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	church_n	day_n	1,993	5	4.2614	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45678	The popish proselyte the grand fanatick. Or an antidote against the poyson of Captain Robert Everard's Epistle to the several congregations of the non-conformists	Harrison, Joseph.	1684 (1684)	Wing H900; ESTC R216554	55,354	168

Chillingworth That God in his Justice may permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude Men who have forged many I answer That by this you help the Jews who refused to believe the Doctrines of Christ and his Apostles notwithstanding their Miracles For why may not they say God in his Justice for our sins might permit those true Miracles to be wrought by Jesus Christ and his Apostles to delude us who have forged many I hope this Answer will satisfie any rational person but if it do not I have another answer to give out of Mr. Chillingworth's own words Pag. 144. It is impossible that God should lye or that the Eternal truth should set his Hand and Seal to the confirmation of a falshood or of such a Doctrine as is partly true and partly false the Apostles Doctrine was thus viz. by Miracles confirmed therefore it was intirely true and in no particular false or uncertain If you reply this contradicts Mr. Chillingworth's former position I must answer That if Mr. Chillingworth be found to contradict himself relying upon his own reason it is not my fault nor doth it make any thing against our Church 1. If you will have us guilty of Sin and Haters of God for refusing to believe on that account it is necessary according to the tenor of your own law that the Miracles be done amongst and seen of us If I had not done amongst them the works which no other Man did they had not had sin but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father And yet I think it is by chance indeed if any say That this Testimony is nothing to them meerly because they have not seen a Miracle it is the Testimony it self that they except against And yet 2. There is a difference betwixt remaining out of Communion and remaining out of subjection to that you call the Holy Catholick Church Suppose we granted the truth of these things it might perhaps be a sin to remain out of her Communion and yet a duty to remain out of her subjection Miracles as hath been said may evince the truth of such and such a Church and yet make nothing at all in order to the proving of her either Supreme or Infallible though yet mistake me not by Communion I do not mean a communion total or local in all her Doctrines and polluted modes of Worship but partial Spiritual in those Doctrines and Performances supposed to be confirmed by those Miracles However 3. It is well you make it no worse with them that refuse to believe these things they have not seen than to destroy Faith and take away all humane converse c. I was afraid you would have charged them as Christ did the Jews with sin against the Holy Ghost though yet as it is your charge is so high it can never be made good For may not Faith think you evidence things not seen upon the account of Divine Revelation unless we believe what we never saw upon the report of Abraham Hartwell and John Brerely May not one Man believe another about worldly things with a humane Faith unless one Man believe another about Heavenly Doctrines with a Faith Divine Or can Thieves and Traytors ever imagine that a Law publickly promulged by the King and practically attested by the whole Nation may as warrantably be pleaded against by them as the private Testimony of a few ignote Travellers may be excepted against by us especially when they discourse largely about Miracles which if your own Doctors say true neither they nor any Man else can with certainty distinguish from lying Wonders We have notice of the Reigns and Acts of the several Kings and Queens of England no otherwise than by hear-say and by Authors and Books and we have notice of the Lives and Acts of Bevise of Southampton Robin Hood and Little John by hear-say Authors and Books and will any conclude the one is to be credited as well as the other because they have seen neither and both come to us reported by that you may have the forehead to call a good Authority Your grand Argument as is before observed comes to nothing because we have not seen your Miracles howbeit we give a ground for no such inferences as these but are ready to proportion our belief according to the worth and weight of the Testimony be it Divine or humane Nor yet will the Infidels be excused for that they have not seen the Miracles for in the Apostles time Their sound went into all the Earth and their words unto the utmost parts of the World Rom. 10.18 And now in these days besides the universal Tradition of the Church we have reasons and Records undeniable to evince the truth of Christianity and of Miracles having been done to confirm it Howbeit those who have not heard at all or heard no better proofs for the truth of Christian Religion than you bring for your Popish Miracles if excusable for not believing before doubtless may yet remain in the same venial condition as they were And now for a close 4. Give me leave to mind you 1. That in the beginning of this Epistle you would have Faith destroyed transformed into Fancy Humour and Opinion if built on any foundation save Divine Revelation or what we did certainly know to be infallibly true And now here you will have a total destruction of Faith unless it may be built upon the private Apocryphal reports of Abraham Hartwell John Pory John Brerely and such like Men not only fallible subject to errour and in a possibility to be mistaken in this very thing but Men that cannot be concluded with any probability of reason to be in a capacity to know the certain truth of what they say they do affirm 2. You can now present us with an argument from Mr. Chillingworth sufficient at once both to convince an Heathen of the truth of Christianity and to prove the Divinity of the Scriptures It is impossible that God should lye and that the Eternal Truth should set his Hand and Seal to the confirmation of a falshood or of such Doctrine as is partly true and partly False The Apostles Doctrine was thus viz. by Miracles confirmed Therefore it was intirely true and in no particular false or uncertain And yet in your Discourse with the Lay Gentleman you had not a word to say for the truth of Christianity upon Protestant Grounds nor any thing for Scriptures being the Word of God save that the Spirit witnessed with your Spirit they were so 3. The Gospel Scripture Doctrines we preach are like your universal essential predications Eternal once confirmed by Miracles in themselves or their Principal they need no more This proposition The Roman Church is infallible has a personal mutable individuum for its subject changes every Age may change every year and therefore still stands in need of new miraculous confirmations insomuch that would we give you leave to suppose Miracles wrought in

