Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	father_n	scripture_n	word_n	4,658	5	4.5238	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63840	A defence of the confuter of Bellarmin's Second note of the church, antiquity, against the cavils of the adviser	Tullie, George, 1652?-1695.	1687 (1687)	Wing T3236; ESTC R7422	16,243	26

once new the Argument would with equal force have recoil'd upon that same Assertion of his in relation to the Scriptures Or if Bell. had affirm'd only that the Church is truely Ancient and his Adversary had denied it upon the Score of its former newness he could not neither if his own Objection were good have rightly affirm'd that the Ss. are the true Antiquity But who can discover the least repugnancy betwixt these two Assertions that Antiquity is a Note of the Church and consequently as the Confuter well argues proper to it and inseparable from it which yet cannot be true if the Church was once new and this that the Scriptures are the true Antiquity i. e. that the Doctrines deliver'd in the Scripures or written Word are the oldest and truest Doctrines in the Christian Church Thus I have often observ'd that a few plain Words will unriddle great Mysteries in appearance and that some Men are unhappily apt to run away with a bare jingle of Words instead of harmony in Sense In the fourth Remark we meet with no less a charge than that of a contradiction and that 's a bad business indeed in so narrow a compass of Pages but where has this starter of difficulties espied it for 't is not easily discernable Why the Confuter of Bellarmin has asserted absolutely p. 42. That Antiquity is not a proper note of the Church whereas p. 45. He has found out an Antiquity that is proper to the Church In good time Bellarmin uses the word equivocally either for that which is ancient or for that which is first the former his Confuter says p. 42. is not a Note proper to the Church but that the latter which Bellarmin did not originally mean by his Note of Antiquity tho he was forc'd to run into it belongs to the Church And is this now ad idem and if not where 's the contradiction If discoursing with this Gentleman I should own my self a Member of the Catholick Church and finding afterwards that according to their usual and presumptuous blunder by the Catholick Church he meant the Roman Catholick Church I should deny my self to be a Member of it should I be guilty of a Contradiction for shame what trifling is this I thought some sort of People had better understood the dubious import of Words used equivocally His fifth Remark wants nothing but Truth to make it a very good one and is this That the Confuter of Bellarmin has produced a Citation out of St. Cyprian which is so far from favouring his own Cause that it really supports his Adversaries and is the very ground of what they maintain and he opposes And in earnest then amongst such great variety he was very unhappy in his choice But how does the Adviser make this appear why by two or three pert Interogations and that 's all To which if I opposed only as many more I might reasonably seem to have given him a just Answer For the place is so extremely pertinent to the Argument the Confuter was upon that for my own part I can scarce perswade my self the Adviser was in earnest when he made his Remark if he knew what he was about The Confuter was showing that bare Antiquity as before explained could not be a proper Criterion to judge of the true Church by for that amongst other Reasons wicked Doctrines running down to Posterity even from the Infancy of the Gospel made use at length of the Plea of Antiquity to give them countenance and support which pretence says he was notwithstanding refuted by the Fathers in several remarkable Words Amongst others of which he alledges that passage in St. Cyprian's Epistle to Pompeius Custom without truth is but Antiquity of error and there is a short way of Religious and simple minds to find out what is truth for if we return to the beginning and original of Divine Tradition Humane Error ceases Thither let us return to our Lords Original the Evangelical Beginning the Apostolical Tradition c. Is not now our Lord 's Original the Evangelical Beginning terms synonimous with Apostolical Tradition that ancient Truth the Confuter desires to appeal to Or is this as the Adviser farther boasts That setting up the very Tradition which Catholicks appeal to Yes says he But why so for no other reason doubtless but because he luckily espied the Word Tradition in that sentence and perhaps found it under that head in his Common-place Book Now seriously if this Gentleman pleases I 'le produce him half an hundred Instances out of the Ancient Fathers Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian c. where Tradition is used by them for the Scriptures or written Word of God. If he had but consulted that other Epistle to Caecilius Cited by the Confuter in his Margent he would have found it taken there five or six times in that very sense and that 't is really so in the place now before us is so demonstrably evident from the Epistle whence it is cited that none who had ever consulted the Original could with the least modesty or judgment have alledged it in Defence of Tradition as stated in the Church of Rome For the Holy Martyr refuting here what Pope Stephen had replied to him in a Letter concerning the Baptism of Hereticks repeats several Passages of it Of which this is one Si quis ergo a quacunque Haeresi venerit ad nos nihil innovetur nisi quod Traditum est ut manus illi imponatur in poenitentiam To which St. Cyprian immediately replies Whence is this Tradition does it descend from