Selected quad for the lemma: tradition_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
tradition_n	church_n	reject_v	scripture_n	1,521	5	5.9943	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42142	Pax vobis, or, Gospel and liberty against ancient and modern papists / by a preacher of the word.	Brown, S. J.; Gordon, John, 1644-1726.; Griffith, Evan, A.M., Minister of Alderly.	1687 (1687)	Wing G1994; ESTC R31733	69,009	143

believed by the Protestants and Popish Church we believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God of one and the same substance and nature with the Father they believe in a Jesus Christ Son of God but of a distinct and different nature and substance of the Father Isaac Pish That 's but a Nicety believe what you please and what you understand by Scripture to be true and have Charity Ismael I confess you have puzled but yet not wholly convinced me were I but perswaded that what you have discoursed is truly the Doctrin of the Reformation I would cheerfully embrace it and I will be better informed by your self but not tire your Patience We will meet again and pursue our Discourse upon this Subject Second Dialogue ISMAEL Reflecting in my Sollitude upon your last Discourse I find it bottom'd upon a false Principle for you suppose that whatever Doctrin is of Luther Calvin or any of your Learned Doctors Synods Parliaments or Congregations is the Doctrin of the Reformation and may without any more proof or scruple be believed by any Reformed Child who but sees this is ridiculous to fasten the Doctrin and absurd Opinions of each particular Doctor or Congregation upon the whole Body This is the uncharitable and unreasonable Art of the Papists who keep a great Coil with some exorbitant Opinions of Luther and Calvin and would perswade their Proselites they are the Tenets of the Reformation whereas the Reformation disclaims those Opinions as much as the Pope does And they do not poor People observe how many absurd and scandalous Doctrines we meet in their Casuists and Divines which when we reproach them with they answer It 's not the Doctrin of their Church but of some particular Doctors as if we might not with as much Justice as they answer the same Isaac Your Reflection is good and my discourse will fall to the ground if I do not prove that Principle which will be no hard task Let us imagine we are here a full Synod of Protestants Presbyterians Hugonots Lutherans Antitrinitarians Anabaptists Quakers and of all and each of our Congregations our Reformation is not any of these Congregations with an exclusion of the rest but all of them joyntly for whatsoever Congregation would say it self alone is the Reformation and no other would be hiss'd at by the rest and justly because that our Reformation imports two points essentially First a Profession of Christianity according to the Rule of the Word of God and a Detestation or Abjuration of Popish Errors and none of these Congregations but does both Ismael I know some of these Pharisee-like despise others and look upon them not as Reformed but as putrid Members but the Lord forbid I should be so void of Charity I see no just chalenge any can have to the Title of Reformation which all have not Isaac Let us ask this Synod by what Rule of Faith does the Reformation walk What must a Man believe for to be a true Reformed Protestants will say that Scripture and Apostolical Tradition but Protestants say of Papists and Presbytarians and Anabaptists say of Protestants that many humane Inventions are obtruded upon us as Apostolical Traditions that we have no way to discern the one from the other and consequently Tradition as being an unknown thing unto us cannot be our Rule others will say that Scripture and the indubitable Consequences out of it is our Rule all will grant this but then enters the Controversy if the Consequences of Lutherans be such and if the Consequences of Presbyterians be indubitable out of Scripture and each Congregation will say that their peculiar Tenets are indubitable Consequences out of Scripture and the rest must allow it to be true or deny such a Congregation to be of the Reformation Others will say that Scripture and the four first general Councils with the Apostles and Athanasius's Creed are our Rule of Faith but most of the Assembly will no more admit the four first than the subsequent Councils nor Athanasius's Creed more than that of Trent nor will the Quakers Socinians and others value the Apostles Creed But there is none of all the Assembly who will not admit Scripture that 's the pure written Word of God to be a sacred and full Rule of Faith because it 's replenished with divine Light and all heavenly instruction necessary for our Salvation And such as add as a part of our Rule of Faith the Apostles or Athanasius's Creed or the four first general Councils they will confess that all they contain is expressed in Gods written Word and are but a plainer or more distinct expression or declaration of the Contents of Scripture Ismael Truly I must grant you this that I have been often present at several discourses of Protestants with Papists and never could I hear a Protestant make Councils Tradition or any thing else the Test of their Discourse but only Scripture not but that I could hear them say and pretend in their Discourses that Apostolical Tradition and the four first Councils were for them against Popery but still their main strength and ultimate refuge was Scripture for whenever they harp upon that string of Tradition and Councels the Papists are visibly too hard for them and then they run to Scripture than which there is no plus ultra I have been also often at several discourses betwixt Protestant Presbyterians and our Brethren of other Congregations I have observed that the Protestant for to defend his Liturgy Rights and Ceremonies of the Church of England and her Episcopacy against the others could never defend himself by Scripture alone and plac'd his main Strength against them in Tradition Primitive Councils and ancient Fathers all which the other rejected and reproached the Protestant with Popery for making use of that Weapon that if they would stick to those Principles as their Rule of Faith they must admit many Tenets of Popery which they disavow that nothing but Scripture is a sufficient Warrant and Rule of Faith And I find by all I could ever well understand that 's the General apprehension and belief of all the Reformation that Scripture abundantly contains all we are obliged to believe and is our sole and only Rule of Faith and that our recourse to Tradition Councils Fathers c. are but shifts of some of our Doctors who being Non-plust in their particular Engagements and Sophistries patch the incoherency of their discourses with these rags of Popery Isaac I commend your Ingenuity but not that heat which transports you to check our Doctors for their Glosses and particular Doctrines upon Scripture which as the Manna relished of all sorts of Victuals which the Eater fancied admits several sences according to the different Spirits and measure of light that God gives to the Reader and it is undoubtedly the Spirit of the Reformation to follow what sense of it he likes best and not to check others following this or that as they please Lutherans Protestants

