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	tradition_n	14,231	5	9.4820	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65715	A sermon in confutation of R. H. the author of The guide in controversies Shewing that his most plausible arguments produced against Protestants, do more effectually conclude for Judaism against Christianity. By Daniel Whitby, D.D. chantor of the church of Sarum.	Whitby, Daniel, 1638-1726.	1679 (1679)	Wing W1736A; ESTC R222007	21,763	39

for Miracles they tell us that there is no certain way of judging true from false but by the Authority of the Church Now if these things be so what ground could the first Jewish Converts have to believe Christ was the true Messiah or a worker of true Miracles when in believing both these things they must oppose the Authority of the then present Church 4. All that hath been discoursed in answer to the former pleas serves also against this For who shall be judg whether these Miracles were true and were sufficient to confirm the Christian Faith those Persons whose Office it was to judg both of true Prophets and true Miracles or those who had no power or commission so to do Was not the Jewish Sanhedrim and other Rulers of that Church more able Judges of the Truth and the validity of any Miracles pretended to be wrought by Christ and his Apostles than was that Multitude which as experience teacheth may be imposed upon with ease Were not those Guides who were appointed to be Judges in all other matters the proper Judges of this Controversie Have we not reason to believe their judgment was as free from interest and passion and their endeavors to search out the truth of these relations as sincere as was the judgment or endeavours of the Laity When therefore these Church-Guides did notwithstanding those pretended Miracles of Christ and his Apostles conclude unanimously that Christ was a Deceiver was it not absurd to say that what they so universally determined might be discerned by any private judgment to be the clearest falshood that vulgar persons had demonstration in this matter against the judgment of the whole body of their Guides and that their common reason was able to discern that to be manifestly true which the same common reason of their Superiors judged to be manifestly false Thus have we seen that Scripture and Reason do more countenance the Jew pleading against our Lord and the first Christian Converts than they do countenance the Papist pleading against Protestants In the last place the Jew may argue from Tradition thus viz. These Spiritual Guides in making this determination and passing of this judgment concerning Jesus were guided by that Rule Synod Tri● Sess 4. which by the greatest part of Christians I mean the Roman Catholicks is highly magnified and equaled with the Holy Scriptures viz. Tradition acknowledged by the present Church for such And so your Jesus must also upon this account be deemed an Impostor or the pretences and pleadings of the Romanist against the Protestant from the Tradition of the Church must be acknowledged to be vain For 1. It is most certain that the Jews had a Tradition generally received amongst them that their Messiah at his coming should restore the Kingdom to Israel That he should subdue the Nations under them and should erect a Temporal Dominion in the Jewish Nation over all their Enemies Even the Disciples of our Lord did constantly believe this Article till by the Holy Ghosts descent upon them they were better informed Matth. xviii 1. Matth. xx 21. Witness their contests who should be greatest in that Kingdom and the desire of the Sons of Zebedee to sit one at his right hand another at his left hand in it This was our Faith saith Cleopas Luke xxiv 21 we trusted that this Jesus should have Redeemed our Israel And when they were assembled after the Resurrection their first enquiry is this Act. i. 6. Lord wilt thou now restore the Kingdom to Israel It is therefore certain that this was the received Tradition of the whole Jewish Church grounded as they supposed upon the Scriptures which did necessitate them to expect a glorious Messiah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dial. p. 249. B. not such a one saith Trypho as your mean and despised Jesus was 2. It was also a Tradition which generally obtained amongst the Jews that their Elias who was called the This bite was to appear again in person before the advent of the true Messiah Mal. iv 5. so was that place of Malachi Translated by the Seventy three hundred and eighty years before our Saviours coming Behold I send unto you Elias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the great and glorious day of the Lord come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dial. p. 268. A. