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
A64702	The church-papist (so-called), his religion and tenets fully discovered in a serious dispute ... whereby the common ... arguments of pretended visibility, succession, universality, &c., of the Roman Church ... are briefly confuted : whereunto is added, a short discourse proving episcopacy to be of divine institution, kingly government of Gods setting up, and the religion of the Church of England, to be the best in the world / by one of the children of the late captivity, 1680.	Underwood, John, fl. 1680.	1680 (1680)	Wing U46; ESTC R7367	28,086	42

which is true many great men have turned Hereticks Judas chang'd from an Apostle to a Devil so 't is the easie for others to change from Shepherds into Wolves Nor can the Roman Prelates pretend they have only this veràm et sanam Doctrinam or claim a lawful succession of Pastors continually holding entire the Unity and the Eaith for they have not kept the Unity of the Church but have had more Schisms among them than any other Church above thirty acknowledged by their own Chronologer Onuphrius Even Popes themselves have many of them by confession of several Romish Authors who have written of their Lives been very vile erroneous Heretical c. So 't is clear Rome hath no lawful Succession by confession they have only a Succession of gross Superstitions and Errors for a bout a thousand years for which they can shew no Practice on Warrant from the Apostles You further say That our English Bishops had no Succession from Roman Catholick for immediately after Conscoration Stapleton Harding c. your own men told them to their faces they were no Bishops Ergo only the Roman Church have lawful Succession I see you are put to hard straits for proof that seeing the Fathers will not speak for you you are forced to be your own Testimony which with me is less than nothing for who will or can take an Adversary's bare objections for a sufficient confutation of a matter in question for by this your Argument and Rule of proof should I tell you that any of our Party say Stapleton Harding c. were no Scholars though indeed they were great Clarks and should I say they were damnable Hereticks and forsakers of the Truth as in truth they are you ought to admit it as a convincing Testimony else why do you obtrude your sayings for proof but let that pass You confess English Bishops had Consecration from the Roman and so enabled and qualified for the service of the Church If then the Roman had any lawful power to consecrate which I deny not I do not question but their Consecration is valid enough and hold good notwithstanding Stapleton and Hardings words to the contrary for such sayings do not unordain and so we have your Succession and Consecration to boot But whether ordinary Mission or Ordination be so absolutely necessary to the being of Truth as though Truth could nor be without it is with me a question seeing Christ encouraged the Faithful that did wonders in Christ's name and was not sent St. Mark 9.39 40. forbid him not he is on our part c. nor did I ever conceive a necessity lay on the English Church to receive Orders from Rome more than on the Roman to receive Orders from it seeing we were a Church Apostolick assoon yea were a Church before any settlement of a Church in Rome The Religion of Christ was received in Brittain tempore ut scimus summo Tiberii Caesaris in the latter time of Tiberius Caesar as saith St. Gildas de excid Brit. the same is acknowledged by your own man Baronius whereas St. Peter kept in Jury long after Tiberius his death And as Theodoret and Sophronimus Patriarchs of Jerusalem affirm the Apostle St. Paul first taught in Britain Also Aristobulus mentioned Romans 16. came to this Isle and discharged the Office of a Bishop as Dorotheus witnesseth and in his Synopsis also averreth Simon Zelotes Christum praedicavit in Britannia ubi crucifixus occisus et sepultus est The same also affirmeth Nicephorus lib. 2. cap. 40. Simon Zelotes Evangelii Doctrinam ad occidentalem Oceanum Insulasque Britannicas perfert And Joseph of Arimathea An. Dom. 53. taught the Gospel in Britain as Baleus Flemingus and others affirm likewise Tertullian who lived An. Christi 200 saith Britanorum loca Romanis inapoessa Christo subdita sunt advers Judaeos cap. 7.8 After him Origin An. Christi 260. witnesseth Britanniam in Christianam consentire Religionem So it is evident and most clear that Apostles and Apostolick men delivered over the Faith to us and were the first Planters we had many Waterers after of this Plantation and a succession of Doctrine by confession on all sides St. Jerom also Anno 405. records Gallia Britanniá Africa c. unum Christum adorant unam observant Regulam veritatis In which time Bellarmine confesseth the Church was a true Apostolick Church Antiqua Ecclesia primis quingentis Annis vera Ecclesia fuit c. Bel. l. 4. de notab Eccl. cap. 9. and then viz. the first four hundred years we and Rome were of one joint Belief and Faith from one Fountain Christ Jesus and his Apostles and the same faith we had then