Selected quad for the lemma: tradition_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
tradition_n	book_n	receive_v	scripture_n	2,071	5	6.0510	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28402	A treatise of the sibyls so highly celebrated, as well by the antient heathens, as the holy fathers of the church : giving an accompt of the names, and number of the sibyls, of their qualities, the form and matter of their verses : as also of the books now extant under their names, and the errours crept into Christian religion, from the impostures contained therein, particularly, concerning the state of the just, and unjust after death / written originally by David Blondel ; Englished by J.D.	Blondel, David, 1591-1655.; Davies, John, 1625-1693.	1661 (1661)	Wing B3220; ESTC R38842	342,398	310

Maccabees Thus Tertullian in the year 199. in the third Chapter of his Book De Corona tells us Quaramus an Traditio c. Let us enquire whether the not-written Tradition is not also to be received No doubt we shall deny that it ought to be received if no prejudice arise from the Examples of other Observations which we challenge to our selves without any recommendation from Scripture onely upon the accompt of Tradition fortified by the Patronage of Custom c. Upon anniversary-days we make Oblations for the departed and for their Birth-days c. viz. Of the departure of Martyrs In like manner St. Epiphanius in the year 376. concludes his Disputation against Aërius with the Allegation of Tradition saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Next I shall again take the consequence of this that the Church accomplishes this thing necessarily having taken the Tradition of the Fathers Now who can violate the Ordinance of his Mother or the Law of his Father according to the words of Salomon My Son hear the Instruction of thy Father and forsake not the Law of thy Mother shewing that the Father that is to say God the onely Son and the Holy Spirit hath taught as well by writing as without writing and that our Mother the Church hath Laws made in her self such as are indissoluble and cannot be destroyed Denys the pretended Areopagite about the year 490. follows the same track in the seventh Chapter of his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy saying It is necessary to speak of the Tradition come even to us from our conductours inspired by God concerning the said Prayer which the Hierarch pronounces over the Deceased The like may be said of St. Augustine who had first of any alledged the pretended example of the Maccabees for distrusting what Arguments might be drawn thence he flies to the Authority of the Church and thereby shews his main strength lay on that side The same thing is further insinuated as well by the ingenuous confession which the Fathers make of the doubts of many of the Christians in their times concerning the advantage of Prayer for the dead as by the answers given by them thereto For Aërius in St. Epiphanius in the year 376. put this difficulty asking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Upon what accompt do you name after their death those who are dead For whether the surviving prays or dispenses his goods what advantage accrews thereby to the deceased If the Prayers of those who are here be any way beneficial to those who are there let not any one live religiously nor do well but so behave himself as he would have Friends whether it be by procuring them for many or intreating them at his death to pray for him to the end he may not suffer there and that there be no inquisition made into the incurable sins he hath committed Some twenty years before St. Cyril of Jerusalem had acknowledged in his fifth Mystagogical Catechesis that in Palaestine there were many persons troubled about the difficulty made by Aërius in Armenià crying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I know many say thus What advantage is it to the Soul transported out of this World with sins or without sins that you remember her in your Prayers And about one hundred years after Denys the pretended Areopagite writing in the seventh Chapter of his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It may be will you say that these things are well said by us but that you are in doubt as to the Hierarch ' s desiring of the Sovereign goodness of God for the deceased the remission of his Sins and the portion of light assigned for those who are like God For if every one shall receive from the justice of God the reward of all the good things and others which he hath done in this life and the deceased hath accomplished all Functions suitable to the life which is led here by what Hierarchical Prayer shall he be transferred beyond his merit and the reward due to the life he hath led here into another lot From this diversity of Questions renewed from time to time it is apparent that the first answers made to those who could not conceive any benefit arising from Prayer for the dead had not given them satisfaction and that neither they nor those who answered them saw any Text of Scripture that could decide the difficulty proposed by them For who could expect from a Christian that he durst bring into question what he knew to have been resolved by the Oracles of God On the