Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	believe_v	church_n	holy_a	13,686	5	5.4409	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56411	The fire's continued at Oxford, or, The decree of the convocation for burning the Naked gospel, considered in a letter to a person of honour	Parkinson, James, 1653-1722.	1690 (1690)	Wing P494; ESTC R1197	18,231	16

whose honour the Writer professeth to advance and upon this account they think it more reasonable that those Expressions which exalt our Savior's Person to an Equality with the Father should stoop to those which speak him Inferior than that those which speak him Inferior should be strained up to those which speak him Equal And however this is the safer Way since it will lead us to such a Belief as will suffice for that end for whose sake alone Belief it self is required pag. 59. of the Interpolated Edition ' To this Question Whether any promise of God does necessarily import a restitution of the same numerical matter ' He answers That the Words of St. Paul Thou fool that which thou sowest c. plainly deny the Resurrection of the same numerical particles ' To another Question Whether it be more honorable to God and more serviceable to the design of the Gospel that we believe the Contrary ' He answers That it is the same as to ask Whether it be more honorable to salve all his Perfections or to robb one that we may clothe the other Answ To this and the other two following Paragraphs I answer That they relate to the Differences of those Times wherein the hot Bishops on both sides eagerly contended with one another to the unspeakable Detriment of the Church and Disturbance of the Empire But wise and stay'd Men such as the Emperor Constantine and those Bishops that were his Counsellors had such an esteem of those Controversies as our Author But 2. as to our Times and the Question about the Athanasian Creed I see not but that they who hold it so stiffly and persecute their Brethren on that score have no mind to remove Occasions of Difference and Separation but to continue them which one may be tempted to believe they would not do but for the sake of some secular and base Interest See more in the Judgment of one of our most eminent Bishops summing up that Letter of Constantine which this Author pressed Infra p. 14. This Persecution of the Author of the Naked Gospel and the manner of it is so threatning both to those of the National Church and the Dissenters from her that a fiercer Persecution may reasonably be expected than any we have seen in the late Reigns The Example is clear in those that being of the Church have any thing to lose pertaining to it And for Dissenters the Burners and other their Brethren do well know that none of 'em can give assent to the Athanasian Creed except some Presbyterians and non-assent let 's loose all the Penal Laws hungry Chancellors peevish or bigotted Justices and rascally Informers against them Is this the Temper that was promised If it should come to this How much worse would the Protestant National Church of England deal with her Children than the Papal Church of Rome This prohibits 'em to read the Bible and so prevents the occasion of questioning her Doctrines but that gives us the Scripture to read but will persecute us if we believe not and profess more than or contrary to what is therein contain'd contrary to the common Principle of Protestants and most expresly of this Church her self in her Sixth Article which saith ' The Holy Scripture containeth all things neeessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor can be proved thereby is not to be required of any one to to believed as an Article of Faith or of necessity to Salvation If they do not mean by proved thereby proved to the satisfaction of every sober Man the Church of Rome will prove all her Articles in the same way and manner Thus Sir I take the freedom of telling you my thoughts upon this occasion but now I must return and ask you whether the Learned Assembly of Burners have proved that the Naked Gospel does not only deny the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ but ostentui habet as their Phrase is expose him to scorn or make a shew of him Do all their Exscriptions prove any part of their horrid Charge As for his denying the resurrection of the same numerical Particles you know that since the newer Philosophy got Credit that Doctrine is often taught in our Pulpits and I am inform'd even at St Mary's in Oxford too besides in divers learned Mens Writings Good God! when shall the Spirit of Persecution be cast out when will Christians learn to be just as Men not to say loving and tender-hearted as Brethren They boast of the truth of their Faith but it is not such as worketh by Love What is it to honour Christ in their Words and dishonour him in their Lives Fourteen Hundred Years experience has taught the World that Men contend for Opinions and Speculations in Religion for the gratification of their Pride Covetousness Revenge and the like worldly Interests Though my Letter has been so long I 'le venture still to entertain you Sir with something considerable about Dr. Bury the supposed Author of the Naked Gospel of which I am credibly inform'd To have a Book condemn'd long after 't was printed nay when its Author and his Colledg were strugling against heavy Oppression in their Rights and Priviledges will put the World upon enquiring into the Reasons and Motives of such an Action as well as the Life and Conduct of the Author The Rector of Exeter Colledg then having done what lay in his Power for his King was expell'd from his Fellowship for refusing to submit to the Visitors in 1648 and the only Person who had courage to read the Prayers of his then distress'd Mother the Church of England in the Colledg when extempore Ones were in fashion for which he was led by a Fileof Musqueteers to the next Port turn'd out and forbid entrance again upon pain of Death and he never after ran counter to so good a beginning Would not one think Sir this sufficient to procure him the respect and veneration of those who are his worst Enemies Had any of them fallen into Circumstances less troublesome what out-cries I sancy would there have been what writing of Letters what trumpeting of Praises what noise of Loyalty and past Sufferings not a Figure in Rhetorick but must have been drawn dry by one Wit or other and had that fail'd the World must have been hector'd into a good Opinion After he was made Rector he never did any thing that look'd as if he had forgot his first Loyal Principles but led a quiet sober and unblameable Life given very much to good Works as may be prov'd by his Buildings in the Colledg his large Contributions to the Company for Relief of Clergy-mens Widows and Orphan besides other less visible Instances not fit to be mentioned while he 's alive All which none indeed can deny that will not basely wrong him He was so strict an observer of what he thought the Will of his Founder that he would have declar'd his own Son's Fellowship void staying some time longer