the same we have now we hold to the old Foundation the Scripture Creed and ractice of the general Church in those times so are we a true Church and a right Member of the Catholick having lawful succession of Doctrine convey'd to us as before is proved from Apostles and Apostolick men whereby it 's evident we are no Novelists nor any of our Profession the Antiquity whereof our very Enemies do acknowledge Reinerus a Roman Inquisitor above three hundred years since speaking of the Professors at Lyons calling them Valdensae Leonistae c. in contempt saith they are more pernitious to the Church of Rome than all other Sects for three causes First being of longer continuance than any other the Sect enduring ever since the Apostles Secondly It is general creeping into all Lands Thirdly It hath a great shew of Godliness they live justly believe all things well concerning God and all the Articles contained in the Creed only they Blaspheme in hating the Church of Rome c. He calls us indeed a Sect as of old the Priests of the Jews called the Church of Christians a Sect of Nazarites Acts 24.5 but you see by Confession we had our Doctrine in former Ages and were a Church from the Beginning and are not estranged from the Church of Rome where she holds the Truth but she from us and the true Catholick Church of Christ nor do we depart from her as they charge us or are any further remote from her than she her self is from her primitive Purity antient Principles from Scripture Reason Charity Antiouity and from what she was in her best of times our present Church of England though often have been under clouds and heavy persecutions still retaining the primitive verity to this day So your second Argument is invalid in that you have not proved nor can prove that the Church of Rome hath this lawful Succession of uncorrupted Doctrine and Principles or that succession of Pastors is necessarily tied to one particular place for ever to make the being of the Catholick Church as though the universal Church of Christ could cease to be if Rome and her Prelates were extinct and turn'd to Ashes Your third Argument from pretended Privileges belonging to the Roman Church viz. 3. That Church only that have confuted and anathematized

Visibility is the only mark of the true Church you have not proved to be granted be Churches differing from the Roman therefore is a Principle of your own and a begging of the Question I deny it to be the only mark for a mark must be infallible and That mark which may possibly deceive and is common both to a True and a False Church and may as probably lead to the one as the other is no certain infallible mark to find the true Church But Visibility may deceive being common to both and may as readily lead to a False as a True Church Therefore Visibility no sure mark and unerring Rule to find the True Church The Major is undeniable bearing its own Proof Truth and Reason in it self The Minor is apparent in all Ages even from the beginning of the World to this day Go up into Paradise the Garden of Eden there was Truth and Falshood even as soon as God had laid his Church the Devil began to build a Chappel for in Genesis not long after Et Deus dixit And God said c. the Devil was busie to set up a false Worship and wrong Obedience and then comes Et Serpens dixit And the Serpent said which visibly and miserably deceived our first Parents The Church was with Moses in Egypt there were Magicians and mock Miracles Falshood ever followed the Truth or Truth found it where it went There were Calves in Dan and Bethel there were worshipers of Baal Error is almost as old in the world as Truth No sooner went the Apostles out to Preach but a false Doctrine appeared in Simon Magus and his Followers Acts 8.14 In one place or other Erroneous and false Churches have been always Visible to this day even when the true Church have been obscured by Persecutions for so it must be according to the saying of St. Paul 1 Cor. 11.19 Oportet esse Haereses Were the idolatrous People in the time of Elias Achas Manasses and others the True Church because they only were Visible to the World For where was Visibility of the True Church when the Prophet cried out and complained 1 Kings He only was left alone so a true Church may be though not visible for there were seven thousand true Worshippers which he knew not of Where was Visibility when the Shepherd was smitten and the Sheep scattered hid and concealed Zach. 13.7 Joh. 16.32 Where was Visibility of the True Church in the time of Dioclesian the Emperour when neither Church Book nor Men escaped Was she not as St. Joh. testifieth Revel 12.6 fled into a Desart where she should not be found for a space c. And St. Chrysostom in Math. 24. saith In the time of Abomination of Desolation viz. of wicked Heresie Nulla probatio potest Christianitatis c. No proof of Christianity can be made or refuge found for Christians to know the true Faith but only the Divine Scripture So the Church of Antichrist may be Visible and Flourishing when the true Church of Christ is in obscurity and hath no Lustre