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mark ix 11. All we expect saith Trypho that Christ should be anointed by Elias who is for to come and because this Elias is not come we think your Jesus cannot be the Christ Accordingly the Scribes or the Expounders of the Law did with one voice declare it necessary that Elias should first come 3. It was the general Tradition of the Jews that the Law of Moses should be perpetually obliging to them and that it was to be observed even in the days of the Messiah On this presumption certainly it was that Christs Disciples after his Resurrection were strict observers of the Law of Moses for a considerable time and so were also many thousands of the Jewish Converts St. Peter was so nice in observation of the Jewish customs that till he was informed better by a vision he thought such meat was utterly unlawful as was forbidden by the Law so that when in that vision he was bid to slay and eat he presently cries out as a man tempted to an unlawful act Act. x. 14. Not so Lord for I have never eaten any thing that is unclean St. James gives an account to Paul of the great Zeal that all the Jewish Converts had to the Law of Moses in these words Act. xxi 20. Thou seest Brother how many thousand of Jews there are which believe and they are all zealous of the Law He farther tells him how highly they were all offended with him Verse 21. because they were informed he had taught that they were not obliged to yield obedience to the Constitutions and Customs of the Jewish Law and lastly doth exhort him to do what might be proper to cause these Zealots to believe that he also walked orderly and kept the Law Verse 24. a Chron. 2. St. Jerom and b Lib. 2. c. 45. Sulpicius inform us that fourteen immediate succeeding Bishops with their flocks were all observers of the Law of Moses And by the unbelieving Jews nothing was more abhorred than the thoughts of changing their Mosaick Customs For upon this account St. Stephen was accused of Blasphemy against Moses and the Law Act. vi 11 14. because he said that the Messiah should change the customs which Moses had delivered to them This accusation before the Scribes the Elders and High-Priest was deemed sufficient to prove him guilty of that capital offence of Blasphemy On this account they bring St. Paul before the judgment seat of Gallio because say they he did persuade men to worship God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. xviii 13. against or otherwise than was commanded by the Law of Moses

sighted Person should profess himself certain that an object is white when a multitude of others the most clear sighted that can be found having all the same means of a right sensation as he hath pronounce it black or of another colour V. Rational account disc 2. Chap. 5. §. 42. p. 141. Moreover if these Scriptures or reasons be so clear even to the ignorant and unlearned Jew must they not be as clear to their Church-Guides and may not then their judgments more securely be rely'd upon at least for any thing which is presumed to be clear Disc Chap. 3. §. 37. p. 24. For if Scriptures be maintained so clear in necessaries that every one using a right endeavour cannot mistake in them then shall the Church Governours much rather by reason of this clearness obvious to every Rustick not err in them and so shall the people the more the Rule of faith is proved to be clear the more securely rely on and be referred in them to their direction 4. If you pretend a more sincere endeavour in those few converts to find out the sense of Scripture or search out the truth in these matters which in the case of the Beraeans your Scripture seemeth to assert Answ I Answer still with the same Author Disc Chap. 1. p. 4 5. that since all parties do pretend sincere endeavour in the right understanding of the Scriptures and after it do differ so much in their sense of it it follows that such sincere endeavours being indifferently allowed to all parties the sense of Scripture and the verdict of true reason ought to be pronounced clear if on any on that side as the major part doth apprehend it which certainly was not the Primitive Converts but the unbelieving Jews and their Ecclesiastical Superiors Ibid. p. 24. For surely we have reason to presume that the Chief Guides of the Church in their consults concerning a point necessary to Salvation delivered in Scripture as that of the Messiah was use at least so much endeavour as a plain Rustick doth to understand the meaning of it And whatsoever other thing is supposed necessary besides sincere endeavour or is understood to be included in it as freedom from passion and secular Interest or also a freely professing the truths which their sincere endeavour discovers to them none can rationally imagin but that these supream Church Governours should be as much or more disengaged herein than private men Ibid. p. 145. And that passion and interest blind private men or our selves sooner than General Councils or a major part of the Church See therefore here the wisdom of the unbelieving Jews who to preserve themselves from erring in this matter made use of the securest way that reason could imagine Rat. Account Disc 1. Chap. 7. §. 