Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	acknowledge_v	church_n	true_a	2,198	5	5.3927	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35023	A letter written to a friend concerning Popish idolatrie	Croft, Herbert, 1603-1691.	1674 (1674)	Wing C6968; ESTC R3785	21,890	35

A LETTER Written to a FRIEND Concerning Popish Idolatrie LONDON Printed for and are to be Sold by Charles Harper at the Flower-de-luce over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1674. A Word to the READER A Person whom I greatly honoured being much inclined to the Popish Religion was as I heard much altered by the ensuing Letter which made me very industrious to get first a View and then a Copy of it And conceiving it may prove very beneficial to others also the same way inclined I thought my self in Conscience bound to present it to publick view I hope without offence to the Writer who seems zealous to withdraw men from such Erroneous and Idolatrous Worship and therefore doubtless will be pleased to see the fruit of his labour much encreased by the Blessing of God upon it Amen SIR I Am very sorry to find that the Books I directed you to do not give you full satisfaction but still you press me to say something of my own and what can I say that hath not been already said Really most of the Books that are written in these latter days of the World are but as the same Cards shufflled and dealt into a new Game But you tell me their Discourses are so long as you cannot carry them in your remembrance the Quotations so numerous pro and con as there is no end in searching after them their Distinctions and way of arguing many times intricate and seem to you rather subtil Evasions than solid Answers in sum they do not satisfie nor work much upon your Understanding In answer whereto I must consess I have found by experience that Mens Heads are like Locks with several Wards which no Key will open but one fitted to those very Wards So Mens Understandings must be fitted and opened with such a way of arguing as suits with their Apprehensions and Fancy and many times it happens that weaker Arguments in a method agreeable unto them prevail more than the Scholastick pressing form This gives me some encouragement to set Pen to Paper with hopes that I may chance to light on that Method as may give you more agreeable satisfaction especially you so much desiring it weak Remedies strongly fancied for good have done great Cures when Learned Physicians have failed I shall be as brief as may be and the rather because longer labour may have as little success as the larger Tracts of others have had You seem much to applaud and lean on Doctor Thorndick's Judgment who in his Just Weights condemns those who charge the Papists with Idolatry and therein both wrongfully accuse them and also cast a wrong and foul Prejudice on our Church and by necessary consequence make it no Church For if the Papists be Idolaters their Church is not a true saving Church it is no Church Idolatry as he conceives being inconsistent with a saving Church 't is as a deadly poyson which presently destroys the vitals and brings inevitable death And then if the Papal Church be no saving Church no Church now they were none when those of the Reformation came out of it their Church being the same then as 't is now and so consequently our Church can be no Church coming out from theirs which is none Wherefore Dr. Thorndick is very desirous that the Papists gross erroneous Worship should be called Superstition rather than Idolatry for first this grievous accusation much incenses them by making them no Church and makes our Division the wider and cuts off all hopes of Reconciliation with them Secondly it makes by consequence our Church no Church as he said we descending from them As to the first I wonder that this good Man so knowing in Roman Principles could hope for Reconciliation with them but by wholly submitting to them for their Prime Principle being Infallibility whereon all that Babel is built the pulling down of any one Pinacle eradicates the very Foundation all being so link'd together with Infallibility that one and all falls together 'T is therefore bootless to talk of meeting them half-way or three quarters and a half who are so fettered to this Infallible Pillar you must be chained to it also no other way of being one with them As to the second of nullifying their Church by Idolatry and our own also as from them if they by their Infallible Spirit will declare the consequence against themselves let it be so but I fear it not against us They cannot deny but the Head of their Church Pope Marcellinus from whom their Popes ever since descended was an Idolater in the grossest sence sacrificing to a Heathen Idol in the time of Dioclesian's persecution if this makes them no Church let them be no Church but then we are none hold there I am not bound to grant though I pass the Antecedent much less the Consequent First 't is not so easie and quick a thing to determine what nullifies a Church some things are plain and easie some not 'T is certain the Jewish Church in our Saviours time was a Church wherein salvation was to be had for our Saviour bid the people then hearken to those who sat in Moses Chair and do what they thence commanded yet they were guilty of devillish practices opinions also but still they believ'd in the only true God and acknowledged his holy Word though they notoriously swerved from it And 't is as certain that the generality of the Jewish Church did often fall into Idolatry yet they continued still a Church to our Saviours days as I shewed before so that for my part I dare not presume to draw the exact Circular line of a Church over which the Transgression makes it cease to be a saving Church but as I said above some cases are clear General Infidelity as to renounce God and his Christ doubtless makes it cease to be a Church but Idolatry though it be as general as in Elijah's days when he conceived himself only free from Baal-worship doubtless doth make it not cease to be a Church For we do not find that the Priests and Levites were consecrated a new after their defection to Idolatry And therefore with Dr. Thorndick's good lieve though we descend from a Church too too much given to Idolatry yet our Bishops consecrated by them need no more a new Consecration than those Jewish Priests who were most certainly polluted with Idolatry but relinquishing their Idolatry and with penitential hearts sacrificing to the true God were reconciled again to God and in mercy accepted by the Divine Goodness Who then can doubt that those Bishops of this Nation who with penitent hearts renounc'd the Romish Idolatry and so zealously embrac'd the truth of the Gospel and God's sincere Worship in Spirit and in Truth as to die in defence of it I say who can doubt but through the infinite goodness of the same merciful God our Reformed Bishops were likewise accepted by him and thenceforth acknowledged true and faithful Shepherds of his Church Wherefore I