contrary who will not be easily induced to doubt of things whereof he findes no other confirmation then that of Custom and that not fortified by any Command of God to whose Worship it is pretended that Custome relates Nay when we do not finde in the Fathers Answers to the Objections whereby that Custom was opposed any mention either of the second of the Maccabees or of any place of Scripture concerning the State of the dead ought we not of necessity to conclude that not onely they had not any to alledge but also that they made not in their Offices for the dead any reflection on the second of the Maccabees or any of the Books justly or unjustly reputed Canonical but onely on the example of their Predecessours CHAP. XXV Whether there be any reason to ground Prayer for the Dead upon the Second Book of the Maccabees I Have hitherto made it my business onely to prove that praying for the Dead never was as to matter of fact grounded by the first that practised it among the Christians upon the second of the Maccabees nor any other Book either Canonical or Apocryphal I am to shew that as to matter of right it could not have been grounded thereon and to that purpose I am in the first place to give a relation of the fact of Judas Maccabaeus and secondly an accompt of the application made of it by Jason the Cyrenian or his Abridger The fact is set down in these Terms So Judas gathered his Host and came into the City of Odollam and when the seventh day came they purified themselves as the Custom was and kept the Sabbath in the same place And upon the day following as the use had been Judas and his Company came to take up the Bodies of them that were slain and to bury them with their Kinsmen in their Father's Graves Now under the Coats of every one that was slain they found things consecrated to the Idols of the Jamnites which is forbidden the Jews by the Law Then every man saw that this was the cause wherefore they were slain All men therefore praysing the Lord the righteous Judg who had opened the things that were hid Betook themselves unto Prayer and besought him that the sin committed might wholly be put out of remembrance Besides the noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin for so much as they saw

Whereby it clearly appears that he and no doubt with him the Councels of Rome and Carthage and Pope Innocent admitted two Canons or Catalogues of the Holy Scriptures one more strict viz. that of the Jews whereto all the Greeks and some of the Latines confined themselves and to which he thought himself obliged particularly to submit holding for a Rule of Faith and Canonical the Books contained therein and another larger proposed as well by him and Pope Innocent as by the Councels of Carthage and Rome as comprehending the Books which in some certain respect viz. the publick reading thereof in the Church and the common Edification arising from them though they were not esteemed to appertain to the Rule of Faith were called Canonical Sacred and Ecclesiastical by the Latines And indeed to make his meaning more obvious to the meaner Capacities he saies that the Church holds the Books of the Maccabees to be Canonical not as absolutely and properly as those comprehended in the Canon of the Jews and Greeks which contained the Rule of Faith but improperly and taking the word Canonical in a larger signification which the better to insinuate he saies They are held to be Canonical propter quorundam Martyrum passiones vehementes atque mirabiles c because of the grievous and miraculous Sufferings of some Martyrs and in the three and twentieth Chapter of his second Book Against Gaudentius that the writing of the Maccabees recepta est ab Ecclesia non inutiliter si sobriè legatur vel audiatur c. is received by the Church not without profit if it be read or heard soberly as if he had said in terminis that she accounted it among the Canonical in a certain respect onely not through an obedience of Faith but out of a desire of Edification and upon that accompt was it to to be read and understood soberly without which caution the admission of it into the Canon or Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Books would not have been profitable Consonantly to this sence Ruffinus after he had proposed Secundùm Traditionem Majorum c. according to the Tradition of our Ancestours the Catalogue of the Books truly and properly Divine and Canonical concludes it in these Terms Haec sunt quae Patres inter Canonem concluserunt ex quibus Fidei nostrae assertiones constare voluerunt These are the Books which the Fathers have comprehended in the Canon out of which they would have the Assertions of our Faith to be made manifest To which he immediately adds Sciendum tamen est quòd alii Libri sunt qui non Canonici sed Ecclesiastici à Majoribus appellati sunt c. quae omnia Legi quidem in Ecclesiis voluerunt non tamen proferri ad authoritatem ex his Fidei confirmandam c. Yet is it to be known that there are also other Books which were called by our Ancestours not Canonical but Ecclesiastical c. all which they were willing should be read in the Churches but not cited to confirm the authority of Faith Upon which it may be noted that this Sentiment being revived by Cardinal Cajetan was so stiffly maintained