Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	according_a	believe_v	scripture_n	1,612	5	5.8214	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51288	A brief discourse of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist wherein the witty artifices of the Bishop of Meaux and of Monsieur Maimbourg are obviated, whereby they would draw in the Protestants to imbrace the doctrine of transubstantiation.	More, Henry, 1614-1687.; Wake, William, 1657-1737.	1686 (1686)	Wing M2643; ESTC R25165	52,861	96

those Decisions or any of like nature which may concern the Iustifiableness of our Christian Worship and indispensable way of Salvation the Church has Authority as she ever had in such Controversies to ratifie such Articles of Faith but she is not said to have Authority to make every Synodical Decision an Article of Faith whether the nature thereof will bear it or no. Nay her Authority is excluded from inforcing any thing besides what is clearly enough contained in the Scripture as assuredly those points are above mentioned though with weak or cavilling men they have been made questionable to be believed for Necessity of Salvation Which is the proper Character of an Article of Faith according as the Preface to the Athanasian Creed intimates And Monsieur Maimbourg himself is so sensible of this main Truth that in the Explication of his general Maxime he acknowledges that the Church has no Autority to coin any New Articles of Faith but only to declare she has discovered them existent before in the Scriptures but not so clearly espi'd or discerned as by an assembled Synod 5. But certainly no Article of Faith that is to say no Truth necessary to Salvation can be said to be pre existent in the Scriptures and having lain hid to be discovered afterwards that is not discovered but by such forced Interpretations of the Text that are repugnant to Common Sense and Reason Is not this a Reproach to the Wisdom of God that he should inspire the Holy Penmen to set down Truth necessary to Salvation so obscurely that the meaning cannot be reached without doing violence to Common Sense and Reason and running counter to those previous Principles without which it is impossible to make sense of any writing whatever Or without interpreting one place of Scripture repugnantly to the plain sense of another Which this Article expresly forbids as unlawful So plain is it that our Church limits the Authority of a Synod to certain Rules agreed of on all hands against which they have no Authority to define any thing And plain places of Scripture is one Rule contrary to which it is not lawful to interpret any either pretendedly or really obscure place Nor can any place at all be plain without the admittance of those Proleptick Principles of rightly circumstantiated sense and common undeniable Notions essentially ingrafted in the mind of man whether they relate to Reason or Morality These both Synod and Contesters are supposed to be agreed on and therefore no Synodical Decision repugnant to these according to our Church in interpreting of Scripture if I rightly understand her ought to have Autority with it 6. But as for doctrinal Decisions such as concern the Justifiableness of the Christian Worship and are of Necessity to Salvation and such as although either weak or willful cavilling men may make questionable yet are clearly enough delivered in Scripture these questionless a Synod has Autority to determine as Articles of Faith And such as have not the like Clearness nor Necessity as also innocent and indifferent Rites and Ceremonies when the one and the other seem advantagious to the Church such Synodical Decisions may pass into Articles of Communion in that sense I have above explained And lastly As in that case of the Synod of Dort when the points controverted have on both sides that invincible Obscurity and Intricacy and there seems to be forcible Arguments for either conclusion What I humbly conceive is to be done in that case I have fully enough expressed already and therefore think it needless again to repeat 7. In the mean time I hope I have made it manifoldly apparent that Monsieur Maimbourg's general Maxime viz. That the Church in which are found the two Parties concerned has ever had the Power to determine all differences and to declare that as Matter of Faith which before there was no Obligation to believe And that we are bound to acquiesce in her Decisions under the penalty of being Schismaticks is not especially as he would have his Maxime understood agreed on by all Churches as well Protestant as Pontifician And that therefore this Snare or Net wherewith he would catch and carry Captive the Protestants into a Profession of the Infallibility of the Church in Synodical Decisions so that the Church must be first allow'd Infallible that we may glibly swallow down whatsoever she decides even Transubstantiation it self with all other Errours of the Church of Rome this Net or Snare I hope I have sufficiently broken And I will only note by the bye how the subtilest Romanists declining the Merits of the Cause labour Tooth and Nail to establish the absolute Infallibility of their Church But our Saviour tells us By the fruit you shall know them Wherefore any man or Company of men that profess themselves infallible their Infallibility must be examined by their Doctrines which if they be plainly any one of them false their boast of Infallibility most certainly is not true 8. But forasmuch as an Appeal to a Maxime pretended to be agreed upon by both sides both Papists and Protestants is made use of with so much Wit and Artifice to ingage the Protestants to imbrace Transubstantiation and the rest of the Romish Errours I hope Monsieur Maimbourg will not take it amiss if I civilly meet him again in his own Way and show him by an Appeal not only to one Maxime but above a dozen at least of Common Notions which I did above recite and in which both Papists and Protestants and all mankind are agreed that it may demonstratively be made evident that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is grosly false For that which in it self is false no declaring or saying it is true though by the vote of an entire Synod can make it true by the first of the Common Notions above-mentioned