Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	christian_a	faith_n	tradition_n	2,586	5	9.0088	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49123	Mr. Hales's treatise of schism examined and censured by Thomas Long ... ; to which are added, Mr. Baxter's arguments for conformity, wherein the most material passages of the treatise of schism are answered.	Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Mr. Baxter's arguments for conformity against separation.	1678 (1678)	Wing L2974; ESTC R10056	119,450	354

points of Faith delivered in the Scriptures be better understood and confirmed than by the joynt consent of such Ancient Doctors who conversed with the Apostles or their immediate Successors and are rightly called Apostolici many of which were Persons of great Learning and Eloquence and so could not be charged with ignorance And doubtless they were very industrious in inquiring into the grounds of the Christian Faith for which they forsook all temporal accommodations and most of them their lives and against all opposition have not only handed down to us the Scriptures themselves pure and incorrupt but the proper and genuine sense of them We do not make them Judices but Indices fidei not the Authors but the witnesses to confirm and give evidence in matters of Faith 4. The Papists do calumniate the Reformed Divines as if they rejected the judgment of the Fathers whereas they do with one consent and none more readily than they of the Church of England appeal to their Authority for confirmation of the Faith which they profess I could easily fill a Volume with the testimonies of our Modern Divines concerning the authority of the Ancients how competent Judges they are of the questions now on foot The naming of some few will resolve us whether our Author's Opinion or theirs deserves the imputation of grosness and folly Calvin in his controversie with Pighius de libero Arbitrio says The controversie between me and Pighius would soon be ended if he would declare the tradition of the Church in the certain and perpetual consent of the Holy and Orthodox Bucer says as much on Matth. 1. concerning the consent of the Church about the perpetual Virginity of the Holy Virgin Mary That to doubt of that consent unless some plain Oracle of Scripture doth inforce it is not the part of them that have learned what the Church of Christ is When Zanchy was 70. Years old and had long studied the point He tells us in these words Hoc ego ingenuè profiteor talem esse meam conscientiam ut à veterum Patrum sive dogmatibus sive scripturarum interpretationibus non facilè nisi manifestis scripturarum testimoniis vel necessariis consequentiis apertisque demonstrationibus convictus atque coactus discedere queam Sic enim acquiescat mea conscientia in hac mentis quiete cupio etiam mori Epistola ad Confess fidei p. 47. Gualter in his Preface to Peter Martyr's common places says From hence come all kinds of evils the pest of disputatiousness the violation of all bonds of Charity and shaking the fundamentals of Faith because we do not reverence the Ancients as much as we ought Nor fear I to affirm that the chief cause of the Contentions of our Age is because most Divines insist on the Opinions of their present Masters and read their Books not enquiring what learned Antiquity did think or what errors and heresies were condemned by it As for the Divines of our own Church it may be sufficient to mention Bishop Jewel's Chalengee and how well he discharged it If any learned man of our adversaries said that learned Bishop or all the learned men that be alive be able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholick Doctor or Father or out of any old General Council or out of the Holy Scriptures of God or any one example of the Primitive Church whereby it may be clearly and plainly proved that there was any private Mass in the world for 600 years after Christ or that c. to the number of 27. Articles now in controversie between us and the Church of Rome I am content to yield and to subscribe And in his Apologie for the Church of England he says We came as nigh as possibly we could to the Apostolical Churches and the Ancient Bishops neither did we direct our Doctrine only but our Sacraments and form of Publick Prayers to their rites and institutions And after him the Church provided by her constitutions Imprimis videant Concionatores ne quid unquam pro concione doceant quod à populo religiosè teneri credi volunt nisi quod consentaneum sit Veteri Novo Testamento quódque ex iis docuerint Antiqui Patres veteres Episcopi collegerint I add only that of the Royal Martyr in his discourse with Henderson 3d. paper When you and I differ about the sense of the Scriptures and I appeal to the unanimous consent of the Fathers and the Primitive Church you ought to find a more competent Judge or to rest in him that is proposed by me And this shall serve to assoil that question which our Author saith carryeth fire in the tail of it and brings with it a piece of Doctrine which is seldom pleasing to Superiors p. 200. But the fire proves an Ignis fatuus and our Author himself brings water enough to extinguish it for in p. 65. he saith If Aristotle and Aphrodiseus and Galen and the rest of those excellent men whom God hath endued with extraordinary portions of natural knowledge have with all thankful and ingenious men throughout all generations retained their credit intire notwithstanding it is acknowledged that they have all of them in many things swerved from the Truth Then why should not Christians express the same ingenuity to those who have laboured before us in the exposition of the Christian Faith and highly esteem them for their works sake their many infirmities notwithstanding From this general contempt of the Fathers our Author proceeds p. 206. to cast a slurr on S. Augustine For having mentioned S. Augustines argument which he maintained against the Donatists which was Unitatem Ecclesiae per totum Orbem dispersae propter nonnullorum peccata non esse deserendam i. e. that the Unity of the Church spread over the whole world ought not to be forsaken for the sins of some few that were in its communion he adds that though it were de facto false that Donatus his party shut up in Africa was the only Orthodox party yet it might have been true notwithstanding any thing S. Augustine brings to confute it And contrarily though it were de facto true that the part of Christians dispersed over the face of the Earth were the Orthodox yet it might have been false notwithstanding any thing S. Augustine brings to confirm it As if that learned Father who was as close and exact a disputant as the Church hath enjoyed ever since had wholly mistaken the question or were unable to urge one argument pro or con i.e. either for confutation of that wretched Schism or for defence of the Catholick Church That learned Father wrote a very large Volume against those Schismaticks which contains so much both of wit and Argument that there would not need any thing else to be said for the confutation of Schismaticks to the worlds end if his arguments were well understood and applyed And when our Author proves the Donatists in two