in the Councel of Trent that from the two and twentieth of February 1546. to the ninth of March the Assembly continued divided into three Opinions some desiring that the Scriptures might be distinguished into three Classes of different Authority others that they should be disposed into two and the third Party which prevailed on the fifteenth of March requiring that a Catalogue should be drawn up without any Distinction apparent in the Decree By which Decree the Councel intending to thunder-strike at least in appearance the Sentiment of the Protestants though they saw it strongly maintained by many of their own Body declared that they comprehended in the Index of Sacred Books those which the Protestants in imitation of the Greeks and most of the Latine Fathers admitted not into the Canon which might be understood in the sence proposed by Ruffinus and without any derogation from those which the Church ever held properly and absolutely Canonical In the next place the Councel anathematized those who would not receive them for Sacred and Canonical which might also very well be observing the Distinction of Ruffinus and Cajetan which makes nothing against the Protestants And at last they declare their Anathema is discharged to let the World know what Testimonies and Arguments principally they should make use of to confirm Tenents and regulate Morality in the Church insinuating further in favour of the Partizans of Cardinal Cajetan who as to the main Ground agreed with the Protestants the distinction which they had made after Ruffinus of the Books properly Canonical subservient as well to the Confirmation of Faith as restauration of Manners and the improperly and in a certain respect Canonical appointed onely for the restauration of Manners This presupposed it clearly appears that the Fathers who had any knowledg of the second Book of the Maccabees upon this very accompt that they either absolutely denied it or onely half-granted it and upon great Qualifications the Title of Canonical could not any way ground upon the report of it the right which the Church of Rome pretends to at this day for Praying for the dead and that that Report could not be urged any further then to an Attestation that it had really been in use from the Time of the Maccabees And indeed St. Augustine the first who cited it to that purpose and at the very place where he alledged it pretended not to go any further for his Discouse cited by Julian of Toledo runs thus In Maccabeorum libris legimus oblatum pro mortuis sacrificium Sed etsi nusquam in Scripturis veteribus omnino legeretur non parva est universae Ecclesiae quae in hâc consuetudine claret authoritas c. We read in the Book of Maccabees that Sacrifice was offered for the dead but though there should be no such thing any where in the antient Scriptures yet is the authority of the universal Church which shines in that Custom not of little weight Fourthly Besides the precedent Reasons which demonstrate the impossibility of deriving the Original of Oblations and Prayers for departed Christians from the pretended Example of Judas Maccabaeus and the Application which the Abridger of Jason the Cyrenian conceived he ought to make of it this no less considerable then the rest is to be added viz. that the first who undertook the Patronage of such a Custom built very much upon the not-written Tradition onely and by that means acknowledged and professed that neither they nor in their Judgment their Predecessours had any ground to recurr to the Authority of any Scripture either properly or improperly said to be Canonical and consequently that their imagination is absolutely Erroneous who believe that the Antients grounded their Custom on the fourth of Tobit or on the seventh of Ecclesiasticus or lastly on the twelfth of the second of

to come and the Son of God clearly shew that he alludeth to those very books which are now extant of them and consequently that his work was hatch'd after that entitled the Sibylline and must needs be later then the year of our Lord 137. 2. That with Justin and Clemens he acknowledges but one Sibyl who manifested one onely God which shews it were to little purpose to look for different Authors for the eight books that are come to our times 3. That the most clear and remarkable descriptions of the Son of God palpably relate to the designation as well of the four vowels and two consonants which make up the Greek name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the number precisely arising thence as also the Acrostick of the eighth book wherein we have consecutively the names of Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour and Cross with the Paraphrase on the greatest part of the history of the Gospel 4. That the more express and historicall these descriptions are the more apparent it is that they are supposititious and written after the event the Spirit of God having never thought it convenient to propose things to come otherwise then aenigmatically and under the veil of severall figures and there being no instance but onely of one person whose proper name it hath express'd in its Oracles that is to say Cyrus twice nam'd by Isaiah 175. years before he was possess'd of the Monarchy of the Universe Clemens might soon have