Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	err_v	infallible_a	1,696	5	10.0673	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33462	Capel's remains being an useful appendix to his excellent Treatise of tentations, concerning the translations of the Holy Scriptures : left written with his own hand / by that incomparably learned and jucicious divine, Mr. Richard Capel, sometimes fellow of Magdalen-Colledge in Oxford ; with a preface prefixed, wherein is contained an abridgement of the authors life, by his friend Valentine Marshall.	Capel, Richard, 1586-1656.; Marshall, Valentine.; Capel, Richard, 1586-1656. Tentations.	1658 (1658)	Wing C471; ESTC R5922	60,793	168

So I dare lay it on the same God that he in his providence is so with the Church of the Gentiles that they have and do preserve the Greek Text uncorrupt and clear As for some scapes by Transcribers that comes to no more then to censure a book to be corrupt because of some scapes in the printing and 't is certaine that what mistake is in one print is correctin another A second Proposition is That God never did suffer his Church to be without a sufficient Rule and there can be no rule but translations to the Vulgar Therefore I make no question but the sweet providence of God hath held the hearts and hands and pens of translators so in all true Churches in all times that the virnacular and popular translation into mother tongues have beene made pure without any considerable tincture of errour to endanger the soules of his Church For what if Interpreters and Translators were not Prophets yet God hath and doth use so to guide them that they have been are and shall be preserved from so erring in translating the Scriptures that the souls of his people may have that which will feed them to eternal life that they shall have sufficient for their instruction and consolation here and salvation hereafter This is the opinion of Bellarmine himselfe albeit he appropriates it to their vulgar Translation yet I think the eye of providence provides for all vulgar and vernacular translations in their mother tongue for all true Churches in the world Translations are sufficient with all their mistakes to save the Church I will deliver this in the words of Master Baine Faith cometh by hearing of the word from a particular Minister who by confession of all is subject to errour As God hath not immediately and infallibly assisted Ministers that they cannot erre at all so we know that he is in some measure with them that they cannot altogether erre A Translation that erreth cannot beget faith so farre forth as it erreth The word Translated though subject to errour is Gods Word and begetteth and increaseth faith not so farre forth as man through frailty erreth but as he is assisted through speaking and translating to write the truth So he This gives full satisfaction to me and I hope it will to others The maine Conclusion for a ground of all is the evidence and seale of the Spirit of God which perswadeth us of the saving truth in the Translation and by way of Ministry to come to saving faith by the preaching of the Word by our several Ministers Papists cry up the inerrable and infallible authority of the Church and yet they themselves deny not but their particular preachers whom they heare are as subject to erre as any of ours are I know no authority the Church hath whatever the Church doth is but Ministerial The Papists and we agree in this That Translations Originals Reading Preaching is of no saving effect without the Revelation and Testimony of the Spirit Canus I rather choose to mention him the oftener because Dr. John Rainolds saith that he was of better minde and sounder judgement then Popish Doctors are the most of them It is a great errour saith he in them who think they can either understand or interpret the Scripture without the peculiar gift of the holy Ghost And againe The last resolution of our faith must be in the inner efficiency of God moving to beleeve We believe not for that John or any man else saith it but because God hath revealed it Now that God hath revealed his minde we do immediately believe it by special instinct And again The formal reason of our assent is the light of God which God doth infuse into us and for this he cites Aquinas Lect. 2. ad Rom. 10. And as the understanding in us discernes of natural things and the taste in matters of sense so when the minde of a man is inlightened by the Spirit we are inabled to discerne doctrines necessary to salvation from errours which are not of God This his resolution is often up and down in his book Bellarmine is for the same conclusion A man cannot saith he without the special illustration of God believe the mysteries of faith And again Faith cannot arise in the heart but by divine revelation which is either immediately from God alone or by the instrument of the Word reade or preached I think it hath truth in it which Canus observes That Peter had heard the Testimony of John Baptist when with open voice he proclaimed Christ to be the Son of God John 1. 84. and had moreover with his own eyes seene many miracles of Christ yet after all these Christ doth ascribe Peters confession of his saith to none of of these but onely to divine revelation So then Protestants and Papists we and they concurre in this That at last we must sit down by the evidence and sealing testimony of the Spirit but with this difference They say The Spirit gives light and evidence to the authority of the Church we say To the Sovereignty of the Scriptures Nothing can be seene without some light or other Things of Reason cannot be conceived without the light of reason nor things of the Spirit without the light of Faith and of the Spirit Though Wotton hath cast an unhappy stone or two at translations yet when he comes to answer Fisher who said That the Spirit of God teacheth and perswadeth men to believe the Church Are you saith Wotton they who mock at private spirits and yet are glad to flie that help Is it not as likely the Spirit should teach men which is the Scripture as which is the Church and assure them of a translation as of this or that mans Ordination and Priesthood So he thus at last he is for the divine authority of translations But is not this to fall upon private revelations No such matter for we call not in for the Testimony of revealing of the Spirit to teach us any thing but what is revealed in the word that wer to bring in privat revelations But because none doth or can know the secrets of God but the Spirit of God therefore we say that we are made to see the evidence of truth first revealed in the Word and then by that light which the Spirit kindleth in our hearts both the Scripture to be the Word of God and the minde of the Sripture is not onely revealed but confirmed to us by the Testimony of the Spirit in us and to us So here is no use of the Spirit to reveal new lights but to shew us the evidence of these truthes which are in the Word A private spirit is to lead us from this is to lead us to the Word And all this is done by illightning our understandings and sanctifying our wills to discern and to approve the evidence of truth which is in the Scripture and no other They

