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	pillar_n	3,742	5	10.1590	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39389	To en archy: or, An exercitation upon a momentous question in divinity, and case of conscience viz. whether it be lawfull for any person to act contrary to the opinion of his own consicence, formed from arguments that to him appear very probable, though not necessary or demonstrative. Where the opinions of the papists, Vasquez, Sanches, Azonius, &c. are shewed, as also the opinions of some Protestants, viz. Mr. Hooker, Bp Sanderson, Dr. Fulwood, &c. and compared with the opinions of others; the negative part of the question maintained; the unreasonableness of the popish opinions, and some Protestants, for blind obedience, detected; and many other things discoursed. By a Protestant.	Protestant.; Collinges, John, 1623-1690, attributed name.	1675 (1675)	Wing E718; Wing C5314_CANCELLED; ESTC R214929	62,722	96

Foundations of the Protestant Religion as it stands disting●●●●d from Popery This is that which Divines call The Judgment of Private and Practical Discretion Divines say there is 〈◊〉 ●●●●fold Judgment concerning Propositions of Truth 1. The first is Authoritative or Nomothetick This belongeth onely to God all the Men in the World all their Opinions and Arguments cannot add a Cubit to the stature of Truth nor make an hair of its Head either white or black 2. The Second is Ministerial and Declarative This belongs to the Church in the Scriptural Notion of it The Apostle therefore calls her the Pillar and ground of Truth She keeps the Sacred Records and when there is a doubt about any portion of them Ministerially declareth what is the Truth 3. The third Divines call The Judgment of Private and Practical Discretion This Protestants say belongs to every private Christian who by his own Conscience using the best means first which he can for the Information of it is to determine as to his own belief and Practice what is true and Lawful And indeed here lyes the great difference betwixt the Religion of Papists and Protestants The Papists will not allow the Private Christian to Judge of Truth with reference to his own Practice but Obligeth People To believe as the Church believeth and defendeth Blind Obedience to Superiours as Christians Duty They make it Lawful for Men contrary to their own Judgment and the Dictate of their Conscience from intrinsick Arguments to Practice according to the Opinion of one or more Doctors and necessary to Obey all the Decrees of the Popes and the Commands of Superiours if things be not apparently and demonstratively unlawful It may be one Adrianus or another or two may enter their dissent to this Brutish Doctrine but they do generally agree it and this is Fons Origo mali The very first thing to be taught their Prosilytes as silence was in the School of Pythagoras Hence their vernacular Bibles are burnt and all their other Doctrines are easily swallowed The necessity of an Infallible Judge is Concluded c. § 15. On the other side it is essential to a Protestant to be free and in Bondage to no Man nor as to his Practice to be guided by any but God alone and his own Conscience and his Superiours Commanding him what his own Conscience first perswades him to be necessary or at least Lawful He who denyeth this and pretendeth to hate Popery doth but abhor Idols and commit Sacriledge Nay he doth indeed but deny that in words which he owneth chuseth and preferreth nor is it possible there should be greater Factors for Popery in any place than those that perswade Men that it is Lawful for them under what Circumstances they can Imagine to Act contrary to the Opinion of their own Conscience and do what from which to them seem very probable seems utterly to swerve from that which is right to use Mr. Hooker's Phrase § 16. Now let any pluck up this Flood-gate of Private and Practical Discretion and tell us what should hinder most of the absurd Doctrines of Popery coming in upon us like an overflowing Flood if ever we should be so miserable which is not a thing impossible as in Future Ages to have a Superiour that shall Command the receiving of them or Practice according to them As to the falshood of most of them we have but a Moral certainty at least our perswasion must be Judged no more according to the Modern Divinity for how can we be Infallibly and demonstratively certain in things as to which so great a part of the World is of another mind and so many such Learned Men as Bellarmine Stapleton and an hundred more who dissent from us Besides as we shewed before we are told that in Disputable things we can have but an Opinion of one part And this we take to be a Meditation worthy of those Honourable Persons amongst the Nobility and