Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	church_n	council_n	tradition_n	4,496	5	9.0822	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35564	To J.S., the author of Sure-footing, his letter, lately published, The answer of Mer. Casaubon, D.D., concerning the new way of infallibility lately devised to uphold the Roman cause, the Holy Scriptures, antient fathers and councills laid aside	Casaubon, Meric, 1599-1671.	1665 (1665)	Wing C811; ESTC R3910	21,053	27

to make good but Whether you have positively declared your self this or this to be your opinion and Whether that be not the principal end and scope of your Discourse To maintain such an opinion If therefore you take the advantage of any words casually misplaced or of pages mis-quoted to criminate this is not to criminate properly but to cavil Give me leave therefore to remind you for I profess I did partly rely upon him and upon those grounds I have mentioned I thought I had reason so to do how he Dr. Hammond upon accurate examination of what you had written and some others had written doth represent your opinion and it was some argument to me that you did not think your self wronged by him because I never heard of any answer that you had made However it shall be upon this condition that if I cannot make good my charge to the full from what you have written and I have read since I will make no advantage at all of his words First then the main business as I conceive what you mean by Orall tradition Orall Tradition is that faith Mr. White they are Doctor Hammonds words which the mothers flatter into their children and is the most sweet and connatural way that can be imagined to beget a firm and undoubted assent and this faith Doctor Hammond from you both if not exclusively yet comparatively so as to carry it clearly from Scripture and Fathers which are but dead letters and mute writing in comparison of this which alone he looks on as Gods living word This then is your opinion That all the assurance we have of our Faith and the onely thing Christianity stands upon is by this teaching of flattering mothers or in your words of fathers and mothers of families Dr. Hammond faith if not exclusively But whatever you do in Schism Dispatcht where nevertheless you plainly enough exclude Scripture and Fathers as Dr. Hammond doth else where tell you it is apparent that in your Sure footing you do very positively exclude both Scripture and Fathers as when you say There is no arguing against Tradition out of Scripture and that none canin reason oppose the authority of Fathers and Councils against Tradition Insomuch that you will not allow Christs promise to his Church which both Protestants and Papists if true Christians have so much relied on and found so much comfort in to bear any part in the Rule of Faith that is what else you mean by Rule of Faith I cannot tell to be trusted to as certain and infallible without your Tradition Nor allow us to say that Tradition is certain because Christ hath promised it no further than can be made good or demonstrated by principles of nature and such Mediums as you call intrinsecal Of the Scriptures particularly Dr. Hammond doth give us this account that never any Romanist Jew Heathen or Mahumetan hath attempted the like against them to bring their credit down as Rushworth hath done in his Dialogues to establish this Oral Tradition which you maintain And if the same though truly I do not see what can be done more by any be not done or attempted by you yet you are answerable for what is done by Rushworth in those Dialogues because you refer to him without any exception and that both are engaged in one cause which doth oblige you if not to say yet to think no less Another thing which doth much add to my wondring and indignation is the newness of your way the consequences whereof is that if this way have not been known to former ages till this late discovery it must of necessity follow and your Corollaries acknowledg it that Christ hath had no Church all this while no people or nation upon Earth that could be called faithfull You indeed for the most part cunningly hide as much as you can the monstrousness of your Doctrine under the generall word of Tradition which you know both Papists and Protestants under several notions or in the same notion with some limitations do own and acknowledge though you still understand but one thing by that word that is the teaching of flattering mothers in every age Of mothers I say and upon them it seems you most rely because Dr. Hammond who hath read all your books doth most keep to those terms but of Fathers and Mothers of Families if you will as you expresse it So you tell us in a place this way of Tradition is the way every Catholick in the whole Church none excepted holds and follows your way therefore not a new way as if a man would prove that a dogg is a man because both dog and man are Animals All Romanists hold Tradition therefore they hold the Tradition of Fathers and Mothers that and none but that as the onely