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	sense_n	10,903	5	7.0140	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59228	A letter from the authour of Sure-footing, to his answerer	Sergeant, John, 1622-1707.	1665 (1665)	Wing S2574A; ESTC R221073	12,076	25

For in regard my whole process is grounded on the nature of the Thing as appears by my Transition and every Logician knows that remote and common considerations are liable for any thing we know to be connected or not-connected with the point we would apply them to because we see no Connexion but what 's Immediate it follows that 't is a very incompetent and dissatisfactory way to impugn an Adversary who endeavours all along to frame his discourse out of the Intrinsecal Nature of the Thing by remote or unimmediate that is indeed Unconnected Mediums The third thing I request is that you either grant that no Argument or Reason is Conclusive Obliging-to-Assent or Satisfactory but what is either Proper at least Necessary Cause or Effect or else show us out of Logick that other Mediums have this virtue and how they come to have it This way of procedure will give me a great respect for you as taking honestly the Way which is apt to clear Truth and you will have this Satisfaction to your Conscience that you have endeavour'd it to your power by following the best method you could imagin to give your Cause its due advantage in case it can bear that Test that is in case it be Truth And if it cannot bear it that is if it be no Truth 't is your own best Advantage by this strict procedure to have discover'd it Your Judicious Readers also that look seriously for satisfaction will rest much edify'd and thankfull for your pursuing that Method which is likely to save them a great deal of fruitless pains in reading multitudes of books writ in a loose way whence no Conclusion or Satisfaction is likely to result 8. My fifth request and I hope 't is just and reasonable is this that if you conceive your Discourse has made good the Certainty of Written Authorities or quoted Testimonies without Tradition which I see is impossible and hence you make account you have title to produce them against Tradition's Certainty That being the matter in hand and therefore you resolve to pursue the way of Citing Authours you would then be pleas●d to vouch your Citations to have truly in them the nature of Testimonies that is to be built on Sensible Knowledge and not on Speculative or Opinion in the Authour alledg'd and that they fall under none of Dr. Pierce's faulty or Inconclusive Heads or else show they are Conclusive though thus Faulty which is done by confuting my Grounds laid in my First Appendix § 6 7 8. Or lastly to declare that though thus Faulty and Inconclusive they ought still to be alledg●d and to give your reason for it which candidly spoken out I am sure will be this that you must either produce such or none I hope all our ingenuous Readers will think me very reasonable who am well contented with any thing which is spoke out expressly and declaratively of what method or way of Satisfying you take and onely desire you would not quote and speak confusedly and in common as if you meant to persuade your Readers that your discourse has in it some strange force taken in the bulk though you will vouch no one particular piece of it to be Certain or as if you suppos'd their reasons were to be amaz'd and stupify'd meerly at the venerable Names of Authors and the solemnity of a diverse-letter'd or diverse-languag'd quotation without clearing to their Judgements the virtue by which such Citations can pretend to have force able to subdue their understandings to Assent or which is all one satisfy them If you refuse to do me reason in this point and still resolve to pursue the huddling together Testimonies without warranting their Certainty by showing upon rational grounds they must be such I shall declare beforehand to my Readers that I must be forc't to do right to my self which is to rank all your Testimonies under Dr. Pierce's Faulty Heads and so let them go as they are 9. Particularly I beg the Justice of you not to think to over-bear me with the conceiv'd Authority of other Divines resolving Faith in their Speculative Thoughts after another manner than I do since this can onely tend to stir up Invidiousness against my person which yet their charity secures me from and not any wayes to invalidate my discourse For every one knows t is no news Divines should differ in their way of explicating their Tenet which they both notwithstanding hold never the less firmly and every learned man understands that the word Divine importing a man of Skill or Knowledge in such a matter no Divine has any Authority but from the Goodness of the Proofs or Reasons he brings and on which he builds that Skill Please then to bring not the empty pretence of a Divines Authority or Name to oppose me with and I shall freely give you leave to make use of the Virtue of their Authorities that is their Reasons against me as much as you will I easily yeeld to those great discoursers whoever they be a precedency in other Speculations and Knowledges to which they have been more addicted and for which they have been better circumstanc't In this one of the Ground of Faith both my much Practice my particular Application my Discourses with our nations best Wits of all sorts my perusing our late acute Adversaries and the Answers to them with other Circumstances and lastly my serious and industrious studying the Point join'd with the clearing Method God's Providence has led me to have left me as far as I know in no disadvantage What would avail you against me and our Church too for my Interest as defending Tradition is indissolubly linkt with Hers is to show that our Church proceeds not on Tradition or that in Her Definitions She professes to resolve Faith another way rather than mine or which is equivalent to rely on somthing else more firmly and fundamentally than on Tradition But the most express and manifold Profession of the Council of Trent to rely constantly on Tradition has so put this beyond all possible Cavil on my side that I neither fear your Skill can show my Grounds in the least subcontrary to hers nor the Goodness of any Learned and considering Catholik however some may conceive the Infallibility of the Church plac't ad abundantiam in somthing else will or can ever dislike it I expect you may go about to disgrace my Way as new But I must ask whether you mean the substance of it is new or onely that 't is now deeper look't into and farther explicated than formerly If you say the former my Consent of Authorities p. 126 127 c. has clearly shown the contrary and common sense tells us no other way was or could be possibly taken for the Generality of the Church at least in Primitive times till Scripture was publisht universally and collected If the later please to reflect that every farther Explication or Declaration as far as 't is farther must needs be new and