most impiously affirms that not the human Nature of Christ dyed for us but also his Divine Nature see Luther's words quoted at large by Zuinglius and Hospinian If you say such scandalous blasphemies may be safely believed you will render your Christianity suspected and if you say that they are the Doctrine of the Reformation or that they may be believed according to the Principles of the Reformation you will make the Reformation and its Principles to be hated by any good Christian Isaac If I walk by the Rule of Faith of the Reformation I 'll prove my self a true Reformed Child and if I prove my self to be a Reformed Child my Christianity cannot be justly suspected What Tenet have you related of all those which you call blasphemies and scandals but has been judged by those eminent Doctors of our Reformation to be express Scripture or conformable to Scripture and since our Rule of Faith is Scripture as each person of sound Judgment understands it and since the Doctrine of our Reformation is but whatever any such person of sound Judgment judges to be expressed in or proved by Scripture it 's evident that all those Tenets are undeniably the Doctrine of the Reformation I say then and will say without any offence to my Christianity or blemish to our Reformed Church that those Tenets are the Doctrin of the Reformation and may be as safely believed by any Child of it as Figurative Presence Supremacy or Two Sacraments and let not any Bigot pretend to frighten me from this Doctrine by calling it Blasphemy and Impiety No it 's Scripture as interpreted by our renowned Reformed Doctors therefore it 's no Blasphemy Let any man convince me that our Rule of Faith must not be Scripture as each person of sound Judgment understands it and he will convince that this cannot be justly called the Doctrine of the Reformation but whilst that Principle and Rule of Faith stands unshaken nothing that is taught by any Person of Judgment to be the Doctrine of Scripture but it is to be called our Doctrine and may be safely believed You say that whoever has any Love for Christianity will hate the Reformation and its Principles if they give Liberty for to believe such Blasphemies But can any Mother be more indulgent to her Child than the Reformation is to us such as think those Tenets to be Blasphemies the Reformation gives them leave not to believe them and if any judges by Scripture that they are not Blasphemies but pure Doctrine as Luther Calvin and others did they have Liberty for to believe them He who denies them cannot in Charity check them who believe them nor can they who believe them check those who deny them whereas each follow the Rule of Faith and believe what they judge by Scripture to be true And if you or your Church of England cry out Blasphemy Blasphemy against all that you judge to be false why do not you cry Blasphemy against Presbyterians Lutherans and other Congregations from whom you dissent And what difference betwixt you and ●he Church of Rome The folly of this is to call Heresy and Blasphemy all that is not her own Doctrine And all that your Church of England mislikes must be Fanaticism Blaphemy and Impiety Must our Rule of Faith be Scripture as the Church of England understands it and not otherwise Presbyterians and Lutherans will never allow it If therefore our Rule of Faith be Scripture as each Person understands it any Person of sound Judgment in the Reformation may without scruple believe what he understands to be the Doctrine of Scripture Fourth DIALOGUE ISMAEL You still insist upon that principle that our Rule of Faith is Scripture as each person of sound judgment understands it and from that principle will follow many absurd consequences destructive of Piety and Religion Isaac That Principle is not invented by me it 's of our Holy Reformation if I did discourse with a Papist I would prove the principle to be true and Gods express Word but since I discourse with a Reformed Child I suppose I need not spend my time in proving it This principle then being an unquestionable truth in our Reformation no Reformed Child must be so irreverent and bold as to say that any Doctrine which clearly and unavoidably follows out of it is Blasphemous or Impious for that would be to condemn our principle by which we walk Ex vero non sequitur nisi veram From a true Principle nothing can follow but true Doctrine Can you deny but this was the Rule of Faith and principle of our first blessed Reformers and of the Church of England mentioned in her 39 Articles If therefore they judged and if any other judges by that Rule and Principle that those Tenets which you call Impious and Blasphemous to be true Doctrine they cannot be blamed for believing them Ismael I confess our first Reformers did speak so but I say such Errors and Impious Doctrines cannot without Irreverence be called the Doctrine of the Reformation and cannot without impiety be believed because our Reformation at present condemns and detests those Blasphemies for we must grant that our Reformation in its beginning was not in its full perfection of Doctrine God began it by Luther Calvin Zuinglius and others Those great Men had their frailties they did overlash in some things and what they said amiss Gods Heavenly Spirit inspired to the Church from time to time to correct it and has at length brought our Church to that purity of Doctrine and fulness of perfection which now it enjoys Nothing is to be called now the Doctrine of the Reformation but what is now believed by our Congregations and none of them believes those execrable Tenets you related Isaac You wrong the Reformation very much in saying it had not its full perfection in the beginning it 's rather to be thought that that polishing and refining of it in ensuing Years with new perfections and correcting the first draught of it by our first Reformers has been a corruption of it with some mixture of Popish Errors and Superstitions For all Religious Congregations and Pretenders to Piety are at the first beginning in the height of their perfection and in Progress of Years they decline and decay from their primitive Spirit into errors and corruption of manners Religious Congregations are not like Arts and Sciences which by time and experience receive new perfections but like Chimnies which grow daily blacker by continual smoke and fire Witness the Jewish Church and Law in its beginning flourishing and holy but corrupted in progress of time by Traditions of Men and Superstitions of Pharisees Witness also the Law of the Gospel in those happy times of the Apostles holy and pure but corrupted after some Years by errors of Popery If we be to seek for the pure and Orthodox Doctrine of the Primitive Church ought not we to be said by the Apostles Men raised