Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	father_n	person_n	trinity_n	2,522	5	9.8786	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66403	A manual, or, Three small and plain treatises viz. 1. Of prayer, or active, 2. Of principles, or positive, 3. Resolutions, or oppositive [brace] divinity / translated and collected out of the ancient writers, for the private use of a most noble lady, to preserve her from the danger of popery, by the Most Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Arch-Bishop of York.	Williams, John, 1582-1650.	1672 (1672)	Wing W2711; ESTC R38653	30,581	162

to be the ground of your Faith and reason of your believing so as you do therefore believe all the points of your salvation to be true because the Church doth teach and instruct you in the same Or have you any other rule and ground of your faith Prot. The Authority and good conceipt we have of Gods Church prepareth us to believe the points of our Salvation and serveth as an introduction to bring us to the discerning and perfect apprehension of these Mysteries of our faith but the Scripture only is the ground and reason of our believing For as the Samaritans were induced and drawn on to believe in Christ by that talk of the woman but having heard Christ himself profess plainly they believe no longer for her saying but because they heard him speak himself So do we begin to believe moved thus to do by the good conceipt we have of the Church but rest not in it as the ground of our believing but only in the infallible assurance of God's truth in the Book of Scriptures Pap. Then God help you if that be your last resolution For our Church cannot erre but your Scriptures without the help of the Church to tell you so much can never be ascertained unto you to be the word of God and therefore what assuredness of belief can you propose your selves upon so unsetled a foundation Protest The Catholick Church indeed spread over the world cannot erre damnably though the Church of Rome and all other particular Churches may as your own Writers confess But the Scriptures we know to be the word of God not because the Church or Church-men do tell us so much but by the Authority of God himself whom we do most certainly discern to speak in his word when it is preached unto us For if we bring pure eyes and perfect senses the Majesty of God forthwith presenteth it self unto us in the Holy Scriptures and beating down all thoughts of contradicting or doubting things so Heavenly forceth our hearts to yield assent and obedience unto the same And therefore if you doubt whether that which you read in your Bible be the Word of God or find any reluctancy in your understanding to the Doctrin of the same it is in vain to flie unto either Church or Church-men to be perswaded in this point but down upon your knees and pray fervently unto God for Faith and the illumination of the Holy Ghost which can only assure you of the truth of the Scriptures For after we are enlightned by the Spirit we do no longer trust either our own judgement or the judgement of other men or of the Church that the Scriptures are of God but above all certainly of humane judgement we most certainly resolve as if in them we saw the Majesty and Glory of God that by the ministery of men they came unto us from Gods own most sacred mouth Pap. But what certain ground of faith can you place on the Scriptures seeing by the several interpretations of men and women they are turned and wrested like a nose of wax to every private design and purpose Do not you observe how the Catholicks Protestants and especially the Brownists and Anabaptists do fit all their turns out of the Holy Scriptures on which of these senses and imaginations is your faith rooted or peradventure have you some odd capritchious kind of interpretation of your own apprehension to direct you in these businesses Prot. We Lay-folks are licensed in the Church of England to read but not to interpret Scriptures excepting only those passages which contain the necessary points of our Salvation the which passages are so plain and easie every where that any man or woman of the meanest capacity especially if he or she be instructed in their Catechism or grounds of Religion may perfectly conceive and understand them But for the harder and more difficult places we leave them to be interpreted by our Church-men in their Sermons and daily Ministery For the ordering of which interpretations there are as I have been told ten several helps the which if they be followed will be sure and unfallible guides to boult out the true meaning of each place of Scripture 1. An illumination of the understanding by the Holy Ghost 2. A mind free from other thoughts and desirous of the truth 3. Knowledge of the Scriptures Creeds Catechismes Principles and other Axiomes of Divinity 4. A consideration how our meaning suits with other points of Christianity 5. The weighing of circumstances antecedents and consequents 6. Knowledge of Histories Arts and Sciences 7. Continual Reading Meditating and Praying 8. Joint and unjarring expositions of the Fathers 9. Consenting decrees of Synods and Councils 10. Knowledge in the tongues Because therefore Lay-men and women Papists Brownists and Anabaptists are wanting in all or some of these helps they bring forth many times such lame and prodigious interpretations Pap. If we make the Scripture and not the Church the rule of our Faith how shall we believe the Creed the Trinity the Sacraments the unity of Essence the Three Persons in the Deity c. words never read in the Bible and yet necessarily to be apprehended of us upon pain of damnation Prot. I say that all these things are set down in Scriptures either in so many syllables or at leastwise by necessary inferences and deductions And we do not therefore believe them because they are only taught by the Church but because they are rooted and grounded in the Holy Scriptures the only stay and pillar of our affiance To sum up therefore all this Chapter 1. The Church doth prepare us but the Scripture only doth force us to believe 2. The whole Church cannot any part thereof may erre damnably 3. We are taught the Scriptures to be the Word of God by the Holy Ghost moving in our hearts and not by the Church sounding in our ears 4. Lay-men are to read not to interpret Scriptures 5. The miss of some rules causeth wrong expositions of Scriptures 6. All things necessary to be believed are either found in or collected and inferred from the Scriptures CHAP. III. Of Iustification Papist HOw then do you learn out of the Scriptures that you are to be justified and saved before God Prot. I am to be justified before God by an Act single in it self but double in our apprehension which is by Gods not imputing unto me my sins and the same Gods imputing unto me Christs righteousness and withall by his creating of faith in my heart by the Holy Ghost I mean an operative a lively a working Faith to assure my Soul that God for the Active and Passive obedience of Christ Jesus hath accomplished those two former Acts of not imputing my Sin and of imputing unto me Christs Righteousness Pa. A very easie no doubt and reasonable Religion which you have learned out of the Scriptures Here is no burthen left for your own back you cast all