foundation of their faith for so it must be understood or else you say nothing Now by Mr. Whites account as I find in Dr. Hammond the first invention or beginning of this was in a sleight familiar conference afterwards exalted to no less then Divine Revelation or Inspiration you shall know what I mean by and by which made Dr. Hammond say that this Discovery of Mr. Whites as it is the greatest blessing the richest jewel so it is the greatest riddle and mystery in the world And again to propose it to his Readers consideration Whether it be credible that so great a Jewel as this pretends to be should be withheld from the Christian world for above 1600 years and at last brought forth not onely by one man that pretends not to inspiration then he did not it seems but also in a sleight familiar conference between two Kinsmen So that if Dr. Hammond who made it his study and had read all your Books as was said before did not ignorantly mistake or wilfully falsifie as you charge me what can be more horrid and monstious And then again by your own Corollaries That body of men who adhere to Tradition Oral still that is the teaching of Fathers and Mothers of Families can evidence clearly and plainly who are truly faithfull who not who are of the Church who not pag 97 98. And again No company of men hang together like a body of a Christian Church or Common-wealth but that which adheres to Tradition p. 99. By these Corollaries I say it is clear and must of necessity follow that till this way of Tradition was hatcht whether new or old Christ had no Church no faithfull People in the World As the Consequence of your Doctrine is horrible so the Doctrine it self both at first hearing and the more a man looks into it if he have the patience with reason and judgment no less prodigious and incredible The Doctrine of Faith on which Gods Catholick Church is founded true Christianity on which depends Eternity of bliss or misery to be preserved in every Age sound and entire and so conveighed from Age to Age by Fathers and Mothers of Families This the way and the

White 's miracle it seems you do not much trust to endeavoured to do it by strong asseverations and from thence proceeded to Oaths and Execrations against himself if it were not true c. so D. Hammond tells you you know where You are not come to Oaths and Execrations I am glad of it for then we should be forced to stop our eares instead of them we hear of strong asseverations of principles of nature and connexion of causes and demonstrations these we may hear and laugh The Doctor it seems by this application began to suspect somewhat which I do more then suspect But I believe had he seen your Sure footing and these pretty Corollaries he had never taken so much pains to consute you as he hath done But he also I perceive made some question whether Rushworths Dialogues the Apology and the Dispatcher were three or one The next injury I charge you you make nothing of and disclaim the testimonies of Popes and Prelates c. I say so you say you do not in that very page it may be but all that you have written doth tend unto this and you do it eminently in your Corollaries page 100 101. Still provided that Tradition be taken in your sense for orall tradition that is the instruction and catechising of fathers and mothers of families in opposition to written And so you explain your self Schism Disp p. 47. To Stop the way against the voluntary mistakes of mine adversaries I declare my self to speak here not of written tradition to be sought for in the Scriptures and Fathers which lyes open to so many cavills and exceptions but of orall tradition All the rest of your accusation is but words and impertinencies which I will not spend time upon To this may the third also which you call injurie be referred That I charge you you slight Scriptures Fathers and Councils as and call them in scorn wordish testimonies It is not your bare professing you respect and honour them in such and such a sense that will serve the turn The greatest Rebell in the world may tell his King he doth honour him as he is a Man perchance Gods creature made after his Image c. when he hath a knife in his hand to stab and murder him as a King So you deal with the Scripture you cast upon it all the dirt and scorn you can as Scripture in general you call it a dead dumb letter what do you think of the Author in the mean time you make it to be of no use at all as to the rule of faith or deciding of controversies of religion But if fathers and mothers of families tell you that understood in points of faith in this and that sence it is good Scripture and the word of God then it shall be Scripture with you and not till then As for other uses which godly people might make of them so highly recommended unto all people by the Ancients upon that score those uses you take away also whilst you forbid them to read them But this you will say doth not concern Oral Tradition properly in so doing you do no more then other Papists But then I must tell you it doth not a