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	infallible_a	tradition_n	5,965	5	9.8720	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30406	Reflections on The relation of the English reformation, lately printed at Oxford	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1688 (1688)	Wing B5854; ESTC R14072	57,228	104

a present Interest is the motive but it is a degree of impiety of which one would hope there are few men capable to lye so long and so solemnly both to God and man. But I come now to look a little more narrowly into the matter of this Treatise I will not at all engage my self to examine a great many Passages that are cited in it out of some of our Authors and in particular out of Dr. Heylin and Mr. Thorndike When we object to those of the Church of Rome some things out of Erasmus or Cassander or for Historical Matters when we cite P. Paul or Thuanus we know with how much neglect they put by these Authorities as if they were not concerned in them tho these Persons lived and dyed in the Visible Communion of their Church And I do not see why we may not take the same liberty with such Writers that tho they have been in Communion with our Church yet have it seems continued in it with some difficulty And it will not appear very strange if at the end of our civil Wars those Persons who saw the ill effects of some ill Principles very apparently were carried by the impressions which those Confusions made upon them to oppose those disorders by an over-bending of their notions to the other Extream For this is an excess to which the humane nature is so liable that it were a wonder if all Writers especially men of warm Tempers that had been sower'd by ill usage had been preserved from it so that I will wholly wave all that he cites from these or any others of our Authors and will come to the matters themselves CHAP. I. Of the Importance of those Matters Objected to the Reformation supposing them all true THE Disputes that we had with the Church of Rome were at first managed with more sincerity by our Adversaries than they have been of late They justified their Church in those Points for which we accused her and objected the strongest things they could to ours but when they felt their Cause too weak to be maintained by fair methods then they betook themselves to others that were indeed less sincere but yet were more apt to make impressions on weak minds In France and among us Three new Methods have appeared of late Years The First was to take off men from entring into the merits of the Cause and to prepossess them with such prejudices against the Reformation as might lead them to condemn it without examining To a discerning mind this method furnishes the strongest of all prejudices against those who use it this shews such a distrust of the Cause it self and it discovers it self so plainly to be a trick that it gives every man a just ground of indignation against those who fly to it Besides that it affords a good Plea to all men to continue in the Religion in which they were born and bred without hearkning to any new discoveries for if the Grounds upon which the Reformation was made were good it signifies little to an Enquirer into Truth whether this Work was set on foot and managed with all the exactness and regularity that might have been desired or not Truth is always Truth from what hand soever it comes and the right way to find it out is to free our minds from all prejudices that so we may examine matters with unprepossessed understandings A Second Method is to perswade the World that we have not yet understood one another that Popery hath only appeared odious because it was Misrepresented to the world in false colours but that it will be found to be quite another thing if it is truly represented The Bishop of Meaux had the honour to begin this piece of Legerdemain our men of the Mission here have too slender a stock of their own and therefore they give us the French Mode in Controversie as well as our Gallants do it in Cloaths so they have thought to do wondrous feats with this method of Representing but the want of sincerity of that Prelate in this as well as in other things hath been so evidently made out that if some men had not a secret that makes them proof against all discoveries he would be a little out of Countenance and our Representers here are so exposed that nothing is wanting for their conviction but a sense of that shame with which they have been covered it is indeed a strange piece of confidence in men to come and offer to convince the World That after Disputes of 150 years continuance neither side hath understood the state of the Controversie and tho the same Decrees of Councils and the same Forms of Worship are still received yet all these things must of a sudden so change their nature that in defiance of all that which upon other occasions they say in behalf of Tradition a new discovery should be made giving us new senses of all those things but whatsoever success that Book may have had where a plundering Army managed the Argument yet it is become now as ridiculous here as it is pretended to have been successful beyond Sea. A Third Method is the setting up the Credit of Oral Tradition not upon the Authority of some passages of Scripture but upon this general Topic that one Age must needs have delivered the same Faith to the succeeding Age that it had received from that which went before it and by consequence that we must have in the present Age the same Doctrine which the Apostles delivered at first 17 Ages ago It was found That the Authority of the Church could not well be founded on passages of Scripture for then we must be allowed first to believe the Scripture and its Authority and Genuineness and then to inquire into the meaning of those Passages and to examine to which of all the different Churches that are in the world they do belong Now it was apparent That if it were once allowed that we may carry our enquiries so far as to be able to settle our selves in these points then this Infallible Authority is not so necessary to us as they would make us believe since we are supposed to have found good Proofs for believing the Scriptures and for discovering the true meaning of the hardest passages in them without its help Now this would spoil all and throw out those Arguments that perswade us of the necessity of an infallible Judg both for our finding out and for our expounding the Scriptures they are now sensible of all this and see that it is a very false Method of arguing to prove the Scriptures by the Church when the Church must be first proved by the Scriptures and therefore they do betake themselves to the Infallibility of Oral Tradition founding it upon this General Topic That all the men of one Age must needs have instructed the following Age in the same Faith that they had received from the former Age and upon this a great many imaginary Impossibilities are

