Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	book_n	church_n	faith_n	2,919	5	5.3557	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23752	The lively oracles given to us, or, The Christians birth-right and duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture by the author of The whole duty of man, &c.	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.; Sterne, Richard, 1596?-1683.; Pakington, Dorothy Coventry, Lady, d. 1679.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1149; ESTC R170102	108,974	240

Tradition but by the Book of the Law found in the Temple that Josiah was both excited to reform Religion and instructed how to do it 2 Kings 22. 10. And had not that or som other copy bin produc'd they had bin much in the dark as to the particulars of their reformation which that they had not bin convei'd by Tradition appears by the sudden startling of the King upon the reading of the Law which could not have bin had he bin before possest with the contents of it In like manner we find in Nehemiah that the observation of the Feast of Tabernacles was recover'd by consulting the Law the Tradition whereof was wholly worn out or else it had sure bin impossible that id could for so long a time have bin intermitted Neh. 8. 18. And yet mens memories are commonly more retentive of an external visible rite then they are of speculative Propositions or moral Precepts 30. THESE instances shew how fallible an expedient mere oral Tradition is for transmission to posterity But admit no such instance could be given 't is argument enough that God has by his own choice of writing given the preference to it Nor has he barely chosen it but has made it the standard by which to mesure all succeeding pretences 'T is the means he prescribes for distinguishing divine from diabolical Inspirations To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this Word there is no light in them Isai. 8. 20. And when the Lawier interrogated our Savior what he should do to inherit eternal life he sends him not to ransac Tradition or the cabalistical divinity of the Rabbins but refers him to the Law What is written in the Law how readest thou Luk. 10. 26. And indeed throout the Gospel we still find him in his discourse appealing to Scripture and asserting its autority as on the other side inveighing against those Traditions of the Elders which had evacuated the written Word Ye make the Word of God of none effect by your Tradition Mat. 15. 6. Which as it abundantly shews Christs adherence to the written Word so 't is a pregnant instance how possible it is for Tradition to be corrupted and made the instrument of imposing mens phancies even in contradiction to Gods commands 31. AND since our blessed Lord has made Scripture the test whereby to try Traditions we may surely acquiesce in his decision and either embrace or reject Traditions according as they correspond to the supreme rule the written Word It must therefore be a very unwarrantable attemt to set up Tradition in competition with much more in contradiction to that to which Christ himself hath subjected it 32. Saint Paul reckons it as the principal privilege of the Jewish Church that it had the Oracles of God committed to it i. e. that the holy Scriptures were deposited and put in its custody and in this the Christian Church succeeds it and is the guardian and conservator of holy Writ I ask then had the Jewish Church by vertue of its being keeper a power to supersede any part of those Oracles intrusted to them if so Saint Paul was much out in his estimate and ought to have reckon'd that as their highest privilege But indeed the very nature of the trust implies the contrary and besides 't is evident that is the very crime Christ charges upon the Jews in the place above cited And if the Jewish Church had no such right upon what account can the Christian claim any Has Christ enlarg'd its Charter has he left the sacred Scriptures with her not to preserve and practice but to regulate and reform to fill up its vacancies and supply its defects by her own Traditions if so let the commission be produc'd but if her office be only that of guardianship and trust she must neither substract from nor by any superadditions of her own evacuate its meaning and efficacy and to do so would be the same guilt that it would be in a person intrusted with the fundamental Records of a Nation to foist in fuch clauses as himself pleases 33 IN short God has in the Scriptures laid down exact rules for our belief and practice and has entrusted the Church to convey them to us if she vary or any way enervate them she is false to that trust but cannot by it oblige us to recede from that rule she should deliver to comply with that she obtrudes upon us The case may be illustrated by an easy resemblance Suppose a King have a forreign principality for which he composes a body of Laws annexes to them rewards and penalties and requires an exact and indispensable conformity to them These being put in writing he sends by a select messenger now suppose this messenger deliver them yet saies withall that himself has autority from the King to supersede these Laws at his plesure so that their last resort must be to his dictats yet produces no other testimony but his own bare affirmation Is it possible that any men in their wits should be so stupidly credulous as to incur the penalty of those Laws upon so improbable an indemnity And sure it would be no whit less madness in Christians to violate any precept of God on an ungrounded supposal of the Churches power to dispense with them 34. AND if the Church universal have not this power nor indeed ever claim'd it it must be a strange insolence for any particular Church to pretend to it as the Church of Rome do's as if we should owe to her Tradition all our Scripture and all our Faith insomuch that without the supplies which she affords from the Oracle of her Chair our Religion were imperfect and our salvation insecure Upon which wild dictates I shall take liberty in a distinct Section farther to animadvert SECT VI. The suffrage of the primitive Christian Church concerning the propriety and fitness which the Scripture has towards the attainment of its excellent end AGAINST what has bin hitherto said to the advantage of the holy Scripture there opposes it self as we have already intimated the autority of the Church of Rome which allows it to be only an imperfect rule of Faith saying in the fourth Session of the Council of Trent that Christian faith and discipline are contain'd in the Books written and unwritten Tradition And in the fourth rule of the Index put forth by command of the said Council the Scripture is declar'd to be so far from useful that its reading is pernicious if permitted promiscuously in the vulgar Tongue and therefore to be withheld insomuch that the study of the holy Bible is commonly by persons of the Roman Communion imputed to Protestants as part of their heresy they being call'd by them in contemt the Evangelical men and Scripturarians And the Bible in the vulgar Tongue of any Nation is commonly reckon'd among prohibited Books and as such publicly burnt when met with by the Inquisitors and the person who is found with it