Therefore Visibility is not in all Ages and all times an infallible mark of the true Church but is a mark also of a false one and so a true Church hath been and may be though not Visible to Humane Eyes c. Your next Position is from Succession viz. 2. That Church that have lawfull Succession is the True Church But only the Roman have lawful Succession Ergo only the Roman Church is the True Church To prove the Major you twice instance St. Augustine but direct to no place where therefore I know not whether he speaks as you represent him or if he doth whether he denotes a Succession in Place of Persons or of Doctrine and you bring in Irenaeus to say Successione Confundimus omnes c. but there is no such saying in the manner you mention found in Irenaeus 't is only corruptly quoted by Bellarmine Bellar. li. 4. de notis Eccles ca. 8. Sect. 2. nor have I heard or found Irenaeus or any other Father make Local Personal Visible and Continued Succession a necessary Sign or Mark of the True Church in any one place as though a True Church could not be in any place without it yet the Faith was delivered over by Succession in some places or other to their time and is to our time and shall be till there be no time for a True Church may be hath been and is in places where there hath not been Continued Visible Personal Succession Were not Jerusalem Antioch c. and others in the Primitive times true Churches yet Succession of Bishops hath not continually succeeded in them to this day and later Churches are true likewise Constat omnem Doctrinam quae cum illis Ecclesiis Apostolicis Matricibus Originalibus Fidei conspiret Veritati deputandam So saith Tertullian De praescript advers Haeret. c. 21. And in the same place Ecclesiae posteriores non minus Apostolicae deputantur pro consanguinitate Doctrinae The Succession Irenaeus stood upon was of the Churches then in Asia and of Smyrna where Polycarpus sat Bishop as that of Rome Testimonium his perhibent quae sunt in Asia Ecclesiae omnes qui usque adhuc successerunt Polycarpo Iren. l. 3. advers Haeret. ca. 3. And St. Hierom tells us Ecclesia non in parietibus consistit in Psal 133. So Succession in the Fathers Account is not tyed to Place or Person but to the verity of Doctrine as Tertullian de praescript c. 32. Ad hanc formam provocabantur ab illis Ecclesiis quae licet nullum ex Apostolis vel Apostolicis Authorem suum proferunt ut multo posteriores quae denique quotidie instituuntur tamen in eadem fide conspirantes non minus Apostolicae deputantur pro cansanguinitate Doctrinae shewing that modern Churches such as are daily instituted and set up agreeing and linking together in the same true Faith are no less to be esteemed Apostolical for their neerness and consanguinity of Doctrine and to that we have as good Succession as any Christian Church this day in the whole Catholick Body the Religion professed in the Church of England being nearest of any Church now in being to the Primitive Christian Church Churches that have Doctrine that is not allied in Blood to that of Christ and his Apostles have no lawful or good Succession for Consanguinitas Doctrinae is required Irenaeus speaks plain Illis Presbyteris obediendum est qui cum Episcopatus Successione Charissima acceperunt veritatis Iren. l. 4. ca. 43. We are to obey those Priests who with their Succession in the Office of Bishop have received the Pledge or Gift of Truth whereupon Stapleton Relic cont 1. q. 4. A. 2. Notab 1. is forced to confess successio nec locorum tantum est neo personarum sed etiam verae sanae Doctrinae And why it cannot be of Pastours he again tells us Notab 4. ibid. name Pastore Lups fleri potest

a Child than a Father for a People than their King The King hath tri'd it and whom can we trust but those that have tried and whom can a Child better trust than a Father and whom can we a People better trust than the Father of our Country our King a Nursing Father who had no end but the salvation of his Child the salvation of his People and to preserve them from Apostacy in the time of Tryal and Persecution they might meet with A King who was able to try laborious in the search judicious to discern and most wise and learned to judge who took care of us all as for his own soul was faithful before the Lord unto the death preferring his Religion before his Crowns and Life the Church and his People before his own safety no torment inflicted on his Body could make a Conquest of his Soul for his unvanquished Fortitude after many hard Conflicts bitter Afflictions and Indignities heaped on him witnessed the truth of the holy Faith and Religion of the Church of England by giving up his Life for the same so imitating his Saviour subscribed and signed the Truth with his last blood Kings are Divinely inspired as by the Actions and Writings of this Holy One is sufficiently evidenced The Eyes of God are with Kings on their Throne Job 36.7 The King is an Angel of God to discern good and bad 2 Sam. 14.17 20. An Angel of Light and to whom then should we repair for Righteous Judgment but to him who sees with Gods byes to