the hearts of the People filled with invincible prejudices and scruples to the neglect and contempt of this necessary duty which by Christ's institution and by Primitive practice ought to be frequently performed and by the Constitutions of the Church at least three times every Year but hath been totally omitted by some very adult Christians all their lives contrary to the advice and practice of former Nonconformists as well as to the commands of God and his Church And what can the end of these things be but hardning the People in their disobedience and ignorance in uncharitable prejudices and distances from their more pious and peaceable Brethren and provoking their Superiors to Acts of rigor and severity unless they will permit all things to run to confusion And whereas upon the late Test all Persons that had any publick office or imployment were required to receive this Holy Sacrament according to the Custome of the Church of England or to forfeit that imployment not one of an Hundred of those scrupulous Persons that were concerned continued a Recusant I suppose they have sufficiently convinced the Magistrates that the best way of removing these Scruples is to require the more frequent practice of that duty under the like penalties And now I hope the frivolousness of our Author's position p. 218. That wheresoever false or suspected Opinions and he asserts the same of practising suspected Actions in the same period are made a piece of the Liturgy he that separates is not the Schismatick doth evidently appear And if he that separates be not the Schismatick then they that require the performance of a suspected action are so and by consequence it will be in the power of every scrupulous faction to denominate their Governours to be the Schismaticks As our Author determineth the case a man may as innocently disbelieve any Article of his Christian faith upon this pretence of scruples against them as disobey the command of his Superiors For saith he p. 194. when uncertain conclusions are obtruded for truth or acts ministring just scruples are required to be performed consent were conspiracy and open contestation is not faction or schism c. And p. 218. he gives this Reason for it It is alike unlawful to make profession of known or suspected falshoods as to put in practice unlawful or suspected Now suppose a subtle Socinian should meet with a scrupulous person and tell him that he doth well indeed to suspend his Communion from that Church which imposeth those things to be practised in the worship of God which have no warrant from thence but are rather condemned as Will-worship and Superstition but yet while he strains at a Gnat he swallows a Camel and suffers his Conscience to be imposed upon in matters of Faith which are of greater concern and then insinuate that there is no express text in Scripture nor any good Argument from Reason for a Trinity of persons in the Unity of the Godhead but both Scripture and Reason affirm there can be but one Supreme eternal God and then by wresting the Scriptures and perswading him that the Doctrine of the Trinity had its rise from Ecclesiastical Tradition not from the Scriptures and they that require the belief of it do teach for Doctrines the Commandments of men suppose I say by this leaven the scrupulous humor is fermented and swells up into a strong suspicion and he begins to grow sowr and discontented with his Teachers and likes the Arrian and Socinian Doctors better Doth not this man proceed upon the Authors grounds and may be as much justified by them if he turn Heretick as if he become a Schismatick And indeed there is not one Article of our Faith but cunning Sophisters may work upon persons disposed to scruples to have strong suspicions of them For Mr. Baxter tells us in his Saints everlasting rest Part 1. ch 7. Sect. 14. That Professors of Religion did oppose almost all the Worship of God out of Conscience which others did out of Prophaneness Upon this very pretense some will not hear of Infant Baptism nor others of the Lord's day but turn Anabaptists and Sabbatarians and for ought I know others may justifie rebellion and not only the Omission of moral duties but the Commission of any vice or impiety Experience hath evidently taught us that those persons who have been prone to entertain scruples in matters of Religion first have fallen next into sedition and rebellion and then to impiety and immoralities to Quakerism Atheism unnatural affection to Parents and acts and practices of as great cruelty and barbarity against themselves as against others But our Author grounds his Objection on Rom. 14. 23. Whatsoever is not of Faith is sin and He that doubteth is damned if he eat And this objection seems to be inforced by the Authority of Bishop Sanderson who p. 228. de Obligatione Conscientiae saith thus If any one through some fast rooted error of judgment do think the Law to be unjust which is not so the obligation of the Law doth remain notwithstanding that error of mind so that he is not free from sin if he do not obey yet that he sinneth more grievously if he should obey before that error be laid aside Which ease the Reverend Casuist intended to speak of more at large when he should come to treat of the comparison of both obligations viz. as I suppose the authority of the Magistrate and of Conscience For I perceive the question to which he makes this an Answer was What assurance that any Law is unjust is required to secure a subject in point of Conscience that he is not bound by that Law But the good Bishop never came to that point under which we might have expected his farther judgment in that case and therefore I shall take a little pains in finding out his resolution in some other parts of his writings Answer The Bishop says If a subject because that probable reasons do appear on both sides knoweth not nor can determine whether a Law be just or no so that his judgment hang in aequilibrio not knowing to which to incline in this case the subject is bound actually to obey so that he sinneth if he do not obey and if he do obey he sinneth not Now I observe that when the Bishop comes to give his reasons why a subject should obey against a scrupulous Conscience the same Reasons do require his obedience though his scruples he inveterate and obfirmed yea in things doubtful as by these following Reasons of his may appear His first Reason is because by a Reason of Law In dubiis potior est conditio possidentis therefore where there is a contest concerning a right betwixt the Lawgiver and the subject the right is alway to be presumed to be on the Lawgivers side as being in possession of the right unless some fit reason can be given to the contrary but in this case i. e. in things doubtful no such fit reason can