been extremely arrogant and obstinate and zealous beyond knowledg and tho they had suffered for a good Cause yet suffering for it on good or reasonable grounds as neither themselves being any way learned nor pretending the Authority of any Church nor relying on any present Teachers but on the certainty of their own private Judgment interpreting Scripture as you may see And here some Instances are given but if this Period will close it self it may for our Author who seldom takes care of such small matters leaves it in this unfinished condition I will not examine the truth of this Maxim but will only take notice that since all Protestants agree in this that the Ground of our Faith is that which appears to us to be the Sense of the Scripture our Author hath by this Limitation of his former gentleness towards us delivered us all over to the Secular Arm and so God have Mercy on our Souls for it is plain he will have none upon our Bodies XI He quarrels with the Privy-Council for imprisoning of Bonner because he said he would observe the Injunctions that were sent him if they were not contrary and repugnant to Gods Law and to the Statute and Ordinance of the Church the fault imputed here to him I suppose being that he refused to obey any Injunctions of the King when repugnant to the Statute and Ordinance of the Church But since he had a mind to blacken that time he might have as well said that they found fault with him because he promised to obey the Injunctions if they were not contrary to Gods Law and that thereby it appeared that they preferred their Injunctions to the Laws of God as well as to the Laws of the Church and by our Author 's taking no notice of the first Branch of Bonner's Exception it may be inferred That all his Concern is about the Laws of the Church and so they be secured he troubles himself little what becomes of the Law of God But if he had weighed this matter as he ought to do he would have found that this Exception is very ill grounded When a Form of a Subscription is demanded there is no Government in the World that will accept of one that indeed signifies nothing at all for it is visible that a Subscription made with those Reserves signifies nothing therefore if Bonner had acted as became his Character he should have directly refused the Subscription of such Injunctions as he found to be contrary to the Laws of God or to such Laws of the Church as he thought bound his Conscience But the Protestation he made gave a very just ground to the Government to proceed against him according to Law. XII Our Author intending to aggravate the Proceedings against Gardiner shews his great Judgment in setting down the Article relating to the Kings Supremacy at full length whereas he had only named the others for he could have invented nothing that must needs render all his Exceptions to the King's Supremacy more visibly unjust than this doth which is in these Words That his Majesty as Supreme Head of the Church of England hath full Power and Authority to make and set forth Laws Injunctions and Ordinances concerning Religion and Orders in the said Church for repressing all Errors and Heresies and other Enormities and Abuses so that the same Alteration be not contrary or repugnant to the Scriptures or Law of God. This was no other than what Gardiner had over and over again both by his Oaths and his Writings advanced and the restriction set on it was so just that one would think there lay no possible Exception to it Here there is no claim to the declaring what were Errors and Heresies but only to the repressing them and this is done by the Secular Arm even where men are burnt for Heresie Besides the Power that according to our Author belongs to the Pastors of the Church is either founded on the Scriptures or it is not if it is not founded on the Scriptures there is no great regard to be had to it but if it is founded on it then it it clearly excepted by the words of this Article so it is hard to see of what use this is to our Author unless it be to shew him his Injustice XIII He tells us That all that which had been done under King Henry and King Edward was Annulled by an equal Authority under Queen Mary But tho I acknowledg he was both the Soveraign and the Parliament yet there was neither Justice nor Moderation in the Charge now made equal to what had been done before A great deal might be said concerning the Election of the Members of Parliament and the Practices upon them and of the turning out a Multitude of the Clergy before the Laws were changed The Disorders and Irregularities in the Disputes had nothing of that fair Dealing in them that had appeared in King Edward's time and whereas all the Severity of King Edward's days was the Imprisoning of three or four Bishops and the turning out some of the other Clergy he knows well how matters went under Queen Mary So that we cannot be denied this Glory that a Spirit of Justice and Moderation appear'd at every time that the Reformation prevail'd Whereas things went much otherwise in this sad Revolution in which our Author Glories so much So that if the good or ill Behaviours of the several Parties as they had their turns in the Administration of Affairs furnishes a just Prejudice even in favour of the Cause it self we have this on our side as fully as we can wish for XIV He tells us That the Bishoprick of Durham was first kept void in King Edward's days and last of all it was by Act of Parliament dissolved to increase the Kings Revenue If our Author had examined the Records of Parliament he would have found that the Act that related to the Bishoprick of Durham did not at all propose the Increase of the Kings Revenue but the dividing of one Bishoprick into two and the raising and endowing of a new Cathedral Church all which must have risen to about Four thousand Marks of old Rents which considering how long Lands were let near the Borders did certainly very near exhaust the whole Revenue of that See. This is indeed of no great Importance to the main Cause For if sacrilegious Men went into the Reformation hoping to enrich themselves by it this is nothing but what falls out in all great Revolutions And it is plain our Author took up general Reports very easily that so he might make a Clamour with them against our Church But if some that gave an outward compliance to the Doctrine of our Church were really a Reproach to it he of all Men for a certain Reason ought not to insist on it Since we are no more accountable for the Duke of Northumberland's Actions than we are for his own XV. He tells us That the Bishops turned out