observ'd this if to compass his design he had made it as much his business to exercise his judgement as exhaust his memory but having resolv'd to make use of Heathens and Hereticks against themselves so to undeceive them all without taking heed himself of being surpriz'd he as well as others is fallen into the snare and the cloud of witnesses he had to produce suffer'd him not to see the bad marks which some of them carried in their very faces Accordingly do we find That this vast Wit whom nothing escap'd and who thought to make his advantages of all and take away as sometimes Israel did all the treasures of Aegypt after he had with a miraculous ostentation laid down the Depositions of 250. Heathen Authors as well Philosophers as Historians and Poets and given quarter to the most execrable Heretiques such as Basilides Carpacrates Julius Cassianus Epiphanes Heracleon Hermogenes Isidorus Marcion Prodicus Tatian Valentin c. and opened his brest to Apocryphall pieces that is to say the Prophesies of Enoch Cham Abacuc Esdras Parchor and Sophony the book of the Assumption of Moses the Gospels of the Aegyptians and Hebrews the Sermons of St. Peter and St. Paul the Traditions of St. Matthias the Epistle of St. Barnabas the Pastor of Hermas Brother to Pope Pius the first a piece which dazled the eyes of St. Irenaeus and many others hath also given credit to the counterfeit Sibyll whose discourse he thought so much the more authentick the more directly it contributed to his design CHAP. VI. An accompt of severall instances of dis-circumspection in Clemens Alexandrinus SInce therefore it could not well be otherwise but that this great man drawing out of so many severall sources must needs out of divers of them bring up dirt rather then water we shall not fear being thought awanting as to the respect we owe his memory and the merit of his great abilities and knowledge if we presume to affirm that in what we have left of his Works we meet with many instances of dis-circumspection weakness and an excessive credulity To come to particulars what is it else when he says after a very uncouth manner of speaking that the Word is the minister of the paternall will and the second cause which comes nearest the Father That the Angels fell through fornication That it is not lawfull for a man to touch blood nor to swear That Philosophy hath been to the Gentiles a Paedagogue to bring them to Christ fo far that it hath justified them that thereby they have glorify'd God and that it hath been their Testament and the foundation of all Christian Philosophy That Numa who dyed in the second year of the 27. Olympiad 134. years before Pythagoras appear'd and 168. years before he came into Italy was a Pythagorean That Semiramis was Queen of Aegypt That the Devil may repent That it is in our power to be delivered from ignorance and bad choyce That the soul makes the difference in the election of God That man is saved through his own means That in the time of Debora Osius the son of Riezu was high-priest That Solomon was Son-in-law to Hiram That Rehoboam was father to Abiu and Abiu to Athaman and this last to Jehosaphat and that Joram was father to Ozias That Jonathan was son to Ozias that Amos the Prophet was father to Isaiah That Achaz was father to Osea and Osea to Hezechias That from the time of Samuel to that of Josias the Passover was never celebrated That the false Prophet Ananias was son to Josias That Nechao fought Josias neer the river Euphrates That Helchias the high-Priest was father to Jeremy and that he dy'd immediately after he had read the book of the Law That the ten Tribes carried away according to the express certificate of the Scripture in the sixth year of Hezechias were brought into captivity in the fifteenth year of Achas his father That the transportation of the Jews under Sedechias who was later then the birth of Moses by about 1073. years and the raising of David to the Throne by 517. years was after the former 1085. years six months ten dayes and after the latter 492. years six months ten days precisely That Zachary who began not to prophesie to the people till the second year of Darius which was the first of the 65. Olympiad is more ancient then Pythagoras who began to come into reputation in the fourth year of the 60. Olympiad That Moses before his adoption was called Joachim and that now he goes under the name of Melchi That he killed the Aegyptian by his word that he was cast into prison and afterwards got out by miracle That the King having heard the name of God pronounc'd fell dumb and was afterward miraculously restor'd That it was to Philip o●… ●…aviour said Let the dead bury their dead That the body is the Sepulchre of the soul That Saint Matthias is Zachaeus the Publican That the Sacerdotall Vestment was bordered with 360 bells That the Son of God and his Apostles did after their death preach in hell that many were there converted that there was so great a necessity of that predication that otherwise God had been unjust That our Saviour did not eat out of any need his body stood in of sustenance but out of a fear of raising any ill opinion of himself in those who saw him That he who is endu'd with knowledge is free from all animal passion and cupidity that he is not overcome