which you fear God has never commanded you But you have more reason to be afraid of Profaneness in taking no notice of a time which you have all reason to think God has commanded you Religiously to observe if you reflect well upon what has been said But you cannot perswade your self its any ways acceptable to God to Fast in Lent For that you must know that the power of Education is upon you and our proud corrupt Nature has a great deal of d●fficulty to condemn it self of so gross ignorance and mistake that notwithstanding we have made Religion our business for perhaps twenty or thirty years or more yet we have looked upon a Practice as an useless vain Superstition which was indeed true Christian Piety But it s better to come into Gods Vineyard at the Eleventh hour than not at all Better late than not at all come to the knowledge of any part of true Christian Piety Learn to be Wise from your own dammage and reflect seriously with your self how seldom you have Fasted in the whole course of your life and yet you cannot but acknowledge the singular benefit of Religious Fasting and if you believe Jesus Christ when it is rightly performed it shall have a singular reward in the other Life And consider moreover whether you shall in all likelihood Fast more days in this next year if you Fast only when the Spirit of God shall move you to Fast or if you should engage your self to Fast all Fridays Ember-days Lent c. God knows our private good purposes are easily broken by us and the best of us stand in need of the extrinsecal help of a common Law to call upon us to do our duty especially in such things as are troublesome to Flesh and Blood as Fasting and Abstinence are You are resolved for example to Fast to morrow a Friend comes in and either invites himself to Dine with you or you to Dine with him and now it s ten to one but either out of modesty or human respect you break your purpose of Fasting But when a day is set apart for Fasting or Abstinence by a common Law every one presumes his Neighbour observes it and does not expect that for his sake he should Violate it Fasting and Prayer are strangely useful to save our souls and it concerns Superiors to secure some times for them in their Subjects let them super-add what they please by their own private Devotions And we find it but too true by too sad experience in too many what the German Lutheran confessed to his Son His Son refusing to eat upon a Fasting-day he told him he was not to Fast upon Fridays or Saturdays or any other Set-days that was Superstition but when the Spirit moved him His Son demanding I pray Father when did the Spirit move you to Fast these thirty years you have been a Lutheran He ingenuously confest By Goat niet een mael By God not once And indeed it is a sad thing to consider in our poor Country how many Zelots there are amongst us for Religion and yet how seldom or never at all they Fast. Nay many of them because they are loth to condemn their own practices because the holy Scripture sometimes Allegorically calls Abstinence from sin Fasting look upon Abstinence from Meat and Drink as no true Fast As if they should say there were no such thing prohibited by God as Carnal Adultery and Fornication because in a Spiritual and Allegorical sense Idolatry or a Worshipping of false Gods is often called in Holy Writ Fornication and Adultery But this is the just punishment of Pride and Self-conceit God ever resisting the Proud but giving Grace to the Humble deservedly do they fall into a thousand Spiritual Phrensies and Madnesses who prefer their own private seeming sense of H. Scriptures not only before the judgment of their present Guides and Teachers but also before the unanimous interpretation of the prime Christian Saints and Doctors of all Ages whom God has appointed to preserve us whilst we adhere to their solid Sentiments from being carryed away with every wind of Doctrin of our own private Opinions Whom all that has been said cannot perswade to a Religious Observation of the Penitential time of Lent I have one reasonable request to them that they would but for one year Fast as many days out of private Devotion as they do who Fast at Set-times and days commanded by an extrinsecal Authority and I perswade my self they would find so great spiritual benefit thereby that they would clearly see Fasting being good in it self its being commanded by our Superiors can never make it Superstition I deny not but the change of the Primitive Christian way of Fasting into a meer mock-abstinence from certain kind of Meats by Set-Fasters gave but too great occasion to many simple well-meaning people to look upon all Fasting as a meer Superstition It being hard to conceive that ever the Apostles could appoint such a manner of Fasting as is too too commonly practised by Pretenders to follow Apostolical Institutions in their Set-Fasts For what say Non-Conformists if we must upon the Authority of Primitive Fathers Fast Lent why then ought we not to follow the manner of Fasting prescribed by the same Fathers Now they recommend to us as well Abstinence from Wine as flesh and only one temperate Refection towards the Evening As for Answer to this Objection we all acknowledge our fault and are resolved seriously to endeavor amendment and according to our Corporal and Spiritual strength piously to emulate the Primitive Christians Fasting And would you joyn with us in so holy an exercise we hope what our own simple knowledge is not able to prevail with our sensual Nature to do your good example would shame us into the effectual performance of at least in some good measure And now I hope your Objection is Answered And a happy solution this indeed God grant it But its time to add a word concerning the Practical manner of Religious