danger of Blasphemy in Examining the Silly Question as he calls it concerning the Eternity of the Godhead of Christ Answ It 's call'd a Silly Question in following Constantine's Letter which calls it Silly some of whose Words are cited immediately before We ought says he to restrain our selves from talking lest when we cannot sufficiently explain the Question or our Hearers cannot sufficiently understand our meaning either way the People be driven upon a necessity of Blasphemy or Contention Ib. 53. ' This is a second Danger That we have no firm ground to go upon This is not in the Second Impression But did not the Author give sufficient Reasons for it viz. That all are challenged by either Party with equal assurance Scriptures Antiquity and Councils too as the Emperors chanced to influence them Does not Bishop Taylor say as much Liberty of Proph. ' Pag. 54. The only advantage of the Catholicks is long Possession and that after Sentence They have indeed so handled matters as to hide much and varnish all yet even so we may pick out enough to justify an Appeal by observing how that Possession was first obtained then continued and at last setled The Sentence which first determined the Controversy in the Council of Nice was not by the merit of the Cause but Interest of the Parties Answ This also is not in the Second Impression And why if the Sentence which first determin'd the Controversy in the Council of Nice was by the Merit of the Cause and not by the Interest of the Parties Why did the Catholicks in after-Ages and at this Day impose another sense upon the Nicene Sentence than what was manifestly their meaning What is this but to make a Nose of Wax of that Council as the Papists do of Scripture ' Pag. 56. This long and mischievous Controversy was at last settled by Theodosius who having received his Instructions and Baptism from a Consubstantialist required all his Subjects to conform to that Religion which Peter the Prince of the Apostles from the beginning had delivered to the Romans and which at that time Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter Bishop of Alexandria held and that Church only should be esteemed Catholick which worshipped the Divine Trinity with equal Honour and those which held the other should be called Hereticks made Infamous and Punished ' This therefore we may call setling the Controversy because thenceforth all succeeding Emperors and Bishops wrote after this Copy and both the Parties have ever worn these Titles which the Emperor by his Imperial Power as the unquestionable Fountain of Honour was pleased to bestow upon them Behold now the Ground upon which one of our Fundamental Articles of Faith is built behold the Justice of that Plea which from such a possession would prescribe to our Belief Answ This is not in the Second Impression As it is in the First the Historian that affirms it is to answer for it and not our Author As for those words Behold now the Ground upon which one of our Fundamental Articles of Faith is built behold the Justice of that Plea which from such a possession would prescribe to our Belief I know not what that Author would say to it but I say that the Catholicks do by receding from the Sense of those Ages in that Article acknowledg it to be weakly grounded ' Pag. 57. of the Interpolated Edition What more ridiculously silly than to build so weighty a Doctrine upon Implicit Faith in two Bishops partial to their own Sees whereof the One gave it Birth and the Other Maintenance and what more odious than to prosecute as Hereticks and Malefactors all such as should refuse to be so grosly imposed upon Answ This is plainly to be understood of the Doctrine controverted in those Times as impos'd on us as necessary to Salvation to be believed in a modern and unintelligible Sense though in old equivocal Terms Pag. 57. of the first Edition Certainly ' whosoever shall carefully observe how the now established Doctrine was from first to last advanced by gross partiality of the most guilty kind and at last imposed by a Novice Emperor upon Implicit Faith of two Bishops of whose Sees the one brought it into the World and the other maintain'd it and a new coin'd Tradition lately obtruded by the guiltier of those Sees but unpleaded because unheard of in those former long and miserable times which it might and ought to have delivered from the Convulsions they suffered Whoever I say shall Carefully observe this and withal what foul Tricks the Church of Rome used in the West and with what ill Success in the East whose Churches did at last more Universally embrace Arius's Opinion than at first they condemned it may be tempted to number the Athanasian among the Roman Doctrines and cannot but think it fairly dealt with if its boasted Possession pardoned it be left upon the same level with the Arian equally unworthy not only of our Faith but of our Study Answ The same Answer I gave to the former will serve to this Is it not equal that those Doctrines whether Arian or Athanasian that consist of infinite Subtilities and Niceties which the common Christians never could nor can understand which have been conceiv'd brought forth and nursed in such a way of Policy Ambition and Persecution as Histories inform us Is it not equal they should be left upon the same Level equally unworthy not only of the Faith but also of the Study of those that heartily believe whatsoever they find in Holy Scriptures plain Things in the plain Sense and obscure Texts in the best Sense they can in consonancy to plain and clear Ones ' Pag. 57. If further we consider what the Historian expresly declareth that at the rise of this Controversy most of the Bishops understood not it's meaning we cannot think it necessary to Salvation that every private Christian should believe that as an Article of Faith which the best Ages of the Church thought no worth knowing This upon second thoughts is thus express'd in a 2d Edition An Opinion which so many wise and good Men as lived within 300 Years after Christ were so far from believing matter of Faith that they did not receive it as matter of Certainty nor perhaps of Credibility pag. 59. ' The Athanasians abhor Polytheism no less than do the Arians If their Positions seem to infer it they deny the consequence if this contradict the Rules of reasoning they avow it for they allow Reason no hearing in Mysteries of Faith if this make them Hereticks it is not in Religion but in Logick ' On the other side the Arians profess to believe of Christ whatever himself or his Apostles have spoken and where one expression in Scripture seemeth to contradict another they take such a Course to reconcile them as the Laws and Customs of all the World direct It is very frequent for Rhethorick to exceed but never to diminish the Grammatical Character of a Person