77. p. 74. saith R. H. or that Christians are prescribed whilst for the sense of the Scriptures that were controverted in this point of the Messiah they chose not to rely on their own judgments but on that of the Supremest Guides of the Church and Judges of Divine Truth that were afforded them on earth and so if they erred yet took the wisest course to have missed erring that Religion or Reason could dictate To which Guides also the subjects of this former Communion all believed submission of their private judgments to be due and to be commanded from whence also it follows that till they are convinced of error in this point viz. that no submission was due to the Decrees of all these Councils and the concurring judgment of those Spiritual Guides by whom your Jesus was condemned they are not capable of being convinced in any other matter If lastly you affirm that the common people had conviction and demonstration from the Miracles of Christ of the falshood of the Decrees and the Interpretations of their Church Guides in this matter and of the truth of that Christianity which they embraced in opposition to those said Decrees Answ This I confess is a great truth but then the Roman Doctors cannot plead it without rejecting most of their professed Tenets and their strongest pleas for absolute submission to the Major part of their Church Guides For 1. Admit our Saviour and his Apostles wrought true Miracles how did the vulgar perceive them so to be but by their senses and how did they infer from them the truth of Christianity but by their private Reasons Rat. Account Disc 1. Chap. 6. §. 62. p. 63. Now the evidence of sense and reason must be both neglected saith the Romanist when a Divine Revelation declares any thing contrary to them This and this only being their defence of Transubstantiation against the common sense and reason of mankind Now of the certainty of a Divine Revelation or the true sense of Scripture they make the judgment of the Major part of their Church Guides to be sufficient evidences and so there was sufficient evidence according to this Rule that all the Miracles which Christ and his Apostles seemed to work were done in opposition to Divine Revelation or the true sense of Scripture 2. Certain it is that the Rulers of the Jews and the prevailing part of the whole Nation differed from the converted Christians in their apprehensions of these Miracles and judged them all Diabolical Impostures or trials of their Faith c. Rat. Account Disc 4. Cons 2. p. 384. Now this seems necessary to be granted saith R. H. that in what kind of knowledg soever it be whether of our sense or reason in what ever Art or Science one can never rightly assure himself concerning his own knowledg that he is certain of any thing for a truth which all or most others of the same or better abilities for their cognoscitive faculties in all the same external means or grounds of the knowledg thereof do pronounce an error So that where all or most differ from me it seems a strange pride not to imagine this defect in my self rather than them especially when as all the grounds of my science are communicated to them and when as for my own mistakes I cannot know exactly the extent of supernatural delusions According therefore to this Rule it was strange pride in the first Converts to Christianity among the Jews to judg the Miracles of Christ or his Apostles true when most of their own Nation as well as Heathens differed from them in that apprehension and spake so freely every where against the Sect of Christians 3. The truth of the pretences of our Lord and his Apostles depended on two things Stillingfl ibid. p. 42. viz. the fulfilling of Prophesies and the truth of his Miracles Now according to the Roman Principles no man could be certain of the truth of either of these without the Authority of the then present Church For the fulfilling of Prophesies depended on the sense of many obscure places of Scripture of which say they the Major part of the Church-Guides must judg And

And this opinion they grounded chiefly upon those places which seem to speak of the perpetual duration of those Statutes Deut. xxix 29. Levit. iii. 11. Exod. xii 17. and say they shall be ordinances to them for ever and consequently seem to infer a Declaration from the mouth of God that they should not be altered Moreover it is certain that as the Protestants condemn as sinful and pernitious many Traditions and Customs of the Roman Church so did that Jesus whom Christians honour as the true Messiah as frequently inveigh against and solemnly condemn many Traditions which then were generally received and practised in the Jewish Church as vain and sinful customs and such as tended to make void the Scriptures and render the whole Jewish worship vain He therefoce seemeth to have been as great an enemy to Ecclesiastical Traditions though they were generally owned by the then present Church as such as Protestants can be esteemed Lastly Certain it is that the Superiours and Church Rulers or at the least the Major and prevailing part of the Church Rulers did then as firmly and unquestionably believe that those Traditions which were condemned by your Jesus and which so evidently proved if true he was not the Messiah promised to the Jew were both agreeable to the word of God Expounded by their Church Tradition and were delivered to them by Moses and the Patriarchs and Prophets and were continually practised by their Forefathers as doth the Roman Church believe that her Traditions were taught and practised by Christ or his Apostles and by their Successors throughout all