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	doctrine_n	word_n	2,065	5	3.8689	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62565	The indispensable necessity of the knowledge of the Holy Scripture in order to man's eternal salvation and ignorance therein, the mother of idolatry and superstition asserted in a sermon / preached by John Tillotson ...	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1687 (1687)	Wing T1198; ESTC R31967	15,700	26

the ancient Heresies uyon the ill management of things by our Saviour and his Apostles and the Holy Fathers of the Church for so many Ages and their imprudent dispensing of the Scriptures to the People This indeed is to charge the matter home and yet this Consequence is unavoidable For the Church of Rome cannot justify the Piety and Prudence of their present Practices without accusing all these But the thing which they mainly rely upon as to both these practices in this That though these things were otherwise in the Apostles times and in the Ancient Church yet the Church hath power to alter them according to the Exigence and Circumstances of times I have purposely reserved this for the last place because it is their last refuge and if this fail them they are gone To shew the Weakness of this Pretence we will if they please take it for granted that the Governors of the Church have in no Age more Power than the Apostles had in theirs Now St. Paul tels us 2 Cor. 10.8 that the Authority which the Apostles had given them from the Lord was only for Edification but not for Destruction And the same St. Paul makes it the business of a whole Chapter to shew that the performing the Publick service of God and particularly praying in an unknown Tongue are contrary to Edification from which premises the Conclusion is plain that the Apostles themselves had no Authority to appoint the Service of God to be performed in an unknown Tongue and surely it is Arrogance for the Church in any Age to pretend to greater Authority than the Apostles had This is the Summ of what our Adversaries say in justification of themselves in these Points And there is no doubt but that Men of Wit and Confidence will always make a shift to say something for any thing and some way or other blanch over the blackest and most absurd things in the World. But I leave it to the Judgement of Mankind whether any thing be more unreasonable than to tell Men in effect that it is fit they should understand as little of Religion as is poshble that God hath published a very dangerous Book with which it is not safe for the People to be familiarly acquainted that our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles and the ancient Christian Church for more than Six hundred Years were not wise Managers of Religion nor prudent Dispensers of the Scriptures but like fond and foolish Fathers put a Knife and a Sword into the hands of their Children with which they might have easily fore-seen what mischief they would do to themselves and others And who would not chuse to be of such a Church which is provided of such excellent and effectual means of Ignorance such wise and infallible Methods for the prevention of Knowledge in the People and such variety of close Shutters to keep out the Light. I have chosen to insist upon this Argument because it is so very plain that the most ordinary Capacity may judge of this usage and dealing with the Souls of Men Which is so very gross that every Man must needs be sensible of it because it toucheth Men in the common Rights of humane Nature which belong to them as much as the Light of Heaven and the Air we breath in It requires no subtilty of Wit no skill in Antiquity to understand these Controversies between us and the Church of Rome For there are no Fathers to be pretended on both sides in these Questions They yield we have Antiquity on ours And we refer it to the common Sense of Manking which Church that of Rome or Ours hath all the Right or Reason in the World on her side in these Debates And who they are that tyrannize over Christians the Governours of their Church or ours Who use the People like Sons and Freemen and who like Slaves Who feed the Flock of Christ committed to them and who take the Childrens bread from them Who they are that when their Children ask bread for Bread give them a Stone and for an Egg a Serpent I mean the Legends of their Saints instead of the holy Scriptures which are able to make Men wise unto Salvation And who they are that lie most justly under the suspicion of Errors and Corruptions they who bring their Doctrine and Practices into the open Light and are willing to have them tried by the true Touchstone the Word of God or they who shun the Light and decline all manner of Trial and Examination And who are most likely to carry on a Worldly Design they who drive a Trade of such mighty gain and advantage under pretence of Religion and make such markets of the Ignorance and Sins of the People or we whom Malice it self cannot charge with serving any Worldly Design by any allowed Doctrine or Practice of our Religion For we make no Money of the mistakes of the People nor do we fill their heads with vain fears of New Places of Torment to make them willing to empty their Purses in a vainer hope of being delivered out of them We do not like them pretend a mighty banck of Treasure and Merits in the Church which they sell to the People for ready money giving them Bills of Exchange from the Pope to