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	true_a	1,952	5	4.9061	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A17020	A treatise of the perpetuall visibilitie, and succession of the true church in all ages	Abbot, George, 1562-1633.	1624 (1624)	STC 39.3; ESTC S100501	43,587	128

A TREATISE OF THE Perpetuall Visibilitie AND Succession of the True CHVRCH in all AGES AT LONDON Printed by HVM●REY LOVVNES for ROBERT MILBOVRNE 1624. TO THE READER KIng Salomon the Mirror of wisdome who digged deepest into the richest Mines of diuine and humane knowledge exhorts others to search after that which himself had found in such abundance and he sets an edge vpon our desires by promising If thou seekest after her as for siluer and searchest for her as for hid treasure then shalt thou finde the knowledge of God c. Of so pretious a Talent when wee haue found any parcell wee ought not to hide it in a napkin much lesse to bury it in the bowels of the earth by concealment or suppression for Veritatem celare est aurum sepelire To conceale the Truth is to burie gold and therby to depriue not only others but our selues also of the benefit and vse thereof Wherefore Saint Austen sharply censureth such as would challenge a peculiar interest and propriety in this which is the true common treasure of Gods Church saying Veritas nec mea nec tua nec illius est sed omnium nostrum quos ad eius communionem publicè vocas admonens nos vt nolimus eam habere priuatam ne priuemur ea The truth is neither mine nor thine nor his but all ours in common whom thou O Lord callest publikely to the communion thereof dreadfully admonishing vs not to desire to haue it priuate lest we be depriued of it Now of all truth this day in controuersie there is none more sought after by some than the visibility of the true Church which retained the purity of the Apostles doctrine vnmixed with dregs of errour and superstition especially in the gloomy and dark Ages before Luther As for higher times and neerer the Apostles such was the clarity and splendour of the pure Church that in a manner it obscured the Sun But in succeeding and degenerating times after the number of the name of the Beast 666 it began much to be obscured and clouded with ignorance and superstition and in the thousandth yeer in which Satan was let loose and much more after euen till the happy reformation in these later Ages it was so eclipsed especially in the Western Parts of the world that some confidently affirm it was quite extinct The Woman clothed with the Sun hauing the Moon vnder her feet was now fled into the Wildernesse and had but a fewe Stars to discouer her By the conduct and lustre wherof yet many Wise-men follow'd her obscure track and found her Among whom the most reuerend religious learned and painfull Authour of this enfuing Treatise concerning The Visibility and Succession of the true Church deserueth to bee named in the first rank who hath more particularly and perspicuously trauelled in this Argument than any in our English Tongue It was the manner of the Heathen Race-runners after they had finished their course to deliuer a Lamp or Taper to the next Runner Semblably whereto this Christian Antiquary shewes vnto thee how the noble Worthies of the Christian world and Fore-runners of our faith after they had finished their course deliuered the Lamp of their doctrine from one to another as to omit other former-bearers of this Light Bertram to Berengarius Berengarious to Petrus Bruis Petrus Bruis to Waldo Waldo to Dulcinus Dulcinus to Gandune and Marsilius they to Wicklef Wicklef to Hus and Ierome of Prague and their scholars the Taborites to Luther This Treasure of Antiquitie falling into my hands and finding it hard to come-by I thought fit to publish it and make it more common that so all that loue the truth might cleerly see in it the perfect Image of their Mother the true Protestant Church partly blubbered with tears partly smeared with bloud by the cruelty of the Man of sinne and his Complices in former Ages About which dolefull Image we may fitly write these words of the Prophet Micah for a Motto Reioyce not against me O my enemy when I fall I shall rise when I sit in darknes the Lord shall be a Light vnto mee Such a Light hee hath been Before and In our daies and Henceforth will bee according to his promise til he shall dispell all darknes and consume the Man of sin with the Spirit of his mouth and destroy him with the brightnes of his Comming Euen so come Lord Iesu come quickly A TREATISE OF the perpetuall Visibilitie and Succession of the true CHVRCH WEE teach that as from the beginning long before the Incarnation of Christ God euer had his Church yet sometimes more visible and glorious and sometimes more contracted and obscured so since the appearance of our Sauiour at all times infallibly and without exception there haue been chosen children of God who haue retained his faith and calling vpon his name haue studied to expresse their knowledge in their life by retyring themselues both from the loose conuersation of Libertines and the profanation of Idolatrous persons Neither euer was there any of our profession which did teach or write the contrary But wheras the Synagogue of Rome layes it downe for a fundamentall Rule that this Church hath been and must bee in all ages a visible and conspicuous Congregation at the least consisting of an apparant Hierarchy so that at all times a man may poynt it out and may repaire thither as to a matter eminent yea and in a sort pompous too or to say as Stapleton speaketh when he doth most extenuate it It is euermore visible in respect of her Gouernours and Sheepheards but most of all for the Pope or cheife Pastor thereof To which Pope Bellarmine assigneth that he cannot erre in iudgment and to the people and Cleargie of Rome where this sensible Church must principally be that they cannot erre with a personall errour so that all altogether erre we therein doe dissent from them and maintaine that although when the godly are most driuen to extremities by Heresies or persecutions they bee visible each to other and acquainted with some other brethren who are in like case with themselues yet they are not so apparant to other men as that at all times they know where to find Assemblies and Congregations of them But that the Bishop of Rome and his Pontificall Clergie should haue the face of the Church tyed and inseperably ioyned vnto them wee can in no sort yeeld but doe disclaime it as a flattering tale suggested to that Bishop by such parasites as are about him and from time to time doe depend vpon him And that it may bee seene what reason we haue of this our assertion wee first shew that the estate of the faithfull was frequently so before the comming of Christ. For when it lay as hid in some fewe persons within the single Families of the old Patriarks before and after the Floud what great boast could there bee made of it Nay

