Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	apostle_n	believe_v	scripture_n	1,763	5	5.6732	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64062	B. Taylor's Opuscula the measures of friendship : with additional tracts : to which is now added his moral demonstration proving that the religion of Jesus Christ is from God : never before printed in this volume.; Selections. 1678	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1678 (1678)	Wing T355; ESTC R11770	78,709	214

follies to the Church of England 7. Trouble your self with no controversies willingly but how you may best please God by a strict and severe conversation 8. If any Protestant live loosely remember that he dishonours an excellent Religion and that it may be no more laid upon the charge of our Church than the ill lives of most Christians may upon the whole Religion 9. Let no Man or Woman affright you with declamations and scaring words of Heretick and Damnation and Changeable for these words may be spoken against them that return to light as well as to those that go to darkness and that which Men of all sides can say it can be of effect to no side upon its own strength or pretension THE END POST-SCRIPT Madam IF You shall think it fit that these Papers pass further than Your own eye and Closet I desire they may be consign'd into the hands of my worthy friend Dr. Wedderburne For I do not only expose all my sickness to his cure but I submit my weaknesses to his censure being as confident to find of him charity for what is pardonable as remedy for what is curable but indeed Madam I look upon that worthy Man as an Idea of friendship and if I had no other notices of Friendship or conversation to instruct me than his it were sufficient For whatsoever I can say of Friendship I can say of his and as all that know him reckon him amongst the best Physicians so I know him worthy to be reckoned amongst the best friends The III. Letter Written to a Gentleman that was tempted to the Communion of the Romish Church SIR YOU needed not to make the Preface of an excuse for writing so friendly and so necessary a Letter of Inquiry It was your kindness to my person which directed your addresses hither and your duty which ingag'd you to inquire somewhere I do not doubt but you and very many other ingenious and conscientious persons do every day meet with the Tempters of the Roman Church who like the Pharisees compass Sea and Land to get a Proselyte at this I wonder not for as Demetrius said by this craft they get their living but I wonder that any ingenious person and such as I perceive you to be can be shaken by their weak assaults for their batteries are made up with impossible propositions and weak and violent prejudices respectively and when they talk of their own infallibility they prove it with false Mediums say we with fallible Mediums as themselves confess and when they argue us of an Uncertain faith because we pretend to no infallibility they are themselves much more Uncertain because they build their pretence of infallibility upon that which not only can but will deceive them and since they can pretend no higher for their infallibility than prudential motives they break in pieces the staff upon which they lean and with which they strike us But Sir you are pleased to ask two Questions 1. Whether the Apostles of our Blessed Lord did not Orally deliver many things necessary to Salvation which were not committed to writing To which you add this assumentum in which because you desire to be answered I suppose you meant it for another Question viz. whether in those things which the Church of Rome retains and we take no notice of She be an Innovator or a conserver of Tradition and whether any thing which she so retains was or was not esteemed necessary The answer to the first part will conclude the second I therefore answer that whatsoever the Apostles did deliver as necessary to Salvation all that was written in the Scriptures and that to them who believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God there needs no other Magazine of Divine truths but the Scripture And this the Fathers of the first and divers succeeding Ages do Unanimously affirm I will set down two or three so plain that either you must conclude them to be deceivers or that you will need no more but their testimony The words of S. Basil are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Every word and every thing ought to be made credible or believ'd by the testimony of the Divinely-inspired Scripture both for the confirmation of good things and also for the reproof of the evil S. Cyril of Jerusalem catech 12. illuminat saith Attend not to my inventions for you may possibly be deceiv'd but trust no word unless thou dost learn it from the Divine Scriptures and in Catech. 4. illum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For it behoves us not to deliver so much as the least thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine and holy mysteries of Faith without the Divine Scriptures nor to be moved with probable discourses Neither give credit to me speaking unless what is spoken be demonstrated by the Holy Scriptures For that is the security of our Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is derived not from witty inventions but from the demonstration of Divine Scriptures Omne quod loquimur debemus affirmare de Scripturis Sanctis so S. Hierom in Psal. 89. And again Hoc quia de Scripturis authoritatem non habet eadem facilitate contemnitur quâ probatur in Matth. 23. Si quid dicitur absque Scripturâ auditorum cogitatio claudicat So S. Chrysostom in Psal. 95. homil Theodoret dial 1. cap. 6. brings in the Orthodox Christian saying to Eranistes bring not to me your Logismes and Syllogismes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I rely only upon Scriptures I could reckon very very many more both elder and later and if there be any Universal Tradition consigned to us by the Universal Testimony of Antiquity it is this that the Scriptures are a perfect repository of all the Will of God of all the Faith of Christ and this I will engage my self to make very apparent to you and certain against any opposer Upon the supposition of which it follows that whatever the Church of Rome obtrudes as necessary to Salvation and an Article of Faith that is not in Scripture is an Innovation in matter of Faith and a Tyranny over Consciences which whosoever submits to prevaricates the rule of the Apostle commanding us that we stand fast in the liberty with which Christ hath set us free To the other Questions Whether an Ecclesiastical Tradition be of equal authority with Divine I answer Negatively And I believe I shall have no adversary in it except peradventure some of the Jesuited Bigots An Ecclesiastical Tradition viz. a positive constitution of the Church delivered from hand to hand is in the power of the Church to alter but a Divine is not Ecclesiastical Traditions in matters of Faith there are none but what are also Divine as for Rituals Ecclesiastical descending by Tradition they are confessedly alterable but till they be altered by abrogation or desuetude or contrary custome or a contrary reason or the like they do oblige by vertue of that Authority whatsoever it is that hath power