Purgatory When they who grant them have no reason to believe they will avail them or be accepted in the other World. For our parts we have no fear that our People should understand Religion too well We could wish with Moses that all the Lord's People were Prophets We should be heartily glad the People would read the Holy Scriptures more diligently being sufficiently assured that it is their own fault if they learn any thing but what is good from thence We have no Doctrines or Practices contrary to Scripture and consequently no occasion to keep it close from the sight of the People or to hide any of the Commandments of God from them We leave these mean Arts to those who stand in need of them In a word there is nothing which God hath said to Men which we desire should be concealed from them Nay we are willing the People should examine what we teach and bring all our Doctrines to the Law and to the Testimony that if they be not according to this Rule they may neither believe them nor us 'T is only things false and adulterate which shun the Light and fear the Touchstone We have that security of the Truth of our Religion and of the agreeableness of it to the Word of God that honest Confidence of the Goodness of our Cause that we do not forbid the People to read the best Books our Adversaries can write against it And now let any Impartial Man judge whether this be not a better Argument of a good Cause to leave Men at liberty to try the Grounds of their Religion than the Courses which are taken in the Church of Rome to awe Men with an Inquisition and as much as is possible to keep the common People in Ignorance not only of what their late Adversaries the Protestants but their chief and ancient Adversary the Scriptures have to say against them A Man had need of more than common Security of the Skill and Integrity of those to whom he perfectly resigns his Understanding this is too great a Trust to be reposed in humane frailty and too strong a Temptation to others to impose upon us to abuse our Blindness and to make their own ends of our voluntary Ignorance and easie Credulity This is such a folly as if a Rich Man should make his Physician his Heir which is to tempt him either to destroy him or to let him dye for his own Interest So he that trusts the care of his Soul with other Men and at the same time by irrecoverable Deed settles his Understanding upon them lays too great a Temptation before them to seduce and damn him for their own ends And now to reflect a little upon our selves What cause have we to bless God who are so happily rescued from that more than Aegyptian Darkness and Bondage wherein this Nation was detained for several Ages Who are delivered out of the hands of those Cruel Task-masters who required Brick without Straw that Men should be Religious without competent Understanding and work out their own Salvation while they denied them the means of all others the most necessary to it Who are so uncharitable as to allow us no Salvation out of their Church and yet so unreasonable as to deny us the very best means of Salvation when we are in it Our Forefathers thought it a mighty Priviledge to have the Word of God restored to them and the publick Prayers and Service of God celebrated in a known Tongue Let us use this inestimable Priviledge with great modesty and humility not to the nourishing of Pride and Self-conceit of Division and Faction but as the Apostle exhorts Let the Word of God dwell richly in you in all Wisdom and let the Peace of God rule in your hearts unto which ye are called in one body and be ye thankful It concerns us mightily with which Admonition I conclude both for the Honour and Support of our Religion to be at better Union among our selves and not to divide about lesser things And so to demean our selves as to take from our Adversaries all those Pretences whereby they would justify themselves or at least Extenuate the Guilt of that heavy Charge which falls every whit as justly upon them as ever it did upon the Scribes and Pharisees of taking away the key of Knowledge and shutting the Kingdom of Heaven against Men neither going in themselves nor suffering those that are entring to go in FINIS

THE Indispensable Necessity OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE IN ORDER To MAN's Eternal Salvation and Ignorance therein The Mother of Idolatry and Superstition Asserted IN A SERMON PREACHED by JOHN TILLOTSON D. D. and Dean of Canterbury MATTHEW xxiii 13 ●o unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men and ye neither go in your selves neither suffer ye them that are entring to go in Imprimatur C. A. Nov. 17. 1685. LONDON ●●inted for Will. Norris at the Maiden-head in Holbourn 1687. Price Stitched three pence MATTHEW xxiii 13 Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men and ye neither go in your selves nor suffer ye them that are entring in THE Scribes so often mentioned in the Gospel were the great Doctors among the Jews the Teachers and Interpreters of the Law of God. And because many of them were of the Sect of the Pharisees which above all others pretended to ●kill and knowledge in the Law therefore it is our blessed Saviour does so often put the Scribes and Pha●isees together And these were the Men of Chief Au●hority in the Jewish Church Who equalled their ●wn Unwritten Word and Traditions with the Law ●f God Nay our Saviour tells us they made the Commandments of God of none effect by their Traditions