Selected quad for the lemma: tradition_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
tradition_n	unwritten_a	word_n	write_a	2,864	5	10.7236	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36253	Separation of churches from episcopal government, as practised by the present non-conformists, proved schismatical from such principles as are least controverted and do withal most popularly explain the sinfulness and mischief of schism ... by Henry Dodwell ...	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1679 (1679)	Wing D1818; ESTC R13106	571,393	694

far I should be from excusing any hard thoughts concerning a Multitude But if the knowledg of their danger be the most likely means to secure them from it if more of them will come to understand their danger when they are warned of it by others than would if they were left to the ingenuity and sagacity of their own reflections It must be then the greatest cruelty to conceal our apprehensions of their danger as it would be in the other case to reveal them And the greater the multitude is of them that are indangered the more pitiable is their case and the more obliging a tender compassionate truly Christian Spirit to endeavour all he can for their relief How can such a one who has learned the true value of Souls from what his Lord has done and suffered to save them endure to see his Lords designs so frustrated and such numbers of Souls fall short of those favours which were designed for them by what he had done and suffered for their Salvation Could the danger of his Fathers Life extort words from the dumb Son of Croesus And can any Lover of the Father of Spirits keep silence when thousands of those Spirits are in danger of perishing for want of seasonable information To think that there are such multitudes of those who unfeignedly believe the truth of the Christian Religion who yet are destitute of the ordinary means of Salvation required by that Religion to think how many more are like to be engaged on the same dangerous courses in all those future generations wherein these SCHISMS may last if they be not timely obviated to think how many of these poor Souls neither think of any danger in the state of SCHISM nor are sensible of the true stating of those disputes which might in all likelihood convince them how nearly they are concerned in that danger who if they were but rightly informed and made sensible of their danger would in all likelihood receive conviction and escape the danger at least would be more inquisitive if they knew their present course to be indeed so dangerous if they should prove mistaken To think I say on these things seriously must sure raise the zeal of him who has any zeal of God in him or any bowels of compassion for Souls that is indeed who has any thing of the Spirit of Christianity So that hitherto the multitude of them who are concerned ought rather to be an inducement than a dissuasive to a compassionate soul to let them see their danger § XII BUT if another use be made of this consideration of the multitude of those who are concerned in the consequences of this discourse for a charge against our modesty for dissenting from so great a multitude in thinking their condition so dangerous when they think it so secure in pretending to any thing new that such a multitude have not discovered before us though I know how little such an Objection becomes the Person of those who are most of all concerned to make it who make no scruple to practise and avow this liberty of dissenting from greater multitudes than themselves yet many other considerations may be pleaded for our defence even in this particular also First the multitude though they may seem many when we confine our thoughts to the narrow extents of our own Dominions yet are really inconsiderable in comparison of the whole Church I do not say only of former Ages but even of this also wherein we live And what immodesty can it be to dissent from a multitude when we have so much greater a multitude to confront against them Next this multitude it self are so disunited among themselves as that no particular party will make a multitude in comparison of the whole And if they be united in this conclusion that their condition is not dangerous it is not from any common principles but purely from common interest that they are so united It is plain that the different parties do state the question of SCHISM and their own defence from the charge of it very differently and are obliged to do so by the different interests of their causes So that no one set of Principles can pretend even to the patronage of a multitude And sure a Vnion in Negative conclusions without any Vnion in Principles to prove those conclusions a Vnion not of unprejudiced Judgment but plainly suspicious of common interest a Vnion of innovaters against the concurrent sense and Principles too of all Antiquity cannot have any thing very venerable in it for the recommendation of its Authority though a higher deference were due to Authority than can be allowed by the common Principles of the Reformation § XIII AS for the multitude of those whose Authority is really considerable in this case I mean that of Catholick Antiquity I hope hereafter to make it appear in my Second Part that I have said nothing as to my general charge but upon their common Suffrages and Principles too And why should we presume a multitude of innovaters better acquainted with the principles and practices of the Apostles than they who had so much better advantages of knowing them by living so much nearer to their times I do not prejudg against their actual knowing some things better than the ancients But if there can be no general presumption in favour of them but the enquiry in what particulars they do so be resolved into particular information that is enough to overthrow their Authority as a presumption against us in point of modesty which is all for which I am concerned at present Besides that this acknowledgment that Persons of less advantages for finding the truth in general and therefore of less Authority may yet be so happy as to light upon better information in some particulars is that which might be a very satisfactory plea and by them against whom we plead it undeniable for our dissent from them in these particulars though we had been more destitute otherwise of Authority for our dissent than indeed were are And to know when the case may prove so that Persons more unlikely may discover some particular truths which have escaped the observation of others who were otherwise much more able to have made the discovery a better rule can hardly be given in general than that this may be then expected when either some false Principle was taken up unwarily at first by them who though they were themselves as subject to humane frailties as others yet by their being the first had the Authority with their Successors as to recommend them as Principles to posterity so that all their future enquiries were only into their consequences not into the truth of such Principles themselves or when some other means of information were made use of which either were not known or not made use of by those more able Persons Thus it is very justly pleadable against the Romanists that whilest they made unwritten traditions of equal Authority with the written word of God and the present sense of their Occidental Church the standard of Tradition without