Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	age_n	church_n	time_n	2,142	5	3.6322	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42726	An answer to the Bishop of Condom (now of Meaux) his Exposition of the Catholick faith, &c. wherein the doctrine of the Church of Rome is detected, and that of the Church of England expressed from the publick acts of both churches : to which are added reflections on his pastoral letter.	Gilbert, John, b. 1658 or 9.	1686 (1686)	Wing G708; ESTC R537	120,993	143

determine them beyond the Sentiments of private men and whatever that shall have determined to be given to God as Signs and Acknowledgments of the Worship due unto him alone I cannot see how it can be lawful for any upon private Sentiments to direct to another signification especially in actions of Religious Worship since by so doing they not only scandalize and give offence to all those who have appropriated and determined those external Characters to express this Acknowledgment they make to God but do interpretatively also rob God of his Honour whilst they appear to men to give those Expressions of Honour to others which the rest of the World have determined to this peculiar purpose of expressing their Acknowledgments of that Honour which is God's incommunicable Right Nor will it avail much to say such Tokens may be and are used for Civil Purposes in the Honour of Superiors or the like for the only reason why they may be so is because they are so and to that determined by consent and practice as universal as that which has appropriated them to Religious Worship so that hereby Offence is neither given nor taken because all consent neither can it interpretatively tend to the diminution of God's Honour because all men know them to express a different intent which cannot be so distinctly known when they are used in the way of Religious Worship of which God only is by the whole World look'd on as the proper Object M. Condom goes on saying The Church of Rome teaches us that all Religious Worship ought to terminate in God as its necessary end But we say it ought to be given only to him as its necessary and immediate object and upon this point moves the principal difficulty Again he says That if the Honour which he renders to the blessed Virgin and to the Saints may in some sense be called Religious it is for its necessary relation to God But we say if in any sense it be Religious That they have chosen a wrong object and that the Honour of the Virgin and the Saints has no such necessary relation to God's Honour as can oblige us to give them any Religious Worship That therefore if they have made the Honour of these necessary to God's Honour it is without warrant that likewise if in their own intentions they direct the Honour given to these to terminate in God as its necessary end it is not enough to justifie them that they intend and direct that to him which he has not required especially if this has or may tend to the diminution of that which he does require But in our way to the particulars we meet an observation which M. Condom makes as very useful for his purpose viz. That those of the Reformation oblig'd by the strength of truth begin to acknowledg that the custom of Praying to Saints and Honouring their Relicks was established even in the Fourth Age of the Church That it was established is more than any acknowledg that I know of that something of this nature was in use at that time has been ever acknowledged But if he obliged by the strength of truth will acknowledg it not to have been in use before we shall not envy him the best advantages he can make of it M. Daille says he grants thus much in his Book against the Tradition of the Latin Church about the object of Religious Worship and accuses St. Basil Ambrose Hierome Chrysostome Augustin and especially Nazianzen of having altered in this point the Doctrine of the foregoing Ages He cannot expect that we should judg of M. Daille's accusations of these famous Men unless he had produced the particulars wherein I presume M. Daille has vindicated himself But it would be a great wonder to me if any Man that has read that Learned Word of M. D. should not be convinced that no such custom nor any thing like it was established in the Three first Ages of the Church which he proves by Arguments insoluble First from their constant Universal Declaration that God alone is to be Worshipped and Adored which he evidences by one instance as remarkable as any the Church affords the Argument of Athanasius against Arrius in which cause the whole Church was engaged that Adoration is peculiar to God alone whereby he proved that Christ is God because otherwise he could not be Worshipped as he has always been of the Christian World Lib. 1. cap. 2. from a concession as Universal that no Created Being is to be Worshipped or Adored particularly evidenced from the remarkable Disputations of Origen against Colsus c. 4. from the imputation of Atheism charged on Christians by the Heathen for rejecting their multitude of Deities which they never vindicated but by this answer That they Worshipped the true and only God cap. 12. for that the Jews who were most jealous of Images and the Adoration of any but one God are never sound to have objected against the Christians the Worship of any such or of any other but one God the Case of the Trinity excepted c. But when he tells us M. Daille does at last grant its being in use in the fourth Age he should have told told us likewise what more is proved in the same place cap. 17. how its shewn to have found a constant opposition in those beginnings and e're since ascending from the times of Luther up to that Age sometimes before him by the Valdenses in Bohemia in the Year 1512. by the Taborites the same sort of People Anno 1430. by Wickliffe and his Followers in England 1372. That Images were opposed by Leo Isaurus and several other Emperors with the consent of all the Eastern Churches in the eighth Century and in the sixth by Severus whose Fact in breaking Images though Gregory of Rome did not approve yet he consented in this that by all means we were to avoid the Worship of them That in the beginning of the fifth Age not only Images were opposed by Epiphanius but the Worship of the Dead by his sharp reproof of the Collyridians Women that offered Cakes to the Virgin Mary That even in St. Augustin himself it appears that the Honour then in use at least by the Churches approbation was quite different from what is now pretended who says of the Saints Honorandi propter imitationem non adorandi propter Religionem This I have taken liberty to transcribe that we may know the reason upon which M. Daille grants its growing into use in the fourth Age and challenges it to evidence by this opposition which he shews it to have found in its first beginning and all succeeding times that it could not be in use in those first Ages which are silent in it and that it was but then beginning when it met with its first opposition When he presses M. Daille with the improbability of his knowing the sentiments of former Ages better than they who immediately succeeded them As it s not allowable that he that

