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
A64357	A Discourse concerning a guide in matters of faith with respect especially to the Romish pretence of the necessity of such a one as is infallible.	Tenison, Thomas, 1636-1715.	1683 (1683)	Wing T695; ESTC R37882	33,059	50

Man who liveth where Christianity is profess'd and refuseth to submit his Judgment to the Infallibilty of any Guide on Earth and particularly to the Church or Bishop of Rome hath notwithstanding that refusal sufficient means still left him whereby he may arrive at certainty in those Doctrines which are generally necessary to the Salvation of a Christian Man Satisfaction in this Inquiry is of great Moment For it relateth to our great end and to the way which leads to it And it nearly concerneth both the Romanists and the Reformed If there be not such a Guide the Estate of the Romanists is extreamly dangerous For then the Blind take the Blind for their unerring Leaders and being once misled they wander on without correcting their Error having taken up this first as their fixed Principle that their Guide cannot mistake the way On the other hand If God hath set up in his Church a Light so very clear and steddy as is pretended the Reformed are guilty of great presumption and expose themselves to great uncertainty by shutting their Eyes against it Now there lyes before Men a double Temptation to a belief of the being of such a Guide in the Christian Church Sloth and Vitious Humility of Mind Sloth inclineth Men rather to take up in an Implicit Faith than to give themselves the trouble of a strict Examination of things For there is less Pain in Credulity then in bending of the Head by long and strict Attention and severe Study Also there is a Shew of Humility in the deference which our understandings pay unto Authority especially to that which pretends to be under Christ Supreme on Earth Although in the paying of it without good reason first understood Men are not Humble but Slavish But these Temptations prevail not upon honest and considerate Minds which inquire without prejudice after Truth and submit to the Powerful Evidence of it Such will resolve the Question in the Affirmative and they may reasonably so do by considering these Propositions which I shall treat of in their order First The Christian Church never yet wanted nor shall it ever want either the Doctrines of necessary Faith or the Belief and Profession of them Secondly Wheresoever God requireth the Belief of them he giveth means sufficient for Information and unerring Assent Thirdly Whatsoever those means are every Man 's Personal reason giveth to the Mind that last Weight which turneth Deliberation into Faith Fourthly The means which God hath given us towards necessary Faith and the certainty of it is not the Authority of any Infallible Guide on Earth Yet Fifthly All Ecclesiastical Guidance is not to be rejected in our pursuance of the Doctrines of Christian Faith in the finding out or stating of which it is a very considerable help Sixthly By the help of it and Principally as it offers to us the Holy Scriptures in the Quality of the Rule of Faith we have means sufficient to lead us to certainty in that Belief which is necessary to Life Eternal First The Acknowledgment and Profession of the necessary Doctrines of the Christian Faith are annexed inseparably to the Christian Church There is but one Faith and according to the saying of Leo the great If it be not one it is not at all For it cannot be contrary to it self And though it be but one yet Men of differing Creeds pretend to it as the Merchants of Relicks in the Church of Rome shew in several places the one seamless Coat of Christ This one Faith never did nor ever shall in all places fail The Apostles were themselves without error both in their own assent to the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith and in the delivery of them They heard the Oracles of Christ from his own mouth and they were Witnesses of his Resurrection And they spake what they had seen and heard And they gave to the World Assurance of the Truth by the miraculous signs of their Apostolical Office And if they had not had such Assurance themselves and could not have given proof to others of their mission there would have been a defect in the first promulgation of the Gospel and such as could not afterwards have been amended That which at first had been delivered with uncertainty would with greater uncertainty have been conveighed down to after Ages and Men who in process of time graft error upon certain Truth would much more have grafted error upon uncertain Opinion Ever since the Apostles times there has been True Faith and the Profession of it in the Catholick Church And it will be so till Faith shall expire and Men shall see him on whom they before believ'd For a Church cannot subsist without the Fundamentals of Christianity And Christ hath Sealed this Truth with his promise that there shall be a Church as long as this World continues I mean by a Church a visible Society of Christians both Ministers and People for publick Worship on Earth cannot be invisible But the True Faith and the Profession of it is not fixed to any place or to any succession of Men in it God's Providence has written the contrary in the very Ashes of the Seven Churches of the lesser Asia Neither is any particular Church though so far infallible in Fundamentals as to be preserved from actual error an infallible Rule to all other Christians If they follow the Doctrine of it they err not because it is true but if they follow that Church as an unerring Guide or Canon they mistake in the Rule and Motive of their Faith For that particular Church which Teacheth Truth might possibly have err'd and the Church which errs might have shined with the True Light But the whole Church cannot so err in any Age for then the very being of a Church would cease Neither doth it hence follow that the Faith of the Roman Church when Luther arose was the only true and certain Doctrine For that Church was not then the only visible Church on Earth The Greek Church for instance sake was than more visible than now it is and more Orthodox The Rich Papacy having much prevailed upon the necessities of it by Arguments guilded with Interest That Church did not err in Fundamental Points the Article of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father by the Son which the Romans accuse of Heresie being easily acquitted of it if Men agreeing in the sense forbear contention about the Phrases Besides if our Fore-Fathers under the Papacy embraced the True Faith we have it still the Faith not being removed but the Corruption Their Question therefore Where was your Religion before Luther is not more pertinent amongst Disputers than this is amongst Husbandmen Where was the Corn before it was weeded We have seen that necessary Faith is perpetual and it is as manifest that wheresoever God requireth the belief of it he vouchsafeth sufficient means for information and unerring Assent Of all he does not