Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	article_n	holy_a	salvation_n	2,633	5	7.5054	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49112	A continuation and vindication of the Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of separation in answer to Mr. Baxter, Mr. Lob, &c. containing a further explication and defence of the doctrine of Catholick communication : a confutation of the groundless charge of Cassandrianism : the terms of Catholick communion, and the docrine of fundamentals explained : together with a brief examination of Mr. Humphrey's materials for union / by the author of The defence.	Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.	1682 (1682)	Wing L2964; ESTC R21421	191,911	485

was so general that St. Cyprian and Optatus found the Consent of the whole Church upon it However half the World or all the known famous Churches were sufficient for Advice and Counsel though not for supreme uncontroulable Government which I never asserted to advise with all the known Churches which were within the reach of such Communication is sufficient to satisfie us how necessary they thought it to use the most effectual Means they could to preserve Catholick Communion and that they believed mutual Advice and Counsel a very proper means for that end and the Duty of all true Catholick Bishops This way St. Austin calls an Epistolare Colloquium Aug. de baptismo l. 3. cap. 2. a Conference by Letters which he thinks is not to be compared with the Plenarium Concilium as he very properly calls a general Council a full or plenary Council which is made up of wise and learned Prelates from distant parts of the World For when the Bishops of so many several Churches who may be well presumed to know the Judgment and Practise of their own Churches meet together without any private or factious Designs freely to debate and consult for the publick good of the Church the Authority of such a Council must needs be venerable and it must be some very great reason that will justifie a dissent from it Such Councils indeed are not infallible Article 21. as our Church asserts because they consist of fallible men who may be and have been deceived and therefore in Matters necessary to Salvation we must believe them no farther than they agree with the holy Scriptures though a modest man will not oppose his private judgment to the Decrees of a general Council unless the Authority of the Scripture be very expresly against it but in Rules of Discipline and Government their Authority is greater still because the Canons of general Councils are a great Medium and excellent Instrument of Catholick Communion the promoting of which is the principal end and the greatest use of general Councils and therefore though they do not command by any direct Authority and superior Jurisdiction yet they strongly oblige in order to serve the ends of Catholick Communion 2. But now suppose a man should assert the Authority of a general Council how does this subvert the Kings Supremacy or incur a Premunire For let the Authority of a general Council be what it will it is wholly Spiritual as the whole Government of the Church is considered meerly as a Church or Spiritual Society but the Supremacy of the King is an external and civil Jurisdiction in all Causes and over all Persons Ecclesiastical within his Dominions and Mr. Lob might as well say that every man who sets up any spiritual Authority in the Church subverts the Supremacy of the King and thus the King's Supremacy makes him a Bishop and a Priest too a Scandal which Mr. Lob's Predecessors raised in Queen Elizabeths days to disswade People from the Oath of Supremacy which it seems they were not then so fond of and which the Queen confutes in her Injunctions and tells her Subjects that she neither doth nor ever will challenge any other Authority but only this under God to have the Soveraignty and Rule over all manner of Persons born within these her Realms Dominions and Countries of what Estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other Forraign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them When Bishop Jewel writ his Apology and Defence to Scipio a Patrician of Venice who complained of the English Nation for not sending their Legates to the Council of Trent he never thought of this reason against it that it was contrary to the King's Supremacy which is owned and confirmed by the Laws of this Land and we may observe that the Statutes of Provisors and several Laws to preserve the Liberties of the Realm from the Usurpations of the Pope of Rome or any other Forraign Potentate were made and confirmed in several Kings Reigns long before Henry the 8th a particular Account of which the Reader may find in Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation part 1. Book 2. p. 107. c. upon which the Clergy were convicted in a Praemunire by King Henry the 8th and therefore Arch-bishop Bramhall truly observes Bramhall's vindication of the Church of England That the Supremacy was not a new Authority usurped by that King but the ancient Right of the Imperial Crown of England and yet in those days it was not deemed a Subversion of the Supremacy to acknowledge the Authority of general Councils For after the Statutes of Provisors we find the English Bishops in the Councils of Constance and Basil which asserted the Authority of general Councils as high as ever any men did For indeed since Princes have embraced the Christian Faith no Bishops excepting the Pope of Rome have pretended to call a general Council but by the Will and Authority of the Prince nor can the Decrees and Canons of any Council be received in any Kingdom or obtain the Authority of Laws but by the Consent of the Prince which therefore certainly can be no encroachment upon his Supremacy While the King has the supreme executive Power in all Causes and over all Persons in his own Hands the spiritual Power and Authority of the Church is no invasion of his Rights This is sufficient at present in answer to Mr. Lob's insinuation that to assert the Authority of general Councils subverts the Kings Supremacy subjects the Church of England to a Forraign Court and Jurisdiction and thereby incurs the Penalty of a Praemunire whereby we see that he understands the Law as little as he does the Gospel only shews his good Will to poor Cassandrians and as much as he declames against penal Laws against Dissenters would be glad to see the Church of England once more under the Execution of a Praemunire 4. Mr. Lob has not done with me yet but to make me a perfect Cassandrian whether I will or not he adds as my sense Reply p. 12. That this Council of Forraign Bishops unto which they i.e. the Bishops of the Church of England are accountable must look on the Bishop of Rome as their Primate the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome being acknowledged it seems by our Author himself as well as by Bramhall The Primacy he saith out of Cyprian being given to Peter that it might appear that the Church of Christ was one and the Chair that is the Apostolical Office and Power is one Thus Cyprian on whom lay all the Care of the Churches dispatches Letters to Rome from whence they were sent through all the Catholick Churches all this is to be found from p. 208. to the end of the Chapter This is a terrible Charge indeed and home to the Purpose and Mr. Lob is a terrible Adversary in these days if he can but Swear as well as he can Write for all this is