the Authority of our Lord and the Gospel or from the Injunctions and Epistles of the Apostles For God testifies That those things are to be done which are written If therefore it be commanded either in the Gospel or in the Epistles of the Apostles or in the Acts that they who come from any Heresie over to the Church be not Baptized but only have imposition of hands for repentance let this Divine and Holy Tradition be observed But if c. And now what thinks our Adviser of St. Cyprian's Apostolical Tradition which pleased him so wonderfully at first sight and I dare say he never look'd farther Are the Gospels the Epistles and the Acts the only Tradition which Catholicks appeal to Let him remember his Trent-Creed and then tell me We come now in the next place to his Remarks and Advice in relation to the Confuter's second Proposition That the present Church of Rome vainly pretends to true Antiquity i. e. ancient Truth And here we find him all on a sudden taken with a very strong fit of the Gentleman he 's upon his Punctilio's and teaching his Adversary better manners than to charge the Church of Rome with Lyes and yet this Master of Controversial Ceremonies is off of his breeding within two Pages after where we have him ranking the Divines and Disputants of the Church of England with honest Coblers and Tinkers as if they were really at a

Laughter or Indignation of every Reader as he is in Humour when he meets with it for he who would vouchsafe such stuff any other Reply might justly be thought guilty of as great trifling in refuting as he in advancing it His Remarks upon the Confuter's Conclusion are a pure Declamation and I have no great appetite to encounter a School-Boys Exercise He tells us He cannot possibly make sense of what the Confuter says in reference to the Church of England That her Religion by Law established is the true Primitive Christianity for so run his Words and what then Is the Confuter bound to find him in understanding He might have enough to do at that rate I thought he had explain'd himself in the next Page and that very pertinently too by telling him That our Religion is as old as Christ and his Apostles with whom whosoever agrees they are truly ancient Churches tho of no longer standing than yesterday As they that disagree with them are new tho they can run up their Pedigree to the very Apostles and this he farther confirms by Tertullian's Authority Now if the Adviser had had a mind or ability to have spoke pertinently to the matter in hand he should have endeavour'd to have shewn either that Conformity with Primitive and Apostolic Doctrine does not make a Church truly Ancient and Apostolic or that the Doctrines of the Church of Engl. have no such Conformity for if they have 't will be found that Christ and his Apostles have a greater hand in the Constitution of this Church than in that of Rome notwithstanding his trifling harangue to the contrary The World knows very well he tells us when this Church was first establish'd by Law and so does the World know too when Christianity was first seated in the Throne and protected by the secular arm and yet I believe the Christians of those days thought no worse of their Religion for that nor I believe would the Adviser think worse of his if the Laws were on its side But where this Church was before 't was establish'd by Law that is not so easie to tell Why truly in my mind 't was much in the same state with the Jewish Church under the Dominion of Pharoah in Aegypt the one being born down and enslaved by a Temporal Tyranny the other by both a Temporal and Spiritual Usurpation till God was pleased as to rescue the one so the other too out of the House of Bondage After this he whissles and plays about the separation and novelty of this Church To which I shall only return That if he pleases to be but so kind to himself and to us as to lay aside the Buffoon and Declamator for a while and condescend for once to speak to the purpose upon that or any other subject he needs not fear a suitable reply from some or other In the last place he is for finding out the Confuter some work in Relation to the proof of our adequate belief of the Creed and in the same sense in which it was taught by the Apostles and professed by the Primitive Church No man who knows the Reverend and Learned Confuter can doubt of his Abilities for a much harder Task than what the Adviser would set him but I presume he knows how to dispose of his time much better than to lay it out in refuting the Suggestions of every incompetent Adversary and since he has thought fit to fling out this Surmise about the belief of the Church of England in my Apprehension 't would much more become him to make it out in the first place and then perhaps he may hear of the Confuter if he chances to write any thing worth his Confutation He tells us in one place of the forwardness of the beardless Divines of the Church of England I must confess I know not whether the Down is still upon his own Chin or no but if not I must needs tell him that for ought I find in his friendly half Sheet of Paper the Beard contibutes no more to the making of the Divine than it do's to the making of the Philosopher and therefore I shall conclude with one piece of Advice to him and that which may do him more true Service than all he has given the Confuter can ever do him and that is That if it be really his hard fate not to be able to write more to the purpose than what he has hitherto done he would give over writing in this kind and for the future follow the bent of his Genius which seems to lead him rather to the Comical Humour of the Stage than into the Field of Controversy FINIS