called upon them to speak something against your religion from Scripture or right reason or Universal Tradition you had been secure as a Tortoise in her shell a Cart pressed with sheaves could not have oppressed your cause or person though you had confessed you understood nothing of the mysteries of succession doctrinal or personal For if we can make it appear that our religion was that which Christ and his Apostles taught let the truth suffer what eclipses or prejudices can be supposed let it be hid like the holy fire in the captivity yet what Christ and his Apostles taught us is eternally true and shall by some means or other be conveyed to us even the enemies of truth have been conservators of that truth by which we can confute their errors But if you still ask where it was before Luther I answer it was there where it was after even in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and I know no warrant for any other religion and if you will expect I should shew any society of Men who professed all the doctrines which are now expressed in the confession of the Church of England I shall tell you it is unreasonable because some of our truths are now brought into our publick confessions that they might be oppos'd against your errors before the occasion of which there was no need of any such confessions till you made many things necessary to be professed which are not lawful to be believed For if we believe your superinduc'd follies we shall do unreasonably unconscionably and wickedly but the questions themselves are so useless abstracting from the accidental necessity which your follies have brought upon us that it had been happy if we had never heard of them more than the Saints and Martyrs did in the first ages of the Church but because your Clergy have invaded the liberty of the Church and multiplied the dangers of damnation and pretend new necessities and have introduc'd new articles and affright the simple upon new pretensions and slight the very institution and the Commands of Christ and of the Apostles and invent new Sacramentals constituting Ceremonies of their own head and promise grace along with the use of them as if they were not Ministers but Lords of the Spirit and teach for doctrines the commandments of men and make void the Commandment of God by their tradition and have made a strange body of Divinity therefore it is necessary that we should immure our Faith by the refusal of such vain and superstitious dreams but our faith was completed at first it is no other than that which was delivered to the Saints and can be no more for ever So that it is a foolish demand to require that we should shew before Luther a systeme of Articles declaring our sense in these questions It was long before they were questions at all and when they were made questions they remained so a long time and when by their several pieces they were determined this part of the Church was oppressed with a violent power and when God gave opportunity then the yoke was broken and this is the whole progress of this affair But if you will still insist upon it then let the matter be put into equal ballances and let them shew any Church whose confession of Faith was such as was obtruded upon you at Trent and if your Religion be Pius Quartus his Creed at Trent then we also have a question to ask and that is Where was your Religion before Trent The Council of Trent determined that the souls departed before the Day of Judgment enjoy the Beatifical Vison It is certain this Article could not be shewn in the Confession of any of the ancient Churches for most of the Fathers were of another opinion But that which is the greatest offence of Christendom is not only that these doctrines which we say are false were yet affirmed but that those things which the Church of God did always reject or held as uncertain should be made Articles of Faith and so become parts of your religion and of these it is that I again ask the question which none of your side shall ever be able to answer for you Where was your Religion before Trent I could instance in many particulars but I shall name one to you which because the thing of it self is of no great consequence it will appear the more unreasonable and intolerable that your Church should adopt it into the things of necessary belief especially since it was only a matter of fact and they took the false part too For in the 21. Sess. Chap. 4. it is affirmed That although the holy Fathers did give the Sacrament of the Eucharist to Infants yet they did it without any necessity of salvation that is they did not believe it necessary to their salvation which is notoriously false and the contrary is marked out with the black-lead of every man almost that reads their Works and yet your Council says this is fine controversiâ credendum to be believed without all controversie and all Christians forbidden to believe or teach otherwise So that here it is made an Article of Faith amongst you that a man shall neither believe his reason nor his eyes and who can shew any confession of Faith in which all the Trent doctrine was professed and enjoyned under pain of damnation and before the Council of Constance the Doctrine touching the Popes power was so new so decried that as Gerson says he hardly should have escaped the note of Heresie that would have said so much as was there defined so that in that Article which now makes a great part of your belief where was your Religion before the Council of Constance and it is notorious that your Council of Constance determined the doctrine of the half-communion with a Non obstante to Christ's institution that is with a defiance to it or a noted observed neglect of it and with a profession it was otherwise in the Primitive Church Where then was your Religion before John Hus and Hierom of Prague's time against whom that Council was convened But by this instance it appears most certainly that your Church cannot shew her confessions immediately after Christ and therefore if we could not shew ours immediately before Luther it were not half so much for since you receded from Christ's Doctrine we might well recede from yours and it matters not who or how many or how long they professed your doctrine if neither Christ nor his Apostles did teach it so that if these Articles constitute your Church your Church was invisible at the first and if ours was invisible afterwards it matters not For yours was invisible in the days of light and ours was invisible in the days of darkness For our Church was always visible in the reflections of Scripture and he that had his eyes of faith and reason might easily have seen these truths all the way which constitute our Church But