Ages of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. xv 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. i. 14. Hence are they often styled by them the Traditions of the Antients or the Traditions received by succession from their Fathers And in their later writers they are always held to be derived from God by Moses together with the written Law and as an explication of it Hence like good Roman Catholicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. xxi 21. Act. xxviii 17. they were more exceedingly zealous for the Traditions of their Fathers than for the Law it self They accuse all who walked not according to these customs of their Fathers as persons who forsook the Law of Moses And to do any thing against these customs of their Fathers was reputed Criminal This being so I ask why the tradition of the major part of the Church Catholick or Christians in any Age whatsoever and their concurring judgment that what she doth at present teach and practise she received from Christ and his Apostles should be esteemed sufficient to render all those persons guilty of Heresie and Schism who do not yield assent to what they teach or a compliance with their practices as Roman Catholicks assert and yet that the general tradition of the then present Jewish Church even including the Disciples of Christ should not conclude them Schismaticks and Hereticks who being Members of that Church would not assent unto what they so generally taught or comply with that which they practised as delivered to them by Moses and the Patriarchs and Prophets But to apply these things if it be possible yet more particularly unto the pleadings of the Roman Church and to shew the weakness and the pernicious results of their most specious pretences I add 1. That notwithstanding it was the duty of the Priests and Rulers of the Jewish Church both to preserve and teach unto the people the knowledg of the Law yet did the major part of these Church-Guides both oft and dangerously swerve from this their duty For they did teach and practise and direct the people into those ways which were destructive to the eternal welfare of their Souls God by his Prophets doth complain without exception of them Esa xxviii 7. Ibid. v. 15. that they erred in vision and stumbled in judgment that the teachers of his people made lies their refuge and under falshood hid themselves saying the overflowing scourge shall not come to us Isa xliil 27. Isa lvi 10 11. that their Interpreters had transgress'd against him that his watchmen were blind they were all ignorant all dumb dogs that could not bark sleeping lying down loving to slumber that they were greedy dogs that could never have enough Jer. ii 8. Shepherds that could not understand that the Priests said not Where is the Lord and they that handled the Law knew him not that the Pastors also transgressed against him and the Prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after things that did not profit Jer. v. 31. Jer. vi 13 14. That his Prophets prophesied falsly and the Priests bare rule by their means That from the Prophet to the Priest every one dealt falsly That they heald also the hurt of the Daughter of his people slightly saying peace peace when there was no peace Jer. viii 9. Jer. xxiii 1 2. That his wise men had rejected the word of the Lord. And that the Pastors whose business it was to feed his sheep destroy'd and scattered and drove them away and did not visit them Ibid. v. 11. Ezek. xxii 26. That both Priests and Prophets were profane That they had violated his Law and had profaned his holy things putting no difference betwixt the Holy and profane the clean and the unclean and hid their eyes from his Sabbaths Ezek. xxxiv 1 6. That the Shepherds of Israel fed themselves but did not feed the flock the diseased did they not strengthen neither did they heal that which was sick nor bring again that which was driven away nor seek that which was lost but with force and cruelty they Ruled so that the sheep were scattered because there was no Shepherd Hos iv 6. Zeph. iii. 4. That they rejected knowledg so that Gods people were destroyed for lack of it That her Prophets were light and treacherous persons her Priests had polluted the Sanctuary they had done violence to the Law Mal. ii 8. That they had forgotten the Law of their God they departed out of the way they caused many to stumble at the Law they corrupted the Covenant of Levi. Moreover of these Guides it is expresly said Isa iii. 12. Chap. ix 16. Jer. l. 6. Matt. xxiii That they which led his people caused them to err and destroyed the way of their paths That the Leaders of the people caused them to err and they that were led of them were destroyed and that their Shepherds caused them to go astray Our Lord declares that they were fools blind Guides full of Hypocrisie and of iniquity that they had taken away the key of knowledg Luke xi 52. Matt. xxiii 13. and had shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men not going in themselves nor suffering them that were entring to go in That they made many false decisions in matters of so great importance as to make void the Law of God Matt. xv 6 9. and render his whole