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	primitive_a	2,508	5	9.0550	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40721	The Socinian controversie touching the Son of God reduced, in a brief essay, to prove the Son one in essence with the Father, upon Socinian principles, concessions and reason : concluded with an humble and serious caution to the friends of the Church of England, against the approaches of Socinianism / by F.F. ...	Fullwood, Francis, d. 1693.	1693 (1693)	Wing F2516; ESTC R17950	19,397	38

the distinction of the chief or supreme God and a true God These Advances seriously weigh'd methinks while we grant and acknowledge the subordination of the Son to the Father as his Original and Beginning with the unanimous Consent of the Ancients as Dr. Bull and Bishop Pearson have observed and that the Divine Perfections of the Father and the Son are in the Son not co-ordinately but subordinately and communicated to him from the Father and in that sence the Father may be said to be greater than the Son in that he is the Origo and Principal Methinks I say they should see reason enough to meet us and acknowledge the Son with the Nicene Fathers and the Catholick Church to be God of God Light of Light very God of very God I shall conclude this Argument with the pertinent and forcible Reasoning of Dr. B. in his Second Edition If we consider saith he the thing it self it appeareth much more credible that the Eternal Son of God should descend to the nature of Man than that a Man should be made God endued with a new Omnipresence to hear and Omnipotence to grant the Prayers of all the Supplicants that in all places of the World should invoke him Again saith he if we regard the Dignity of his Person it is plainly more Honourable to believe him God the Creator than a Creature Deified If we consider the Fruits our Thankfulness must be greater c. So that upon all accounts were the Scriptures doubtful we ought rather to carry our Byass towards our Lord's Eternal Divinity than against it VII Authority the Ground of Faith That Belief which hath no Authority but is against all Authority competent in that Case ought not only to be suspected but to be rejected as groundless and false This is not to be questioned for seeing Authority is the only Reason and Ground of Faith that Belief that hath no competent Authority is groundless and that which is against such Authority must needs be false But the Socinian Belief that the Son of God had no Existence or Being before he was conceiv'd and born of the Virgin Mary hath no Authority and is against all Authority competent in that Case therefore such Belief is groundless and false Now that such Belief that our Saviour had no Being before he was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary is without and against all competent Authority in the Case will easily appear by considering what is such Authority and the Socinian Concessions about it and the Evidence of the thing itself 1. What can be supposed competent Authority to ground the Christian Faith upon but the Holy Scriptures as they are in themselves or as they are expounded and understood by the Primitive Fathers Ecclesiastical Councils or the Vniversal Church 2. Now that the said Belief of Socinus and his Followers is without and against all this Authority 't is not my province to argue here which hath been done an hundred times invincibly by others only from the Socinians own Concessions and the Evidence of the thing itself 1. For the Holy Scriptures as they are in themselves tho' the Socinians make great Pretences that they are of their side yet 't is plain they dare not trust to them yea by two Observations 't is very apparent that they more than suspect they are against them The first Observation is That they pre-judge and indeed enervate all the Authority of the Holy Scripture by their bold and dear Proposition which they resolve shall serve them as an Asylum and Refuge where they cannot otherwise escape the Light and Force of the Text. The Proposition I mean is to this purpose That tho' the Holy Scripture speak a thing never so plainly i. e. that the true and proper sence cannot be evaded yet if the Matter thereof be contrary to their Sentiments or cannot be apprehended by them they are not bound to believe it but their own Reason To this purpose it is generally observed that Socinus and his Followers as particularly a late Socinian Pamphlet boldly consents declare themselves which if they were not jealous at least that the Scripture is plain against some of their Opinions such cunning Gamesters would not affirm to so great Reproach of their Profession and Scandal of the Christian Religion My other Observation is their playing and trisling with the Holy Scripture their straining their Wits and wracking their Fancies of which 't is confess'd they have good store to coin new and unheard-of Glosses for the wresting and bending of the Text to their new Hypothesis so strange to the plain Letter and Sence of the Text so impertinent to the Context so contrary to all ancient and other modern Expositions that we cannot have so much Charity for them as to think they believe themselves or have any Veneration or Respect to Divine Revelation Not here to dispute the Particulars or to enumerate all their finenesses of Criticism Wit and Fancy I shall only remark some Instances that carry a Confutation in their Foreheads When they tell us That in Joh. 1. in the Beginning is not in the Beginning of the World but of the Gospel When they interpret the Word was made Flesh it was so in the Infirmities i. e. Qualities of the Flesh not in the Substance When in the words following he is said to dwell among us they say it was after his Resurrection When upon the Text Before Abraham was I am they comment thus Before the Gentiles were actually called and became Abraham's Children When they observe that the words of St. Thomas My Lord and my God were spoken by way of admiration to God the Father and not to our Saviour when by Thrones Principalities in Heaven they would have us understand Men on Earth tho' the Text saith they are Invisible Col. 1. 16. When it is so frequently and plainly written That the Son of God made the Worlds and that all things are upheld and subsist by him they will have it meant only of Regeneration or the new Creation When our Saviour affirms I and my Father are one they say he meant so only in Will and Consent contrary directly to the scope and sence of the Context which speaks of their Power to keep his Disciples from Violence When upon that famous Scripture In him dwells all the fulness of the Scripture bodily they restrain it to his Doctrine and exclude his Person When by the Mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh upon a Criticism they will have it the Gospel manifested in the Flesh which makes brave sence especially if you consider the words following And lastly to crown all when Socinus was puzzled with the frequent and plain Assertions that our Saviour came down from Heaven into the World he becomes Enthusiast and dreams of a Revelation he had That Christ after his Incarnation was taken up into Heaven to learn his Father's Will When I say we revolve and weigh these and such-like wild and unreasonable