Gentry of England who have shewed their Zeal so much of late against that Religious Pageantry of Rome If any doubt whether Christians have such a Priviledge given them by God as this of Private and Practical Discretion let them consider those Texts 1 Thes 5.21 1 John 3.1 usually quoted for it and but Read what Bishop Davenant in his most Learned Treatise De Judice Normâ fidei and all other Protestant Writers have said for it Whoever plucks up this Hedge we understand not if he doth not feel the Romish Serpent quickly biting him by the heel and we cannot but think that Man will be Cursed that goes about to remove this Land-mark of all Protestants and cry out to our Superiours in the words of Solomon Prov. 22.28 Remove not the Ancient Land-mark which our Fathers have set § 17. We might further add that the admission of this absurd and brutish principle that if a thing be not apparently and demonstratively sinful it is Lawful for Men to Act contrary to the Opinion of their own Consiciences representing it to them from Arguments which seem to them very probable unlawful All Books of Topicks as to Matters of practice all Argumentative Books in Divinity would be of no Use at all but noxious and mischievous rather Yea the Holy Scriptures themselves would be of very little or no use for the use of Argumentative Discourses in any Science or Discipline is to make a proposition either Demonstrative or Probable to us Yea this is the use of the Holy Scriptures as they inform us of Truth Things are Demonstrable to us upon the Evidence of Revelation Sense or Reason indeed the first is improper for the certainty arising from Divine Revelation is called Faith not Demonstration or Demonstrative certainty but it is quiddam majus what is certain to us upon a certainty of Faith or Demonstrative Reason is not so Ordinarily in a moment This Certainty is Ordinarily hatched out of Topicks and most Propositions even of Divine Truth usually at first appear to the Soul probable before they appear indubitably certain The Gray hairs of that other certainty which is distinguished from Moral Certainty rarely grow up in a Night This being granted which every one experienceth Suppose but a Convocation or a Colledge of Superiours to determine de Omnibus agendis of all things to be Religiously Observed and done To what purpose should any read or study any Books for the disquisition of Truth as to any part of a Proposition for when he hath done so long as the thing to be done appears to him but probably Lawful or probably unlawful which it must do before it appears to him indubitably and out of all Question the one or the other he is according to this Opinion bound in Conscience if he be by Superiours Commanded to do quite contrary to what he Judgeth Lawful if he be not indubitably certain it is unlawful What need he Read and study the Scriptures as to Matter of Practice When he hath found

a man to Obey Superiours in things which he verily believeth are unlawful about other things we have no Dispute This Argument is so Evident as it needeth not more words We therefore proceed to a fourth § 8. He that doubteth is damned if he eateth and whatsoever is not of Faith is sin Rom. 14.23 But he who doth that which upon probable Arguments he verily believeth unlawful doubteth and yet actethnd acteth not of Faith ergo he sinneth is damned c. The Proposition is the Apostles Rom. 14.23 therefore not to be denyed but yet we find some who will not allow it a Proposition of immutable Truth but with some Circumstances That is as they expound themselves if the Person be sui juris at Liberty and Perfectly in his own Power not required to do the thing by the Command of his Superiours of the Lawfulness of which he doubteth But say they if the Superiour Commandeth then he who doth the ●●ing though he doubteth of the Lawfulness of it runneth no guilt no hazard of Damnation Now we would fain believe this if we could for it would ease us of many perplexing thoughts but we cannot for these Reasons amongst others § 9. First because what the Apostle saith seemeth to us but to be according to the Law and Order of Nature in a rational Soul That the Understanding should first represent that as true and good and therefore Eligible which the Will should chuse § 10. Because it seemeth to us possible by admitting their Interpretation to elude the whole Law of God and make any thing Lawful For what Reason can there be why what God saith in one place should be understood with that limitation and not what he saith in another Why may we not Venerate Images Go to Mass Pray for the Dead Prophane the Sabbath Vse Oyl Spittle Cream c. in Baptism if the Superiour Commandeth as well as wear a Surplis use the Cross in Baptism c. Doth any one doubt whether