Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	call_v	great_a	power_n	2,783	5	4.5526	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64062	B. Taylor's Opuscula the measures of friendship : with additional tracts : to which is now added his moral demonstration proving that the religion of Jesus Christ is from God : never before printed in this volume.; Selections. 1678	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1678 (1678)	Wing T355; ESTC R11770	78,709	214

common People and as it is not to be supposed that all these would joyn their divided interests for and against themselves for the verification of a lye so if they would have done it they could not have done it without reproof of their own parties who would have been glad by the discovery only to disgrace the whole story but if the report of honest and just men so reputed may be questioned for matter of fact or may not be accounted sufficient to make faith when there is no pretence of Men to the contrary besides that we can have no story transmitted to us nor Records kept no acts of Courts no narratives of the days of old no traditions of our Fathers so there could not be left in nature any usual Instrument whereby God could after the manner of Men declare his own will to us but either we should never know the will of Heaven upon earth or it must be that God must not only tell it once but always and not only always to some men but always to all men and then as there would be no use of History or the honesty of Men and their faithfulness in telling any act of God in declaration of his will so there would be perpetual necessity of miracles and we could not serve God directly with our understanding for there would be no such thing as faith that is of assent without conviction of understanding and we could not please God with believing because there would be in it nothing of the will nothing of love and choice and that faith which is would be like that of Thomas to believe what we see or hear and God should not at all govern upon Earth unless he did continually come himself for thus all Government all Teachers all Apostles all Messengers would be needless because they could not shew to the eye what they told to the ears of Men And it might as well be disbelieved in all Courts and by all Princes that this was not the letter of a Prince or the act of a Man or the writing of his hand and so all humane entercourse must cease and all senses but the eye be useless as to this affair or else to the ear all voices must be strangers but the principal if I say no reports shall make faith But it is certain that when these voices were sent from Heaven and heard upon Earth they prevailed amongst many that heard them not and Disciples were multiplied upon such accounts or else it must be that none that did hear them could be believed by any of their friends and neighbours for if they were the voice was as effective at the reflex and rebound as in the direct emission could prevail with them that believed their brother or their friend as certainly as with them that believed their own ears and eyes I need not speak of the vast numbers of miracles which he wrought miracles which were not more demonstrations of his power than of his mercy for they had nothing of pompousness and ostentation but infinitely of charity and mercy and that permanent and lasting and often he opened the eyes of the blind he made the crooked straight he made the weak strong he cured fevers with the touch of his hand and an issue of blood with the hem of his garment and sore eyes with the spittle of his mouth and the clay of the earth he multiplied the loaves and fishes he raised the dead to life a young maiden the widows son of Naim and Lazarus and cast out Devils by the word of his mouth which he could never do but by the power of God For Satan does not cast out Satan nor a house fight against it self if it means to stand long and the Devil could not help Jesus because the holy Jesus taught Men virtue called them from the worshipping Devils taught them to resist the Devil to lay aside all those abominable idolatries by which the Devil doth rule in the hearts of men he taught men to love God to fly from temptations to sin to hate and avoid all those things of which the Devil is guilty for Christianity forbids pride envy malice lying and yet affirms that the Devil is proud envious malicious and the Father of lies and therefore where ever Christianity prevails the Devil is not worshipped and therefore he that can think that a man without the power of God could over-turn the Devils principles cross his designs weaken his strengths baffle him in his policies befool him and turn him out of possession and make him open his own mouth against himself as he did often and confess himself conquered by Jesus and tormented as the Oracle did to Augustus Caesar and the Devil to Jesus himself he I say that thinks a meer man can do this knows not the weaknesses of a man nor the power of an Angel but he that thinks this could be done by compact and by consent of the Devil must think him to be an Intelligence without understanding a power without force a fool and a sot to assist a power against himself and to persecute the power he did assist to stir up the World to destroy the Christians whose Master and Lord he did assist to destroy himself and when we read that Porphyrius an Heathen a professed enemy to Christianity did say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that since Jesus was worshipped the gods could help no man that is the gods which they worshipped the poor baffled enervated Daemons He must either think that the Devils are as foolish as they are weak or else that they did nothing towards this declination of their power and therefore that they suffer it by a power higher than themselves that is by the power of God in the hand of Jesus But besides that God gave testimony from heaven concerning him he also gave this testimony of himself to have come from God because that he did Gods will for he that is a good man and lives by the Laws of God and of his Nation a life innocent and simple prudent and wise holy and spotless unreproved and unsuspected he is certainly by all wise men said in a good sense to be the son of God but he who does well and speaks well and calls all men to glorifie and serve God and serves no ends but of holiness and charity of wisdom of hearts and reformation of manners this man carries great authority in his sayings and ought to prevail with good men in good things for good ends which is all that is here required But his nature was so sweet his manners so humble his words so wise and composed his comportment so grave and winning his answers so seasonable his questions so deep his reproof so severe and charitable his pity so great and merciful his preachings so full of reason and holiness of weight and authority his conversation so useful and beneficent his poverty great but his alms frequent his family so holy and religious