the Angel of Light to the Light of Israel 〈◊〉 Isiah 8.19 Never was there a Test in any Age or Nation like it what doubt can there be of the purity and truth of the Profession but that every man may safely take and subscribe to our Religion upon this Tryal and Centre his Trust upon this Testimony and Evidence and Author it here for ever What better proof can the whole World produce Is it not worth ten thousaend 2 Sam. 18.3 Yet not wholly to take it upon the trust of others and be led to implicithess barely to take our Profession of Religion from other mens Custom or Tradition as he said this good King hath given us a light and marked us out a way to confirm our selves in it to make it our own by Election in weighing it with sound Reason and Judgment though hodietter Lessons than from his Divine Truths and Testimony can be offered to the World and so hath put us to School to the most Choice Learned Religious and Rational Treatises of holy Churchmen upon the point that we must acknowledg though we are owing to Education for initiating and first Principling us in our Religion we are wholly owing to his Directions convincing Arguments and Divine Testimony for the Confirmation of us in it in it in the best Religion in the world which he hath taken by Divine Inspiration from above not sole Infusion beneath by Revelation from Heaven not Education Seducement or Custom on Earth and Heaven it self hath hallowed and approved it by the late miraculous replanting the same Profession of Religion and Faith in this Land and restoring the Royal Defender thereof in peace Hope not then Oh thou full of wicked Imaginations that any Branch of that Royal and Holy Stem can be of any other Religion than the best in the world even the Reformed Religion professed and established in the Church of England Thou shalt not Revile the Gods nor speak evil of the Ruler of thy People Exod. 2.21 Acts 23. Think not then that any Child of so pious and sacred a Parent can despise the Admonition of an Angel of Light and his Book as Heretical and abandon that Religion the best Religion so recommended so proved and the Truth thereof so confirmed but will Religiously observe such Divine Admonitions and Holy Injunctions and will Bind them for a Sign upon his Hands and to the as Frontlets between his Eyes always before him Deut. 6. that it may be well with him for ever and not by following strange Gods and those ways he was warned to avoid and beware of Rob the dead the most innocent dead his Royal Father of the Glory of his Sufferings of his Crown of Martyrdom for this were to unsweeten the memory of the purest Innocence next the Saviour of the world that ever was born of a Woman This were which is a most malitious wickedness but to imagine not only to Countenance his Enemies cruelty that murthered his Body but more barbarously against all Humanity and bonds of Nature to crucifie his Honour to slay his everlasting Name and Memory to render him Inglorious his Death a Reproach to defile his Sacred Dust to raise a Persecution against him in his Grave worse than all the smarts and horrid terrors of his Life to render his Religion that Religion which he watred with his Blood a Heresie and himself a most grand Heretick so consequently to die deservedly and the destruction of him and his faithful Subjects in defence of him and the Church to be Righteous as if his Enemies depriving him of his Crowns on Earth were not sufficient but his dear Off-spring to ravish from him also that which he hath in Glory to help the Popish and Phanatick Enemies to dethrone a Saint and unsaint a Martyr that is Canoniz'd in Heaven to pull him from thence and as much as in them lies to tear his precious Name out of the Book of Life to make blacker his days on Earth than all the malice of his Enemies could ever make it to take his blessed Memory out of the Kalendar of Time to eraze it out of the Rubrick to repeal and make scandalous the Statute of the Realin that hath ordained his day his day of Glory his day of sufferings for the Church the Thirtieth of January to be observed for even to ravish his Name from the number of the Good and Vertuous on Earth to take the Head of the grand Rebel O. C. from the Pole of Infamy and to rank that Usurpers Bones again amongst the Shrines of Kings and even to marble his Herse into a Statue amongst the Worthies of England But never can the blessed Name and Honour of Holy Charles be thus stormed whilst the Earth shall bear any Successor on the British Throne descended from his sacred Loyns and God grant his Race to Sway the Scepter may be as lasting as the Sun and Moon Repent therefore Oh thou Dissenter from all Charity and Goodness of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee No Insidel that had seen the Finger of God in the late great Restauration of Church and State but would have embraced the Faith of the Church of England in the Notion and Manner as Religion is here Established upon the account of the Miracle only as may well be concluded from that credible Relation given of a great Prince or Vizier in the Ottoman