unaccountable Figments of theirs to avoid Scripture Arguments we cannot imagine either that the Scripture should favour them or they the Scriptures or in plain English that they allow the Holy Scriptures to be the Rule or Foundation of their Faith 2ly As their Belief that our Saviour had not a Being before his Incarnation is without and against the Authority of the Scriptures so they confess and seem to glory that all the Ancient Fathers tho' some of them were contemporary with the Apostles and Councils were against them in this great and fundamental Point Accordingly Socinus enters his Protestation against them all The heap of Authorities and Testimonies out of the Fathers and Councils have no force especially against us that are not diffident to dissent from them 5 Tom. 2 Resp ad 2 C. Wick p. 618. 3ly As for the Catholick Church it in no Age in the Times of or since the Apostles ever received this Opinion That our Saviour did not exist before he was born of the Virgin Mary but hath in all Ages rejected and exploded it as the Madness of Heresie For Fifteen Hundred Years together the Catholick Church stood quiet in the possession of the contrary Truth Indeed the Arrians vex'd Her a considerable time about the Eternal Generation and Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father but at last the truth of those Points by diligent search into the Holy Scriptures was so well settled by Fathers and Councils that the Church continued quiet and free from those Arrian Disputes for Twelve or Thirteen Hundred years together But what was this to our upstart Socinianism The Arrians never dreamt of this Conceit they believed that the Son of God was made a God before and was the great God's Instrument in making the Worlds joyn'd as the Learned Bishop Pearson hath noted with the Orthodox in Council to pass an Anathema against one or two that in that Age vented that Point That our Saviour had no Being before he was born of the Virgin and it being so early knock'd in the Head we never read it took Life or stirred again except one Abelardus hit upon it before Servetus's Time Whence should this new Light spring in Polonia so late to the disturbance of the Church the reproach of the Fathers and Councils and the weakening or nulling the Authority of the Holy Scriptures Who can chuse but reflect hence upon the Presumption Pride Confidence and Impudence of this Novel-Attempt to ridicule the Christian Faith and to subvert the Foundation of the Christian Religion If we have any deferrence to the Word of God to the Primitive Fathers and the whole Church we must conclude Socinianism is intolerable Indeed two Arguments render it hardly Christian 1. That they are gone out of the Catholick or Christian Church which is founded in the Trinity both for her Faith and Worship 2. That it makes another Foundation for her Faith viz. her own corrupted Reason besides and contrary to the only Doctrinal Foundation of the Christian Religion viz. the Holy Scriptures as we noted before Have they Doubting or something like Faith in this Matter why do they not follow the Apostle's Rule and keep it to themselves They do not think that all are in a damnable state that are not of their Opinions Is there then no Regard to be had to Peace I fear neither their Charity nor Prudence is better than their Faith Why must the World feel that they are Firebrands as well as Hereticks If we may judge by their modern Writing as they exceed their Fathers the Arrians in their Principles so they succeed them in their Fierceness VIII Faith intelligible Obj. But I must not neglect the great Obstacle They say they are against Mysteries and things unintelligible God hath given us Faculties of Reason and Understandings and by these only we conceive and judge of things to be believed and God cannot expect we should believe without Reason or act beyond our proper Sphere or believe we know not what or what we cannot conceive or apprehend Sol. I am not against Aquinas's Description of Faith Fides est actus animae rationalis quatenus rationalis I know Reason is the Form of Man and the very Principle of Human Actions as such and we must in some measure conceive and apprehend by our Reason both what and why we believe But tho' Ratio be Judex Scriptura est Norma and the Scripture as the Rule of Faith presents us with due Objects to be apprehended by our Understanding and with sufficient reason from God's own Word why we should believe them Hence let us take occasion to enquire what it is these Gentlemen mean when they say they cannot conceive or apprehend the Objects of our Faith Do they not understand the state of the Controversie Do they not know themselves what we would have them and what they refuse to consent to Could any man more distinctly and plainly express the Orthodox Faith about the Son of God than Socinus himself to this purpose All the Fathers dissent from them saith he as they would have Christ exist of the Substance of his Father before the World was made and That he often appeared to the Fathers under the Old Testament yea and the One God his Father made the World and all things by him and whatever he would have us know he hath revealed by him Now did not Socinus understand and conceive what he wrote Did he not then know what we believe And is yet this great Object of our Faith an unconceivable Mystery Again the Rule of our Faith is as conceivable as the Matter of it If the Text propose such a thing to be believed these men of Apprehension are sagacious enough to search into the meaning of the Words and the coherence with the Context and to conceive the true Sence and how to avoid it as any men living And thus also they may understand why we believe as well as what What 's the matter then Where lies the Mystery O they cannot apprehend how it should be that the Son of God should be eternally begotten of and One in Essence with the Father And what if they cannot I think it 's no great matter as to their Salvation whether they do or not believe what is revealed and leave the Mystery some Objects of Faith here are reserved for Objects of Vision hereafter If we are to believe nothing but what we know of the manner of their Being or Working we must be Infidels in Nature as well as in Religion But to come a little closer to them there are two unconceivable Points they say which cannot go down with them the Trinity and the Vnity of our Saviour or his having the same Essence with the Father I shall consider both of them As for the Trinity what is there in it that they cannot conceive either as to the Object or the Rule of our Faith about it Cannot they conceive what the Scripture reveals That there is the