little aggravate the case that flattering mothers should be trusted by you for the conveyance of faith and Religion sound and sincere and the true sence of Scripture in things controverted to posterity and so many brought up to learning and so much more rational and intell gent not allowed where the Inquisition reigneth especially the use of them for fear they turn hereticks Before I proceed you charge me I call ordinary Citations testimonies though many citations have nothing in them of a testimony True but he that cites commonly doth intend his citation as a confirmation of somewhat that he saith and so it becomes a testimony in a larger sence as the word is commonly taken in Bellarmine for example and others Testimonia Patrum any words of theirs are so called though never intended for such by the authors nor attired in the formality of a testimony I wonder you should stick at such a thing but you may as wel ' wonder I take notice of it The fourth injury I say the onely thing you place infallibility in is Oral Tradition and the Testimonies of fathers of families Have not you told us many times you admit of nothing to have any part in the rule of faith but Oral Tradition Do not you upon that account exclude Christs promise to his Church Do not you forbid your adversaries to use dead testimonies that is Fathers and Councils or some book granted to be sacred yea elsewhere expressly any kind of testimony either from Scripture Councils Fathers or History except your Oral Tradition be first granted to you which granted all testimonies become uselss Is not this your business every where that tradition your tradition is the onely thing against which nothing must be heard and which onely gives credit unto all other things such credit as they are capable of You would make a man hope sometimes that you begin to be sensible of the absurdity of your doctrine which makes you so often say and unsay and contradict your self But I fear it is not so well but rather that you are afraid to offend your party and therefore write so variously and inconsistently You say you place infallibility in other things too though you make that the greatest Either you aquivocate in the word Infallibility and abuse your Reader or manifestly contradict your self and overthrow your own grounds But Popes and Prelates are masters of families also you say and therefore have a part or bear a share in your Tradition I could answer that flattering mothers is the word in Dr. Hammonds reply all along or most occurrent not without ground certainly and in the very manner or nature of this Tradition as it is explained it is certain they must be the greatest part incomparably But if we take in Fathers as well as Mothers which I suppose is your intention then Popes and Prelates may come in I will grant you but then it must be in the most literal sense as they are fathers of children as well as other men though they have no wives For though he may be called Pater familias I know that keeps a house though of servants onely yet servants men and women at large are not for your purpose as you explain the business of Tradition but such only who were taught by their Fathers and Mothers when Children neither are others mentioned by you that I remember Yea most of your arguments fall to the ground as natural affection and the like if others be admitted besides Children If therefore you take in Popes and Prelates as partners or actors in your tradition it must needs be you presuppose they have Children all or most Which though it may be true enough yet whether they will take it well at your hands to acknowledg it so publickly

Wits you so often tell us of who perchance look upon you as a crazy man and think it Charity not to offend you their applause to confirm you in your distemper If I had so much interest in you as some have I know what advice I would give you if that mentis gratissimus error as the Poet expresses it which ordinarily doth accompany such distempers have not taken too deep root To tell you truth that whole passage of yours in your Letter of Advice to your Answerer p. 14. I easily yeeld to those great discoursers c. I do not like Your language is modest enough were it in another cause but in such a cause as this your opinion I mean such study such sedulity yea such zeal as you there mention must needs do you great wrong Sir the worst I wish you is that you may be sensible of your case before it be too late and the best I can wish to our cause were it lawfull or charitable to wish hurt unto any that good may come of it is that all Romanists who meddle with Controversies were of your mind and opinion which I make no question but all men truly rational on either side would look upon as the ultimus conatus a pittifull one God knowes of a dying Cause as to reason I mean and good authority either of Scripture or of Ancient Fathers Now I come to particulars in the order I find them Infallibility you say the Popes personal Infallibility is not the thing you build upon and therefore not very