Testimony And whereas he should have resolved his faith into the Sovereign Authority and verity of God himself speaking in Scriptures as the formal ground thereof and into the spirits inlightning inlivening Power as the efficient cause He resolves it wholly into an inward Testimony of the spirit of which for ought appears neither of the twain save by hear-say knew any thing at all However instead of the Spirits testimony the man might better have said in this case simply by the Spirit by the Spirit scilicet as that medium facultatis whereby we are enabled to see and believe scriptural verities to be Divine Albeit as Dr. Ames well observeth Medull l. 2. c. 5. there is a sufficient and certain representation proposed to us in the Scripture both of things that are to be believed and of that Reason upon which we ought to believe them See Rom. 16.26 Nor yet Fourthly Does he perceive the difference betwixt faith Dogmatical complex assenting to the truth of Divine propositions and that faith which we call salvifical incomplex fixing on adhering to and resting in Jesus Christ alone That may be various respect had to its object the same man knows such a proposition to be revealed to morrow which he knows not to day and consequently believe that to morrow which to day he does not This respect had to the object varies not It 's Jesus the same Yesterday to Day and for ever Though yet respect had to the subject like as the other it 's sometimes weaker or stronger confused or more distinct And hence men of different faiths incomplex cannot be saved for there is no other name under Heaven given c. Acts 4.12 other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 3.11 oneness of Faith as to this is commended and commanded Eph. 4.5 compared with Eph. 4.13 unto the unity of the Faith and knowledge of the Son of God He that believeth on the Son of God hath life Eternal and he that believeth not c. John 3.36 But men may be of different faiths complex believe diverse nay contrary propositions and yet through Grace obtain salvation Some build Gold Silver precious Stones some Wood Hay Stubble one believeth he may eat all things another who is weak eateth Herbs Rom. 14.2 Fifthly and Lastly the man seems not to know of any difference betwixt an acquired Habit and a Divine Gift the requisites to our getting of Science and Gods giving of Faith Science it 's true as Thomas determines cannot be had unless we first know the certainty of the Medium or Reason whereby the conclusion is demonstrated but it is impertinent to Faith as Estius well concludes by what means we believe the prime Verity that is by what means God useth to bestow on men the gift of Faith He may do it as well by the preaching of the meanest Minister as of the greatest Apostle for indeed neither the one nor the other is or needs to be what he supposes a foundation or Argument whereon to build but simply a medium or instrument whereby is begotten and brought forth that Faith which is of the operation of God Page 7. And therefore in vain does he dispute about the Primitive Christians believing either because the Apostles so taught or Simon Magus so affirmed for it was not because but by the Preaching whether of Paul or Apollos that they did believe We have not dominion over your Faith 2 Cor. 1.24 Who then is Paul or who is Apollos but Ministers by whom ye believed even as the Lord gave to every man 1 Cor. 3.5 The Captains inadvertency or imprudence is as evident First In that he never calls to mind that Priests and Jesuites pass usually under the Notion of Lay Gentlemen and great Folks Cousins Trusts Eve like to his own skill and never makes known either his doubts or the Gentlemans objections to any of the Protestant Ministers He borrows it 's true a certain deal of Popish Books The Question of Questions Novelty repressed Fiat Lux Infidelity unmasked or a confutation of a Book published by Mr. William Chillingworth but never inquires for Mr. William Chillingworth's own Book nor Dr. Hammonds answer to Infidelity Vnmasked in his vindication of the Lord Falkland He never sends to Dr. Owen for his animadversions on Fiat Lux nor adviseth with Mr. Baxter about Novelty supprest Had he consulted with these Ministers of ours and told us wherein they failed in the answering either these Books or the Lay Gentlemans Objections it might have been of some moment have startled perhaps some of the Nonconformists but to make a stirr and a story how mildly how profoundly the Lay Gentleman objected and then how extreamly troubled how strangely the Horse-Captain was gravelled argues nothing save the Gentlemans cunning craftiness and the Captains dastardly weakness the cause no more concerned than if they had never had meeting Secondly He never considered that the Gentleman was altogether for asking questions Robert never proposes any for if when the Captain was gravelled and could not certainly prove the truth of Christianity from his own Fanatick Principles he had put the Gentleman to it to have proved Christianity certainly true from the Popish a hundred to one but they had both proved Heathens the one being no more able to establish it by Miracles upon the infallibility of the Roman Church than the other by sense and feeling upon the Spirits Testimony the man now knows and finds this to be true enough and therefore in the conclusion doth he present us with six queries conjures his old Brethren to answer them and withal warily provides that they shall not ask him any question at all but first ascertain what they would establish for says he Page 85. Who knows not if a Man will give himself scope to be bold he may raise Arguments against the belief of the Trinity or any other Mystery of Faith that will puzzle learned Men to answer a piece of cunning and caution I could wish all our weaker sort of Protestants to take special notice of Thirdly The man unadvisedly all along confounds endeavours to fix and find in the same subject the Rule Judge and Guide of Faith whenas these three are in their respective Natures Uses Ends distinct and scarcely possible to be subjected in the same thing or person The Scripture may be a Rule certain and stable as Bellarmine and yet no Judge Reason may be a judge or rather that whereby every man is to judge for himself as Chillingworth and yet no Rule The spirit may be Guide to direct draw and lead us into all truth and yet neither rule nor judge The Church by her Ministry may be subservient to the spirit in leading helpful to us in finding out applying of and judging according to the Rule and yet the Church it self be neither Rule Judge nor Guide nor will now that grand Sophism the Spirit is not Reason is not the