They did in effect assume to themselves infallibility ●nd all that opposed and contradicted them they brand●d with the Odious Name of Hereticks Against these ●ur Saviour denounceth this Woe here in the Text Woe ●nto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye shut up ●●e Kingdom of Heaven against Men c. All the Difficulty in the Words is what is here ●eant by shutting up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men ● Luke expresseth it more plainly ye have taken away ●●e key of Knowledge ye entred not into your selves and ●●em that were entring in ye hindred By putting these ●●o Expressions together we shall the more easily ●●me at the meaning of the Text. Ye have taken away 〈◊〉 key of Knowledge and have shut up the Kingdom of ●●aven against Men. This Metaphor of the 〈…〉 Knowledge is undoubtedly an Allusion to that known Custom among the Jews in the admission of their Doctors For to whomsoever they gave Authority to interpret the Law and the Prophets they were solemnly admitted into that Office by delivering to them a Key and a Table-book So that by the key of knowledge is here meant the Interpretation and understanding of the Scriptures and by taking away the key of Knowledge not only that they arrogated to themselves alone the Understanding of the Scriptures but likewise that they had Conveyed away this key of Knowledge and as it were hid it out of the way neither using it themselves as they ought nor suffering Others to make use of it And thus they Shut the Kingdom of Heaven against Men which is very fitly said of those who have lock-the Door against them that were going in and have taken away the key By all which it appears that the Plain meaning of our Saviour in these Metaphorical Expressions is that the Scribes and Teachers of the Law under a Pretence of Interpreting the Scriptures had perverted them and kept the true Knowledge of them from the People Especially those Old Prophecies 〈◊〉 the Old Testamant which concerned the Messias An● by this means the Kingdom of Heaven was shut again●● Men And they not only rejected the Truth themselves but by keeping Men in Ignorance of the true meanin● of the Scriptures they hindered Many from embracin● our Saviour's Doctrine and entering into the Kingdo● of Heaven who were ot●erwise well enough dispose● for it Having thus Explained the Words I shall from th● main Scope and Design of them observe to you thes● two things I. The necessity of the Knowledge of the holy Scriptures in order to our Eternal Salvation It is called b● our Saviour the key of Knowledge that which lets Me● into the Kingdom of Heaven II. The great and inexcusable fault of those who deprive the People of the Knowledge of the Holy Scri●●tures They shut the Kingdom of Heaven against Me● and do what in them lies to hinder their Eternal Salvation and therefore our Saviour denounceth so heavy a Woe against them I shall speak briefly to these two Observations and then apply them to those who are principally concerned in them 1. First I observe hence the Necessity of the knowledge of the holy Scriptures in order to our Eternal Salvation This is by our Saviour called the key of knowledge that which lets Men into the Kingdom of Heaven Knowledge is necessary to Religion It is necessary to the being of it and necessary to the life and practice of it Without Faith says the Apostle it is impossible to please God Because Faith is an act of the Understanding and does necessarily suppose some knowledge and apprehension of what we believe To all acts of Religion there is necessarily req●ired some act of the Understanding so that without Knowledge there can be no Devotion in the Service of God no Obedience to his Laws Religion begins in the Understanding and from thence descends upon the heart and life If ye know these things says our Saviour happy are ye if ye do them We must first know God before we can worship him and understand what is his Will before we can do it This is so very evident that one would think there needed no Discourse about it And yet there are some in the World that cry up Ignorance as the Mother of Devotion And to shew that we do not wrong them in this matter Mr. Rushworth in his Dialogues a Book in great vogue among the Papists here in England does expresly reckon up Ignorance among the Parents of Religion And can any thing be said more absurdly and more to the Disparagement of Religion than to derive the Pedigree of the most excellent thing in the World from so obscure and ignoble an Original and to make that which the Scripture calls the beginning of Wisdom and the Excellency of Knowledge to be the Off-spring of Ignorance and a Child of Darkness Ignorance indeed may be the cause of Wonder and Admiration and the Mother of Folly and Superstition But surely Religion is of a nobler Extraction and is the Issue and Result of the best Wisdom and Knowledge and descends from above from the giver of every good and perfect Gift even the Father of Lights And as Knowledge in general is necessary to Religion so more particularly the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures is necessary to our Eternal Salvation Because these are the great and standing Revelations of God to Mankind wherein the Nature of God and his Will concerning our Duty and the Terms and Conditions of our Eternal Happiness in another World are fully and plainly declared to us The Scriptures are the Word of God and from whence can we learn the