these things be Lawful or no or upon probable Arguments believe the contrary And is he restrained by this Text Not at all by this Interpretation if Superiours Command these or any of these things will any say That this Text speaks of things onely in their own Nature indifferent We ask who shall Judge what those things are Shall the Superiour If so what we said holdeth for it is not to be presumed he would Command them if he judgeth them sinful Shall the Inferiour He Judgeth them from probable Arguments Unlawful § 11. Thirdly Because whatsoever some Modern Doctors say We see no Scripture Translating the guilt of any Personal Action of ours to our Superiours which in Reason we should find if his Command would Justifie us in doing any thing we judge wicked Especially considering that whether we Judge it right or no it may in it self be sinful and therefore we had need have our Souls secured as to the guilt of it We think with the Apostle that Sin is an Anomie a transgression of the Law by Omission or Commission or Non-conformity how we believe that there is an inseparable guilt which he cleaves to every Omission or Oblique Action every sin bindeth over the Doer or Omitter to an Eternal death and want one Scripture to prove that the sin or Personal Obliquity of an Inferiour Action should be Translated to the Superiour and set upon his score Thus while some deny Christs imputed Righteousness they have devised a new Doctrine of Imputed guilt to the Magistrate or Superiour a Doctrine which no Superiour will thank them for that understandeth the weight of Divine wrath for sin We have heretofore heard that Superiours may make themselves guilty of sin by Commanding others to sin But that the guilt of the Inferiours Personal Action should also be Translated from him and that not to Christ but to the Superiour is a Novel idle Fancy a brutish and irrational as well as unscriptural figment and such a one as if admitted would make the Crowns of Kings and Mitres of Bishops not worth taking up in the Streets Let God therefore be true and these New Diviners all Lyars God hath said That Soul that sins shall dye and that every Soul shall bear its own Iniquity and Iniquity that must be if St. John describes sin right whatsoever is a Transgression of the Divine Law §. 12 Fourthly We cannot admit of this Interpretation because of what followeth in the Apostle Whatsoever is not of faith is sin By Faith saith Dr. Sanderson in his Sermon on Rom. 14.23 is meant A Certain perswasion of the Mind that what we do may Lawfully be done that saith he whatsoever Action is done by us either directly contrary to the Judgment and Verdict of our own Consiciences or at least doubtingly and before we are in some competent measure assured that we may Lawfully do it that is it which St. Paul here denyeth to be of Faith and of which he pronounceth so peremptorily that it is eo nomine sin Now we are sure that he who doth a thing at the Command of others which seemeth to him from probable Arguments unlawful cannot in this sence do it of Faith i. e. with no competent perswasion of the Lawfulness of it with no certainty either Supernatural Mathematical or Moral The Vanity therefore of this limitation being discovered we hope the Proposition will stand good § 13. For the Minor he who denyeth it must say That he who Opineth doth not doubt which indeed we think strictly he doth not for he hath as we said a Moral certainty but that doth but raise the Argument to à fortiori If he whose Conscience is pendulous and who hangeth in Equilibrio is damned if he doth the thing of the Lawfulness of which he doubteth then is he much more damned who doth verily think the thing unlawful and yet will do it But in the largest Notion Opining is a Species of doubting and if that Text of the Apostle be true of Doubting in any sense it must be in that sense which is of all the highest We are able to discern no chink at which our Adversaries may creep out from the Prison of this Argument but shall leave it attending to any thing they shall any of them hereafter offer in Answer to it § 14. Our next Argument shall be this That Principle which destroyeth the Pillar and Foundation of the Protestant Religion is not to be granted by those who own that Religion But to assert it Lawful under any Circumstance to Act contrary to the Opinion of a Man 's own Conscience destroyeth the Pillar and Foundation of the Protestant Religion Ergo. We confess this is but Argumentum ad homines and concerns not those whose business is to oppose and Root up the Religion of Protestants but we are speaking to Protestants who cannot deny the Proposition For the Assumption all that we have to do is to prove that the Asserting of this Principle destroyeth at least one of the