the whole Church were submitted to upon the certain testimony of those parts of it wherein they had been kept those which had not so evident a testimony being laid aside and received only according to the evidence that appeared of their being Divine Inspirations Nevertheless when they come to be received from the hands of such particular Churches who knew themselves to have had them from Authors known to be divinely inspired there might be some expressions in them which might appear not altogether so agreeable with our common Christianity when they came first to know them which from the beginning they had not And this was certainly the case of Luther in refusing St. James's Epistle notwithstanding the scorns cast upon him for it as of Erasmus in questioning the Epistle to the Hebrews But yet there is always means of redressing such a mistake either in any part of the Church or in any particular member of it so long as there remains means to certifie them from what hand they have been received and how derived from persons in whom the Church was assured the holy Ghost spoke but to set up the Churches bare Authority for this is indeed what our Adversaries desire but what destroys all the nature of the holy Scriptures and makes them to be believed for another reason than this that they are the Dictates of the holy Ghost But in fine he tells us It can only be from this authority that we receive the whole body of the Scripture which all Christians accept as divine before their reading of it has made them sensible of the Spirit of God in it But that there is some little difference between those that are educated in the Christian Church and others that turn Christians at years of understanding he might even as well have said whether the Spirit of God be in it or not in it For if the authority of the Church be that which principally determines them to reverence as Divine Books and upon that authority a man be obliged to receive the whole body of Scripture before he know the Spirit of God to be in it he shall upon the same grounds be obliged still to hold the same whether he find it there or not I am sorry that he thinks all Christians so blind as himself that they build their belief of the Scriptures on no firmer a foundation than he seems to do and am therefore obliged to shew him the ground whereon I build my own belief concerning them When therefore I first seek whereon to ground this belief I enquire after the Testimony not the Authority of the Church i. e. of all those that make profession of Christianity whose consent I look after concerning the Scriptures and when I have found what Writings they agree upon and admit for such the next enquiry is upon what grounds they submit unto them as such and this I find to be their having received them from former Ages successively together with their Christianity then must I trace this successive reception of them from one time to another till I come to those who first received them and there I find the reason upon which they submitted to them to be the evident proofs which the Writers of them had given to shew themselves inspired by God and commissioned to teach his will to the obedience of which they ought to give up themselves whereupon they who had seen God bearing them witness with divers Miracles and Gifts of the Holy Ghost became obliged as to obey their Doctrine so to acknowledge their Writings for the Word of God they being Records of those miraculous Actions which they saw wrought and of those Truths which were taught and proved to be the Will of God And here the very same Motives cause my belief of the Scriptures which caused those first Christians to receive them and submit unto them so that the same reason that moves me to be a Christian resolves me to believe the Scripture But if a man shall ask me since I believe the Scriptures only upon the works done by those Holy Writers which testifie them to have had his Spirit how I am assured that those works were really done I am not afraid to confess my Belief of this to rely on the Credit of God's People all Ages of Christ's Church which have born testimony of it successively so that I submit not my Faith to any Authority that can command it but I see it reasonable to allow my Belief to the Credit of the Church as so many men of common Sense attesting the Truth of those Reasons which the Gospel tenders why they ought to believe Neither is my Faith in either of these Respects a humane Faith but the work of Gods Spirit for as it is that Spirit only which after I have seen the Motives to Christianity inclines me to believe and become a Christian so it is the same Spirit which having shewn me the Evidence that the Scriptures were written by the Messengers of God that works in me an acknowledgment of and submission to them as the Word of God He goes on Being inseparably bound as we are to the holy Authority of the Church by means of the Scriptures which we receive from her hands we learn Tradition also from her and by means of Tradition we learn the true Sense of the Scripture upon which account the Church professes she tells us nothing from herself and that she invents nothing new in her Doctrines she does nothing but declare the divine Revelation according to the interior direction of the Holy Ghost which is given to her as a Teacher I profess all the Skill I have cannot make this hang together If by his first words he means we are so inseparably bound to the Authority of the Church by receiving the Scriptures from her that we ought thereupon to receive all that shall be commanded by that Authority I that have shewn we do not believe the Scriptures upon her Authority as a Church but upon her Testimony witnessing the Motives of Faith as a number of men that would not conspire to testifie an Untruth can never own it to have an Authority of itself to command our Faith Indeed as we receive the Scriptures upon her Testimony we learn from the Scriptures that she has an Authority but such an Authority as perhaps will not content M. Condom which being derived from the Scriptures can never have power to act against them and being established only for the Maintenance of Christianity which was before it can never have power to make that a part of Christianity which was not so before the Church was in being Then again though we learn Tradition from her and that Tradition be useful to interpret the Sense of the Scriptures yet we receive not any Tradition upon her Authority as making them Traditions of the Apostles but upon her Testimony shewing that she has received them from them and again those Traditions she does deliver ought not certainly