great Prophets by Miracles and when he was persecuted for it he owned the truth to the very death and set a great example of constancy and patience and submission to God in his sufferings as other great Prophets had done before him though not in so extraordinary a manner 3. This crucified Jesus was raised by God from the dead the third day though being but a Creature or a Man he was not able to raise himself and was advanced by God to great Power and Glory 4. Which Power consists in all those Acts which are specified in the opposite Scheme with this difference that his Power is not owing to his Priesthood or Sacrifice nor has any dependance on it but he is a Saviour forgives sins c. by a Soveraign Power given him by God not by Merit or Purchase or the expiation of his Sacrifice And there is this contradiction in it that a Creature is invested with Almighty Power and this riddle in it that God should make a Creature the Saviour of mankind and this Blasphemy that God should advance a Creature to be his own Rival or Partner in divine Honour This short account makes it very evident what a fundamental difference the belief or denial of the Divinity of our Saviour makes in the whole Doctrine of Salvation by Christ The first makes it an Act of stupendious love in God in giving his own Son to be a Propitiation for our sins the second is a great act of love in saving sinners but the manner is not so full of Wonder and mysterious Goodness The first makes it an act of infinite Love and Condescention in Christ to become Man a Minister and a Servant and to submit to an accursed death for our sakes That though he were rich yet for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be rich But the second infers no such thing as I can see If he were nothing greater than a man it was no condescention in him to be made a man especially if he had no being before he was born of the Virgin Mary it was no more matter of his choice to become man than it is of any other man who is born into the World and therefore could be no Act of Love or Condescension Nay suppose that Christ were the most glorious and excellent Creature yet being a Creature there is not such a vast difference between the most perfect Creature and a perfect Man as there is between a God and the most perfect Creature it is no such mighty debasement for the most glorious Angels to appear in pure and untainted Flesh and Blood especially upon such a glorious design as the redemption of mankind Though the disguise and appearance may be thought below an Angelical Nature yet the Character with which he appears as the great Prophet and Saviour of the World is as much above it The meanest state and condition of humane nature a poor despised and laborious Life the most painful and ignominious death which makes the most excellent Creature the Saviour of mankind and advances him to be Lord and Judge of the World is so far from being an Act of condescending love in the most glorious Creature that it is above his Ambition and would be like the pride of Lucifer to be equal to God To become man to suffer and die for the redemption of the World and to be made the Lord and Judge both of the quick and of the dead can be an act of condescending love and goodness only in God So that to deny the Divinity of Christ alters the very foundations of Christianity and destroys all the powerful arguments of the Love Humility and Condescention of our Lord which are the peculiar motives of the Gospel Thus the belief of the Divinity of Christ makes God to be our Saviour the object of our Faith and Hope and Relyance the denial of it makes a Creature to be our Saviour and the object of a Religious Faith and Worship which I think differ as much as the Worship of God and of a Creature The first contains a visible union of our Nature to the Deity which is a visible demonstration of God's love and tender regard to mankind the second deprives us of this sensible Consolation The first exhibits to us a Saviour by Purchase and by Redemption which is both more endearing and a greater security to our guilty fears the second makes Christ a Saviour only as a Prophet or a King may be a Saviour who saves by wise instructions by preaching the way of Salvation or by Power The first respects the guilt of sin and the just Wrath and Displeasure of God which is the Object of our guilty fears It offers a Saviour to us who is a Mediator between God and man and powerfully intercedes for our Pardon in vertue of his meritorious Sacrifice The second has no respect to the atonement and reconciliation of God which is the only security to a guilty Conscience but only contains proposals of Peace and Reconciliation without a Sacrifice A thing which mankind will not easily believe when they are thorowly convinced of the evil of sin and the inflexible purity and holiness of the divine Nature not to take notice now how irreconcileable this is with all the ancient Types of the Law of Moses In a word he who believes Christ to be perfect God as well as perfect man is easily satisfied of his Power to save as well as of the Vertue of his Sacrifice For omnipotent Power is essential to the Notion of a God and when God becomes our Saviour he can exercise all that Power which is necessary to our Salvation but he who believes Christ to be but an exalted Creature can never understand how he can exercise omnipotent Power which is peculiar to God For I think it is somewhat harder to understand how a Creature can be made a God and be possest of divine Perfections such as omnipotent Power is than to believe that God can take a Creature into a personal union with himself This I think is sufficient to satisfie any man what a fundamental Change the denial of Christ's Divinity makes in the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ It makes a new Gospel and a new Religion and therefore the Divinity of Christ must be acknowledged to be a fundamental Doctrine because the denial of it subverts Foundations Thus to proceed our Salvation by Christ does not only consist in the expiation of our sins and the proposal of terms of Reconciliation and the promise of Pardon and a Reward but in the Communications of divine Grace and Power to renew and sanctifie us and this is every where in Scripture attributed to the holy Spirit as his peculiar Office in the Oeconomy of man's Salvation and it must make a fundamental change in the Doctrine of divine Grace and assistance to deny the Divinity of the holy Spirit For can a Creature be the universal Spring and Fountain of