sollicitous what becomes of it You do not it may be and Mr. Whyte doth not but others of your profession both for number and account incomparably the greater part who perchance will think I do them wrong to call you a part tell us otherwise and make it their chiefest Article Of this somewhat hath been said by me in my late booke and it is the opinion of divers others Papists and Pretestants that it is the main point or Controversie till you have disproved this I need to say no more Now if you and Mr. Whyte and some more whom you think considerable or a considerable partie be of another opinion and think it Heretical or Archiheretical to maintain the contrary what occasion you Romanists have to boast of your good agreement who are of such different beliefe in main fundamentals I leave to you to consider But was not this a sufficient ground which you call my mistake since you dispaired and gave over this which others of your company built so much upon to make you since you would not be so ingenuous or had not so much light yet as to acknowledg your error and return to us to make you look about I say to find somewhat else that you might build so many strange practises and opinions of your Church upon for which you know and partly acknowledge you have no ground at all or at least not sufficient ground either in Scripture or what we call Tradition that is the consent of Ancient Fathers I say no more In the next place you endavour to countenance your new way though not under the notion of new by the temper of the times which hath produced so many attempting witts Truly Sir it cannot be denyed but your opinion or way hath much of the temper of the times be it spoken without any disparagement or disrespect to any of reall worth whether you call them Witts or otherwise Not to speak of England lest I may be thought to aime at any particularly you cannot but know by report and by books that in some places beyond the Seas there is a sect of men who take upon them to be the onely Witts of the World and glory in that title whose chiesest Witt is to make a mock of all Religion and to scoff at the Scriptures which the dullest Complexions if they make it their study are very capable of and indeed rather deserve the name of Boufons some naturally have a faculty that way who are good for little else then Wits You might better have forborn that word which you often use when you tell us of men of real worth I am not so addicted to old things though you make me so but I can embrace new with thanks and congratulation when I shall see just cause Their attempt or project I profess I do not like who to make themselves the more admired trample over all that former ages which produced so many excellent wits had in great respect and esteem under the notion of Learning or Science However though some innovation in matter of humane Learning or Science may be born yet in such a fundamental of Religion as you make your way to be no man truly sensible of Religion but will abhorr it It is the ready way to no Religion at all or to any and you know many account them the onely Witts shall I say or wise men of the world that are of that temper I will not say it is your end but that it will be the effect of your new way give me leave to call it as I find it should it prevail which God forbid I have much reason to believe As for the rest that you object I have said it before but I must repeat it You play the Sophister too grosly and abuse your Reader shamefully when you tell us Your way is not new because the ancients of Vincentius Lirinensis I have given you a particular account I wonder you would name him maintain Tradition There is as much difference between that Tradition which they maintain and that which you do as there is between a brute and a man though both be animalia Neither will that help you to say they maintain some may speak so Tradition unwritten therefore oral For it may be so called in regard of the first original or Authors though since that recorded and attested by multiplicity of Authors And though there were no such attestation extant which cannot be said of true Tradition yet still you are as much to seek to bring it to Fathers and Mothers of Families in your sense which seem confident never came into any mans mind till you or Mr. Whyte dreamed it of all other inventions in this kind the most ridiculous I ever heard of So much of mistake laid to my charge Now to the injuries you complain of The first is That I confess my selt a stranger to Rushworths Dialogues and that I make some doubt whether Schisme Dispatcht and Rushworths Dialogues might not be of one Author though under two names Your descant upon this is my genius doth not incline me to trade in books that pretend to reason You do pretend indeed and so do most in your case with as much or more confidence ordinarily though the matter appear never so ridiculous to others and false as the most rational in best causes As in our English story he that could not confirm his new Revelations by miracles Mr.