follies to the Church of England 7. Trouble your self with no controversies willingly but how you may best please God by a strict and severe conversation 8. If any Protestant live loosely remember that he dishonours an excellent Religion and that it may be no more laid upon the charge of our Church than the ill lives of most Christians may upon the whole Religion 9. Let no Man or Woman affright you with declamations and scaring words of Heretick and Damnation and Changeable for these words may be spoken against them that return to light as well as to those that go to darkness and that which Men of all sides can say it can be of effect to no side upon its own strength or pretension THE END POST-SCRIPT Madam IF You shall think it fit that these Papers pass further than Your own eye and Closet I desire they may be consign'd into the hands of my worthy friend Dr. Wedderburne For I do not only expose all my sickness to his cure but I submit my weaknesses to his censure being as confident to find of him charity for what is pardonable as remedy for what is curable but indeed Madam I look upon that worthy Man as an Idea of friendship and if I had no other notices of Friendship or conversation to instruct me than his it were sufficient For whatsoever I can say of Friendship I can say of his and as all that know him reckon him amongst the best Physicians so I know him worthy to be reckoned amongst the best friends The III. Letter Written to a Gentleman that was tempted to the Communion of the Romish Church SIR YOU needed not to make the Preface of an excuse for writing so friendly and so necessary a Letter of Inquiry It was your kindness to my person which directed your addresses hither and your duty which ingag'd you to inquire somewhere I do not doubt but you and very many other ingenious and conscientious persons do every day meet with the Tempters of the Roman Church who like the Pharisees compass Sea and Land to get a Proselyte at this I wonder not for as Demetrius said by this craft they get their living but I wonder that any ingenious person and such as I perceive you to be can be shaken by their weak assaults for their batteries are made up with impossible propositions and weak and violent prejudices respectively and when they talk of their own infallibility they prove it with false Mediums say we with fallible Mediums as themselves confess and when they argue us of an Uncertain faith because we pretend to no infallibility they are themselves much more Uncertain because they build their pretence of infallibility upon that which not only can but will deceive them and since they can pretend no higher for their infallibility than prudential motives they break in pieces the staff upon which they lean and with which they strike us But Sir you are pleased to ask two Questions 1. Whether the Apostles of our Blessed Lord did not Orally deliver many things necessary to Salvation which were not committed to writing To which you add this assumentum in which because you desire to be answered I suppose you meant it for another Question viz. whether in those things which the Church of Rome retains and we take no notice of She be an Innovator or a conserver of Tradition and whether any thing which she so retains was or was not esteemed necessary The answer to the first part will conclude the second I therefore answer that whatsoever the Apostles did deliver as necessary to Salvation all that was written in the Scriptures and that to them who believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God there needs no other Magazine of Divine truths but the Scripture And this the Fathers of the first and divers succeeding Ages do Unanimously affirm I will set down two or three so plain that either you must conclude them to be deceivers or that you will need no more but their testimony The words of S. Basil are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Every word and every thing ought to be made credible or believ'd by the testimony of the Divinely-inspired Scripture both for the confirmation of good things and also for the reproof of the evil S. Cyril of Jerusalem catech 12. illuminat saith Attend not to my inventions for you may possibly be deceiv'd but trust no word unless thou dost learn it from the Divine Scriptures and in Catech. 4. illum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For it behoves us not to deliver so much as the least thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine and holy mysteries of Faith without the Divine Scriptures nor to be moved with probable discourses Neither give credit to me speaking unless what is spoken be demonstrated by the Holy Scriptures For that is the security of our Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is derived not from witty inventions but from the demonstration of Divine Scriptures Omne quod loquimur debemus affirmare de Scripturis Sanctis so S. Hierom in Psal. 89. And again Hoc quia de Scripturis authoritatem non habet eadem facilitate contemnitur quâ probatur in Matth. 23. Si quid dicitur absque Scripturâ auditorum cogitatio claudicat So S. Chrysostom in Psal. 95. homil Theodoret dial 1. cap. 6. brings in the Orthodox Christian saying to Eranistes bring not to me your Logismes and Syllogismes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I rely only upon Scriptures I could reckon very very many more both elder and later and if there be any Universal Tradition consigned to us by the Universal Testimony of Antiquity it is this that the Scriptures are a perfect repository of all the Will of God of all the Faith of Christ and this I will engage my self to make very apparent to you and certain against any opposer Upon the supposition of which it follows that whatever the Church of Rome obtrudes as necessary to Salvation and an Article of Faith that is not in Scripture is an Innovation in matter of Faith and a Tyranny over Consciences which whosoever submits to prevaricates the rule of the Apostle commanding us that we stand fast in the liberty with which Christ hath set us free To the other Questions Whether an Ecclesiastical Tradition be of equal authority with Divine I answer Negatively And I believe I shall have no adversary in it except peradventure some of the Jesuited Bigots An Ecclesiastical Tradition viz. a positive constitution of the Church delivered from hand to hand is in the power of the Church to alter but a Divine is not Ecclesiastical Traditions in matters of Faith there are none but what are also Divine as for Rituals Ecclesiastical descending by Tradition they are confessedly alterable but till they be altered by abrogation or desuetude or contrary custome or a contrary reason or the like they do oblige by vertue of that Authority whatsoever it is that hath power