Chap. 8. Sect. 4. Secondly Whatever is plainly repugnant to what is true is certainly false and consequently can be no due Article of a true Faith or Religion by the second and third Common Notions And therefore Transubstantiation cannot pass into an Article of Faith by the Authority of any Synod whatever Thirdly Now that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false is manifest from the assurance of our Senses rightly circumstantiated To which our Saviour Christ appeals who is wiser than all the Synods that ever were or will be as was observed in Common Notion the fourth But our Senses assure us it is Bread still not the Body of Christ. Fourthly If Transubstantiation be true an Essence or Being that is one remaining still one may be divided or separated from it self which is repugnant to the fifth Common Notion Fifthly If Transubstantiation be true the whole is not bigger than the part nor the part less than the whole which contradicts the sixth Common Notion Sixthly If Transubstantiation be true the parts in a Division do not only agree with the whole but agree one with another and are indeed absolutely the same for divide a

consecrated Wafer into two viz. A. and B. this A. and B. are the same intire Individual Body of Christ according to this Doctrine which contradicts the seventh Common Notion Seventhly If the said Doctrine be true one and the same Body may be a Cube and a Globe at once have the figure of an Humane Body and of a Pyramid and Cylinder at the same time according as they shall mould the Consecrated Bread which is repugnant to the eighth Common Notion Eighthly Transubstantiation if it be any truth at all it is a Revealed Truth but no Revelation the Revealing whereof or the manner of Revealing is repugnant to the Divine Attributes can be from God by Common Notion the ninth but if this Doctrine of Transubstantiation were a Truth it seems not to sute with the Wisdom of God to reveal a Truth that seems so palpably to overthrow and thwart all the innate Principles of humane Understanding and the assurance of the rightly circumstantiated Senses to both which Christ himself appeals and without which we have no certainty of the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles And he hence exposes his Church to be befool'd by all the lucriferous fictions of a fallacious Priesthood And besides this the circumstances or manner of its first Revelation at the Lord's Supper as they would have it shows it cannot be for the Consecrated Bread retaining still the shape and all other sensible qualities of Bread without any change and that by a miraculous supporting them now not inherent in their proper subject Bread which is transubstantiated into that very Body that holds it in his hands or seems so to do I say as I have also intimated before to be thus at the expence of so vast a Miracle here at his last Supper and to repeat the same Miracle upon all the Consecrations of the Bread by the Priest which is the most effectual means to make all men Infidels as to the belief of Transubstantiation and to occasion thence such cruel and bloody Persecutions is apparently contrary to the Divine Wisdom and Goodness and therefore neither pretended Tradition nor fresh Interpretation of the inspired Text can make so gross a falshood true by the tenth and eleventh Common Notions Ninthly If Transubstantiation be true one and the same Body may be many thousand times bigger or less than it self at the same time forasmuch as the least Atom or particle of his Body or Transubstantiated Bread is his whole Body as well as the bigger lump according to this Doctrine which contradicts the twelfth Common Notion Tenthly If this Doctrine be true The same Individual Body still existing and having existed many Years may notwithstanding be made whiles it already exists which contradicts the thirteenth Common Notion Eleventhly If Transubstantiation be true one and the same Body may be present with it self and many thousands of miles absent from it self at once be shut up in a Box and free to walk in the Field and to ascend into Heaven at the same time contrary to the fourteenth and fifteenth Common Notions And lastly If this Doctrine be true a man may swallow his own Body whole Head Feet Back Belly Arms and Thighs and Stomach it self through his Mouth down his Throat into his Stomach that is to say every whit of himself into one knows not what of himself less than a Mathematical Point or nothing This Christ might have done and actually did if he did eat the Consecrated Bread with his Disciples which contradicts the sixteenth Common Notion Wherefore since in vertue of one single Maxim Monsieur Maimbourg supposing the Protestants as well as the Paepists agreeing therein though in that as I have show'd he is mistaken would draw in the Protestants to imbrace the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and other Ertors of the Roman Church I appeal to him how much more reasonable it is that he and as many as are of his perswasion should relinquish that Doctrine it contradicting so many Common Notions which not only all Papists and Protestants but indeed all the whole World are agreed in And hence clearly discerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church upon which this and other erroneous Doctrines are built such as Invocation of Saints Worshiping of Images and the like plainly to fail that they should bethink themselves what need there is to reform their Church from such gross errours and to pray to God to put it into the mind of their Governours so to do which would be a peaceable method indeed for the reuniting Protestants and Catholicks in matters of Faith and principally in the subject of the Holy Eucharist as the Title of his Method has it But to require an Union things standing as they are is to expect of us that we cease to be men to become Christians of a novel Mode unknown to the Primitive Church and under pretence of Faith to abjure the indeleble Principles of sound Reason those immutable Common Notions which the Eternal Logos has essentially ingrafted in our Souls and without which neither Certainty of Faith can consist nor any assured sense of either the Holy Scriptures or any Writing else be found out or understood Soli Deo Gloria