the same time liued Archdeacon Nicholaus Clemang●is who rebuked many things in the Ecclesiasticall state and spake excellently in the matter of generall Councels and their circumstances as hereafter may be declared Petrus de Aliaco Cardinall of Cambray gaue a Tract to the Councell of Constance touching the reformation of the Church There doth he reproue many notable abuses of the Romanists giueth aduise how to represse them There should not be multiplied saith he such varietie of Images and pictures in the Churches there should not be so many holy dayes there should not be so many new S t s canonized Apocryphal writings should not be read in the churches on holy dayes such numerosity variety of religious persons not expedient there are so many Orders of begging Friers that their state is burtheusome to men hurtfull to hospitals and to the poore few doe now study diuinity for the abuse of the Church of Rome who hath despised Diuines all now turne to the law artes of gaine He saith that it was then a prouerbe The Church is come to that estate that it is not worthy to be ruled but by reprobates He hath very much more and in the end concludeth That as there were 7000 who had not bowed to Baal so it is to bee hoped there bee some which desire the reformation of the Church Imagine whether this Cardinall if he had found company to haue ioyned with him would not haue sayd much more About that time liued Leonardus Aretinus whose little book against Hypocrites is worth the reading So is the oration of Antonius Cornelius Eynni●hanus laying open the lewd lubric●●e of Priests in his dayes So doth he detect many abuses and errours who wrote The ten grieuances of Germany but those who compiled the hundred grieuances of the German nation doe discouer many more Finally he who list to see further that God euen in those dead dayes had diuers seruants who by more then a glimpse did see the truth and desired yet to be more plentifully instructed in religion let him read the Catologus testium veritatis lately set out and there he shall find diuers whom I haue not named By this time I trust it is manifest how fals a slander that of the Papists is that before the daies of M. Luther there was neuer any man of our religion Til the time of the Councell of Constance this case is cleared And beyond that it is as easie to shew that I. Hus Hierom of Prage had their imediat antecessors in witnessing the faith of Christ For they were instructed much helped by the Books of Io. Wiclif an English man and therefore saith Platina as spectators of Wiclife they were condemned in the Councell of Constance AEneas Syluius sheweth the meanes how those Bohemians came to know the doctrine of Wiclife he saith thus He who first raised vp the opinion of the Hussites had them frō Oxford carying thence into Bohemia Wiclefs books de Realibus Vniuersalib ' Coehleus who by his good will would bee taken for a great defender of Popery giueth yet a larger testimony for he saith That as a Bohemian brought first into Bohemia Wiclefs books de Realibus Vniuer salibus so there was afterward one Peter Paine a Scholler of Wiclefs who after the death of his Master came also into Bohemia and brought with him Wiclef bookes which were in quantity as great as S. Austins works many of these books did Hus afterward translate into their mother tongue In plaine termes after this the Author deliuereth it That the Hussites Thaborites were branches of Wiclefe And in the same book Hus did commit spiritual fornication with many strangers with Wiclefist the Dulcimist c. And in the next he auoucheth that Hus Hierom tooke their heresies frō Wiclef And once againe he termeth the Protestant Germās new Wiclefists What an opinion of this man I. Hus had may be fully seen by that wish of his wherin he praied that he might there be where the soul of Wiclef was Now what Wiclef did teach may be easily gathered if by nothing else yet by the deadly hatred which the Romanistes did carrie towards him The Councell of Constance did define him to be an Heretike long after his death commanded that his bones should be taken vp burnt Also Pope Iohn 23. in a general Councell at Rome did before that time condemne him for an heretike which the Hussites did but laugh at but no man had a harder conceit of him then Cochl who sticketh not to affirme that he thinketh that the torments of Wiclefe are greater in hell then those of Iudas or Nero. If God almightie had no better opinion of him the man were in an ill case But the best is this cholerick Criticke is not the Iudge of all the world He was angry belike in behalfe of Transubstantiation concerning which he citeth this article of Wiclefe There was neuer a greater heresie then that which putteth the Accident without a Subiect in the Eucharist But hee might haue named more points wherein that holy man did differ from the Church of Rome The Councel of Constāce picketh out 45. articles of his Positions which the learned Reader may find there Yet doubtles many of them are falsly reported which is a matter common with enemies of the truth to peruert misconster that so they may more freely defame There was one Wilh Wideford who tooke on him to answer 18. articles said to bee Wiclefs whence a man may gathersome of his doctrine But that all things there said against him were not true may wel be obserud out of the same answere declaring that he had many things concerning Wiclef but only by a fame and report and that is not the most certaine relater What positions indeed he held may be seen in M. Fox reporting his life and actions as also in Catalogo testium veritatis And those who be not learned may esteem of thē by the doctrine of Io Hu● before rehearsed who by the testimony of the Papists themselues as I haue shewed maintained the opinions of Wiclef Now that this worthy Champion Preacher of the Gospel of Iesus Christ went not alone but had many English men and women who in his life time after his death beleeued as he beleeued and professed as he professed is in the next place to be shewed Among the chiefe of his fautours were Iohn of Gant as Parsons the Iesuite confesseth and Lord Henry Percy the one of them Duke of Lancaster the other Marshall of England M. Fox citeth out a Register of the Archb. of Canterbury a Mandate that the Conclusions of Wiclefe were preached in diuers and sundry places of the Archbishops Prouince generally commonly and publikely The same also is manifested by a letter of the Archbishop to the Bishop