among the unbaptiz'd and heathen multitude and learn again the elements of that holy Faith from which he had prevaricated and so in time be render'd capable of the devotions of the faithful and afterward the reception of the Eucharist But when the Scriptures were thought useless or dangerous to be understood and heard it was consequent that the state of Audience should be cut off from Penance and that the next to it upon the self-same principle should be dismist and so the long probation formerly requir'd should be supplanted and the compendious way of pardoning first and repenting afterwards the endless circle of sinning and being absolv'd and then sinning and being absolv'd again should prevail upon the Church Which still obtains notwithstanding the complaints and irrefragable demonstrations of learned men even of the Romish Communion who plainly shew this now receiv'd method to be an innovation groundless and unreasonable and most pernicious in its consequents 9. AND by the way we may take notice that there cannot be a plainer evidence of the judgment of the Church concerning the necessity of the Scriptures being known not only by the learned but mean Christian and the interest they have therein then is the ancient course of Penance establisht by the practice of all the first Ages and almost as many Councils whether general or local as have decreed any thing concerning disciplin with the penitentiary Books and Canons which were written for the first eleven hundred years in the whole Christian world For if even the unbaptiz'd Catechumen and the lapst sinner notwithstanding their slender knowledg in the mysteries of Faith or frail pretence to the privilege thereof had a right to the state of Audience and was oblig'd to hear the Scripture read surely the meanest unobnoxious Laic was in as advantagious circumstances and might not only be trusted with the reading of those sacred Books but might claim them as his birth-right 10. I may justly over and above what has bin hitherto alleg'd impute to the Governors of the same Church and their withholding from the Laity the holy Scripture the many dangerous errors gross ignorances and scandalous immoralities which have prevail'd among them both It is no new method of divine vengeance that there should be like people like Priest Hos. 4. 9. and that the Idol shepherd who led his flock into the ditch should fall therein himself Mat. 15. 14. And as the Prophet Zachary describes it c. 11. 17. The sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eie his arm shall be clean dried up and his right eie shall be utterly darkned 11. BUT no consequence can be more obviously deducible from that practice then that men should justify the with-holding of the Scripture by lessening its credit and depreciating its worth which has occasion'd those reproches which by the writers of the Church of Rome of best note have bin cast upon it As that it was a Nose of wax a leaden rule a deaf and useless deputy to God in the office of a Judg of less autority then the Roman Church and of no more credit then Esops Fables but for the testimony of the said Church that they contain things apt to raise laughter or indignation that the Latin Translation in the Complutensian Bible is placed between the Hebrew Text and the Septuagint Version as our Savior was at his Crucifixion between two thieves and that the vulgar Edition is of such autority that the Originals ought to be mended by it rather then it should be mended from them which are the complements of Cardinal Bellarmin Hosius Eckius Perron Ximenes Coqueus and others of that Communion words to be answer'd by a Thunderbolt and fitter for the mouth of a Celsus or a Porphyrie then of the pious sons and zealous Champions of the Church of Christ. 12. 'T IS to be expected that the Romanists should now wipe their mouths and plead not guilty telling us that they permit the Scripture to the Laity in their mother Tongue And to that purpose the Fathers of Rhemes and Doway have publisht an English Bible for those of their communion I shall therefore give a short and plain account of the whole affair as really it stands and then on Gods name let the Romanist make the best of their Apology 13. THE fourth rule of the Index of prohibited Books compos'd upon the command and auspice of the Council of Trent and publish'd by the autority of Pius the fourth Sixtus the fifth and Clement the eighth runs thus Since 't is manifest by experience that if the holy Bible be suffer'd promiscuously in the vulgar Tongue such is the temerity of men that greater detriment then advantage will thence arise in this matter let the judgment of the Bishop or Inquisitor be stood to that with the advice of the Curat or Confessor they may give leave for the reading of the Bible in the vulgar Tongue translated by Catholics to such as they know will not receive damage but increase of Faith and Piety thereby Which faculty they shall have in writing and whosoever without such faculty shall presume to have or to read the Bible he shall not till he have deliver'd it up receive absolution of his sins Now to pass over the iniquity of obliging men to ask leave to do that which God Almighty commands when 't is consider'd how few of the Laity can make means to the Bishop or Inquisitor or convince them or the Curat or Confessor that they are such who will not receive damage but encrease of Faith and Piety by the reading of the Scripture and also have interest to prevail with them for their favor herein and after all can and will be at the charge of taking out the faculty which is so penally requir'd 't is easy to guess what thin numbers of the Laity are likely or indeed capable of reaping benefit by this Indulgence pretended to be allowed them 14. BUT besides all this what shall we say if the power it self of giving Licences be a mere shew and really signifies just nothing In the observation subjoin'd to this fourth rule it is declar'd that the Impression and Edition thereof gives no new faculty to Bishops or Inquisitors or Superiors of regulars to grant Licences of buying reading or retaining Bibles publisht in a vulgar Tongue since hitherto by the command and practice of the holy Roman and universal Inquisition the power of giving such faculties to read or retain vulgar Bibles or any parts of Scripture of the Old or New Testament in any vulgar Tongue or also summaries or historical compendiums of the said Bibles or Books of Scripture in whatsoever Tongue they are written has bin taken away And sure if a Lay-man cannot read the Bible without a faculty and it is not in any ones power to grant it 't will evidently follow that he cannot read it And so the pretence of giving liberty owns the shame of openly refusing it but has no other effect