Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	holy_a	scripture_n	speak_v	14,888	5	5.2608	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59860	The protestant resolution of faith being an answer to three questions : I. How far we must depend on the authority of the church for the true sense of Scripture? II. Whether a visible succession from Christ to this day makes a church, which has this succession, an infallible interpreter of Scripture, and whether no church, which has not this succession, can teach the true sense of Scripture? III. Whether the Church of England can make out such a visible succession?	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1683 (1683)	Wing S3332; ESTC R22228	24,360	46

the Information we receive by the Scripture I cannot Divine and yet we may as easily know that there is a Church as we can know which is the true Church without the Scripture For there is no other means of knowing either that there is a Church or what this Church is or what are the Properties of a True and Sound and Orthodox Church but by Revelation and we have no other Revelation of this but what is contained in the Holy Scriptures As for the Second That the Church is the means of knowing the true sense and meaning of the Scriptures it is in some sense very true in some sense very false 1. It is in some sense true and acknowledged by all sober Protestants As 1. If by the Church we understand the Universal Church of all Ages as we receive the Scriptures themselves handed down by them to our time so whatever Doctrines of Faith have been universally received by them is one of the best means to find out the true sense of Scripture For the nearer they were to the times of the Apostles the more likely they were to understand the true sense of their Writings being instructed by the Apostles themselves in the meaning of them And thus we have a certain Rule to secure us from all dangerous Errors in expounding Scripture For the great and fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Religion are as plainly contained in the Writings of the first Fathers of the Church and as unanimously asserted by them as the Authority of the Scriptures themselves and therefore though we have not a Traditionary Exposition of every particular Text of Scripture yet we have of the great and fundamental Doctrines of Faith and therefore must never expound Scripture so as to contradict the known and avowed sense of the Catholick Church And this course the Church of England takes she receives the Definitions of the four first General Councils and requires her Bishops and Clergy to Expound the Scriptures according to the profest Doctrines of those first and purest Ages of the Church 2. We ought to pay great deference to and not lightly and wantonly oppose the Judgment and Authority of the particular Church wherein we live when her Expositions of Scripture do not evidently and notoriously contradict the sense of the Catholick Church especially of the first and best Ages of it For it does not become private men to oppose their Sentiments and Opinions to the Judgment of the Church unless in such plain Cases as every honest man may be presumed a very Competent Judge in the matter and no Church nor all the Churches in the World have such Authority that we must renounce our Senses and deny the first principles of Reason to follow them with a blind and implicite Faith And thus the Church that is the Sense and Judgment of the Catholick Church is a means for the finding out the true sense of Scripture and though we may mistake the sense of some particular Texts which the Romanists themselves will not deny but that even infallible Councils may do who tho' they are infallible in their Conclusions yet are not always so in the Arguments or Mediums whether drawn from Scripture or Reason whereby they prove them yet it is Morally impossible we should be guilty of any dangerous mistake while we make the Catholick Doctrine of the Church our Rule and in other matters follow the Judgment and submit to the Authority of the Church wherein we live which is as absolutely necessary as Peace and Order and good Government in the Church 2. But then this is very false if we mean that the Church is the only means of finding out the true sense of the Scriptures or if by the Church we understand any particular Church as I suppose this Person does the Roman Catholick that is the particular universal Church of Rome or if we mean the Church of the present Age or by Means understand such a Decretory Sentence as must determine our Faith and command our Assent that we must seek for no other Reason of our Faith but the Authority of the Church in expounding Scriptures I shall discourse something briefly of each of these 1. To say that the Church is the only Means to find out the true sense of Scripture is very false and absurd For 1. This supposes the Holy Scriptures to be a very unintelligible Book which is a great reproach to the Holy Spirit by which it was Indited that he either could not or would not speak intelligibly to the World 2. This is a direct Contradiction to those Exhortations of Christ and his Apostles to study the Scriptures which were made to private men and therefore necessarily supposes that the Holy Scriptures are to be understood as other Writings are by considering the Propriety of the Words and Language wherein they are written the Scope and Design of the place and such other means as honest and studious Inquirers use to find out the meaning of any other Book 3. If the Scriptures are so unintelligible that an honest man cannot find out the meaning of them without the infallible interpretation of the Church I would desire to know whether Christ and his Apostles Preach'd intelligibly to their Hearers If they did not to what purpose did they Preach at all By what means were men Converted to the Faith If they did how come these Sermons to be so unintelligible now they are written which were so intelligible when they were spoken For the Gospels contain a plain History of what Christ did and of what he said and the Apostles wrote the same things to the Churches when they were absent which they Preach'd to them when they were present and we reasonably suppose that they as much designed that the Churches should understand what they Wrote as what they Preach'd and therefore that they generally used the same form of words in their writing and in their Preaching And this makes it a great Riddle how one should be very plain and easie to be understood and the other signifie nothing without an infallible Interpreter 4. If the Scriptures be in themselves unintelligible I would desire to know how the Church comes to understand them If by any humane means together with the ordinary Assistances of the Divine Spirit then they are to be understood and then why may not every Christian in proportion to his Skill in Languages and in the Rules of Reason and Discourse understand them also If the Church cannot understand the Scriptures by any humane means but only by Inspiration for there is no Medium between these two to what purpose were the Scriptures written For we might as well have learnt the will of God from the Church without the Scriptures as with them God could have immediately revealed his will to the Church without a written Rule as well as reveal the meaning of that written Rule which it seems has no signification at all till the Church by Inspiration gives an Orthodox