onely way God hath appointed and Mankind must trust unto It is far from my thoughts in this short Answer to your Letter to reason the case with you by way of Confutation there be some about it you tell me who I hope will make you sensible how miserably you are mistaken in your grounds Give me leave onely to insist a while on the monstrousness of your Opinion as it doth appear unto me You know the World is much amended generally in point of knowledge within these hundred or two hundred years Who hath not heard of that admirable or regeneration of Learning by all kind of Writers since or about that time so much extolled and magnified Let Pope Leo the X. who then was and his Cardinals have a great part under God of the thanks if you will I am not against it though by the aversness you shew frequently to Books and Learning I doubt you will be more ready to curse than to bless them for it But durst you even now undertake that every twentieth or fiftieth man or woman generally among you is able to give an account of their Faith I will not say rational but reasonable so that they may deserve the name of sound Christians in the main Fundamentals wherein we for the most part agree England I think I may say not to disparage others is furnished and hath been these many years with as able Ministers as any Nation can boast of in Europe I have been a Minister and Preacher here these Forty years and above I know what I have found to my grief in more places then one We may thank the Puritans of England if it be no better whose endeavour hath alwayes been in all places to set up their Lectures and Pulpit-Preaching instead of Catechising whereas Three moneths right Catechising will make more Christians I am confident then Forty years Pulpit-Preaching Do not think I pray to take any advantage of this and tell me Though it be so among us Hereticks yet you thank God it is otherwise among Catholicks as you call your selves For I could tell you strange things from your own Writers men who never were suspected in the least degree to favour Protestants concerning your Preachers what manner of men they are commonly how able or how carefull to discharge their duties I will name but one to you till you desire more Laurentius Villavineentius Doct. Theol. De reite formando studio Theol. which Book though not that particular passage of Ministers he did almost verbatim transcribe out of Hipperius a Protestant though otherwise a virulent inveigher against Protestants as any I have read Read him there but especially De sacris Concionibus formandis Lib. I. c. 2. and I think you will say you have your belly full So now Will you have a fight of former times from unquestionable Records In the dayes of Alfrid King of England the ignorance of the Land was such generally that himself complaineth in his Preface to Gregories Pastoral Christianity was become an empty name without any substance or reality And Asserius one of his Masters in his life doth relate that it was a long time before he could read because he could get none to teach him though he much desired it Some six or sevenscore years before when Cuthbert was Archbishop of Canterbury and Ethelbald King of the Mercit or Middle-land Counties a Synod was held at Clyff by which it was ordained that for the time to come All Priests should learn the Creed and the Lord Prayer that they might be able to teach them to others So in England How elsewhere In the dayes of Charles the Great in France there were so many ignorant Priests that a Law or Capitulum was made for the rebaptization of such as had not been baptized in the Name of the Father the Son a hard Lesson it seems for the Priests of those dayes and the Holy Ghost Yet we deny not but the worst dayes afforded some men of worth but what the generality was we may guess by these particulars I have read a Book intituled Fragmenta Caroli Magni printed at Antwerp A. D. 1560. in a place it treateth of the ancient manner as the marginal Note doth import of choosing Bishops First he is chosen à Clerosen Populo that is by the Clergy and the People according to the language of those times Then he is presented to the Apostolick that is the Pope for consecration Then faith the Record Pontifex jubet inquiri de quatuor Capitulis Canonicis Inquisition is made concerning the four Canonical Articles by which it seems the capacity or incapacity of men for such a degree was wont in those days chiefly or in the first place to be judged The first is Whether he had not been Arsanoquita 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sodomite The second Whether he had not lain with a Nun The third with a Beast The fourth Whether he had not married one that had been married before or a Widow Et de his inculpabilis inventus c. and being found innocent in these he further takes an Oath he will be so for the time to come Some few more questions being asked among which I find none except it be included in Dimissoria ab Episcopo concerning his sufficiency in point of Learning he is consecrated the next day I could tell you of Italy and other places But by this I hope you will give me leave to ask you What you think of the Fathers and Mothers of Families of those times in what a capacity they may probably be supposed to have been to preserve and transmit sound Christianity without any further helps of written Word or Record unto posterity Ordinary Romanists I know when they are put to it about the Popes Infallibility they fly to Christ his Promise and peculiar Providence which is a good plea could they prove by Scripture or true Tradition that is the consent of Primitive Fathers that such infallibility was ever promised by Christ unto the Pope Which to say your friend and Master as I find him stiled in Dr. Hammond Mr. White doth resolve to be Heretical yea archiheretical where Dr. Hammond will tell you p. 263. for I have not the Book But a plausible plea however I say as it pretends to ground upon Christs Promise but not your plea because you disclaim Christs Promise and all plea of a peculiar Providence as a principle to be grounded upon Is not the Church of Rome much beholding to you One thing I must grant to you that your way though few Romanists I think will acknowledge it their way is no new way absolutely For it was indeed the Heathens way as is objected unto them by ancient Fathers which they made use of to uphold their Heathenism against Christianity and what those Ancient Fathers thought of that way you may read in them or may be told by others in due time It was also the very way the infidel Jews used as by others