do the work till they come to the testimony of the spirit They may and do work and acquire in us an humane faith which may stand free from actual hesitation and doubting but not from possible dubitation for lay them all together yet they may deceive or be deceived Canus disputes strongly against Scotus Durand Gabriel and others who rested themselves on the authority of the Church by an acquired faith first before they come to an infused faith This saith he were to sit down by the Authority of man not of God and the formal reason of our infused faith would be other then the increated truth of God whereas the difference of faith gotten by helps may erre but faith infused by God cannot erre So that when we have all done and got all the help we can to rest on the Scriptures the work is not done till we by the Spirit of God have this sealed by infused faith in our souls that these books which we have translated are the very words of God Smith himself that grand backbiter of translations confesseth at last that if the translations of the Word of God do agree with the Originals that then they are the Word of God nor are they the Translations except they do and as far as they do concord w with the Originals If an Ambassadour deliver his minde by an Interpreter and the Interpreter do relate things right else he is not an Interpreter then his words are the speeches of the Ambassadour Well then though all humane reasons the consent of all the world will not help us to that faith in the Word which will help us to heaven yet they are a preparation and such a preparation to this faith infused that we cannot ordinarily look for faith infused but by the way of this faith which is gotten by the arguments reasons considerations convictions and helps wrought by the Argumentations and considerations proposed by men which do work as most often it doth in us an acquired humane faith free from actual though not from possible mistake and doubting This may be and is a faire meanes to bring us to look on the Scripture without any actual question made of it as the Word of God And then by the use of the Word to attain to a Divine faith which is infallible by reason of the Divine infallible truth rightly conceived and believed by it For it is out of question that by the Ministry of men who are not simply infallible both we may and do attain unto that faith in the divine Revelations of the Word which are or is infallible It s no Paradox to hold that a thing not infallible may by way of Ministry lead us to that certainty which is infallible For my part I hold universal tradition as far as it looks onely on the votes and vices of men to be of all reasons the weakest For the arguments from the authority of God be the strongest yet conclusions from the authority of men is an unartificial argument the weakest However what Arminius saith is true that this humane faith built on such an universal tradition may be a fit preparation to that other faith which is built on the Authority of God I am far●e from once thinking that in universal tradition men do once dreame to make the last resolution of their faith into the veracity of any such universal tradition For our faith must rest on the same that the Apostles and Prophets did rest their faith on But they did resolve their faith onely on truth uncreated and divine and not on the votes of the Church or any universal tradition Canus speaks the truth when he saith that the authority of the divine Scriptures is not to be sought from the reason or authority of men For the assent to a conclusion cannot be more certain then the assent to the premisses and proofs of that conclusion Now if our infused faith did rest onely or chiefly on the credit of the Church or universal tradition then our infused faith could go no higher then an humane and created truth I mean onely or chiefly on the voices or reasons of men and not on the voice and authority of God But what is this to translations Much every way I argue thus The end of the Church and people of God is that they should be saved Now if God set down the end he will provide the means of their salvation and that is faith and faith is not built on the authority of the Church or of universal tradition all which are the voices of men but on the Word of God Now this Word of God cannot concerne common people but onely as translated Now what shall a poore unlearned Christian do if that he hath nothing to rest his poore soul on the originals he understands not if he did the first Copies are not to be had and he cannot tell whether the Hebrew and Greek Copies be the right Hebrew or the right Greek or that which is said to be the meaning of the Hebrew or Greek but as men tell us who are not Prophets and may mistake Besides the Transcribers were men and might erre These considerations may let in Atheisme like a flood To help all this we will deliver our mind in some Propositions I. That God as I shewed did lay up the Hebrew Copies to be kept by the Jewes who were ordered by God to be faithful notaries to keep these Records and a world of places are cited out of the Old in the New Testament according as they are nowe in the Hebrew Copies and the Old Testament hath in it the life and soule of the New Testament Moses and the Prophets wrote of Christ The New Testament is but a cleare and infallible counter-part of the Old It s cleare that the Hebrew of the Old Testament stood cleare and uncorrupt without any breaches made in them by transcribers or otherwise till the time of the publishing of the New Testament as appears by the manie places cited in the New out of the Old chiefly where Hebrew words are kept and repeated as Hosanna Golgotha Eli Eli Lamasabachthani Mat. ●7 sutable unto the places whence they are taken out of the Old chiefly in Saint Matthews Gospel who was most punctual in applying and suiting the Prophesies of the Old Testament of all the holy penmen of the New Testament And it is easie to be proved that Matthew wrote after that was done which Luke wrote in the Acts of the Apostles Doctor Jackson saith a long time after Peter made that Sermon Act. 1. Saint Matthew addes and saith saith he it was called the field of blood unto this day Which argueth that he wrote his Gospel a long time after St. Peter made his Comment upon the Psalmist Acts 1. 15 16 17. Well then as God committed the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament to the Jewes and did and do●h move their hearts to keep it untainted to this day