the Succession of the Church of England till the Reformation and I pray how came we to lose our Succession then Did the Reformation of those Abuses and Corruptions which had crept into the Church unchurch us Just as much as a man ceases to be the same man when he is cured of some mortal Disease Did not the Church of England consist of the same Persons before the Reformation and after A great many indeed disowned the Reformation but were not at all those Persons who were so active and zealous in the Reformation formerly of the Roman Communion And did they lose their Succession too when they became Reformers When a Church consists of the same Bishops Priests and People which she had before though she have not all the same that she had when she retains the same ancient Catholick and Apostolick Faith which she did before only renounces some Errors and Innovations which she owned before how does this forfeit her Succession The Church of England is the very same Church now since the Reformation which she was before and therefore has the very same Succession though not the same Errors to this day that ever she had and that I think is as good a Succession as the Church of Rome has There are but two things to be considered in the case of Succession Either a Succession of Church Officers or a Succession of the Faith and Doctrines of the Church 1. As for a Succession of Church Officers we have the same that the Church of Rome has Those English Bishops who embraced the Reformation received their Orders in the Communion of the Church of Rome and therefore they had as good Orders as any are in the Church of Rome and these were the Persons who Consecrated other Bishops and so in Succession to this day For as for the story of the Nags-head Ordination that is so transparent a Forgery invented many years after to reproach the Reformation that I presume no sober Roman Catholick will insist on it But we are Hereticks and Schismaticks and this forseits our Orders and our Succession together But 1. This charge ought first to be proved against us that we are Hereticks and Schismaticks we deny and abhor both the name and thing and if we be not Hereticks and Schismaticks as we are sure we are not and as the Church of Rome can never prove us to be then according to their own Confession our Orders must be good 2. However be we Hereticks or Schismaticks or whatever they please to call us how does this destroy our Orders and Succession The Catholick Church would not allow in former Ages that Heresie or Schism destroyed the validity of Orders St. Jerome disputes against this at large in his Book Contra Luciferianos And St. Austin allows the Donatists Bishops to have valid Orders though they were Schismaticsk and therefore that the Sacraments administred by them were valid And indeed if Heresie will destroy Orders and Succession the Church of Rome will be as much to seek for their Orders and Succession as we are which by their own Confession have had several Heretical Popes and no body knows how many Bishops Ordained by them 2. As for Succession of Doctrine which is as considerable to the full as Succession of Orders the great Articles of our Faith are not only plainly contained in Scripture but have been delivered down to us through all ages of the Church by an uninterrupted Succession The Church of Rome her self in her greatest Degeneracy did own all that we do in pure matters of Faith When we reformed the Church we did not make a new Religion but only separated the old Faith from new and corrupt Additions and therefore the quarrel of the Church of Rome with us is not that we believe any thing which they do not believe but that we do not believe all that they would have us The Doctrine of the Church of England is truly Primitive and Catholick taught by Christ and his Apostles owned by the Primitive Church and excepting the Dispute between the Latin and Greek Church about the Filioque or the Holy Spirits proceeding from the Father and the Son received by all Catholick Churches to this day which is as compleat and perfect Succession as any Doctrine can have therefore when the Church of Rome asks us Where was our Religion before Luther we tell them it was all the World over all Catholick Churches believed what we do though we do not believe all that they do they themselves did and do to this Day own our Creeds and Articles of Faith excepting such of them as are directly opposed to their Innovations So that we are on a sure Foundation our Faith has been received in the Catholick Church in all Ages But now the Church of Rome cannot shew such a Succession for her new Doctrines and Articles of Faith which were unknown to the Primitive Church for many Ages which were rejected by many flourishing Churches since the first appearance of them which never had a quiet possession in her own Communion and were never formed into Articles of Faith till the packt Conventicle of Trent This I think is a sufficient Answer to this Paper and it pities me to see so many well-meaning Persons abused with such transparent Sophistry FINIS Books Printed for FINCHAM GARDINER A Continuation and Vindication of the Defence of Dr. Stilling fleet 's Unreasonableness of Separation in Answer to Mr. Baxter and Mr. L●b c. Considerations of present use considering the Danger Resulting from the Change of our Church-Government 1. A Perswasive to Communion with the Church of England 2. A Resolution of some Cases of Conscience which Respect Church Communion 3. The Case of Indifferent things used in the Worship of God Proposed and Stated by considering these Questions c. 4. A Discourse about Edification 5. The Resolution of this Case of Conscience Whether the Church of England's Symbolizing so far as it doth with the Church of Rome makes it unlawful to hold Communion with the Church of England 6. A Letter to Anonymus in Answer to his Three Letters to Dr. Sherlock about Church-Communion 7. Certain Cases of Conscience Resolved concerning the Lawfulness of joyning with Forms of Prayer in Publick Worship In two Parts 8. The Case of mixt Communion Whether it be Lawful to separate from a Church upon the Account of promiscuous Congregations and Mixt Communions 9. An Answer to the Dissenters Objections against the Common Prayers and some other parts of Divine Service Prescribed in the Liturgy of the Church of England 10. The Case of Kneeling at the Holy Sacrament Stated and Resolved c. The first Part. 11. Certain Cases of Conscience c. The Second Part. 12. A Discourse of Profiting by Sermons and of going to hear where men think they can profit most 13. A serious Exhortation with some Important Advices Relating to the late Cases about Conformity Recommended to the Present Dissenters from the Church of England 14. An Argument for Union c. 15. The Case of Kneeling c. The Second Part. 1. A Discourse about the charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking of us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 2. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is meant by it and what Tradition is to be Received and what Tradition is to be Rejected 3. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England