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	gospel_n	word_n	2,638	5	3.8972	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42243	The grounds and occasions of the controversy concerning the unity of God &c. the methods by which it has been managed, and the means to compose it / by a Divine of the Church of England.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1698 (1698)	Wing G2135; ESTC R12220	49,121	55

better Argument hope to confound the Unitarians is Socinian Now it must be confest That the Unitarians think honourably of Socinus but yet they do not espouse his whole Scheme nor any thing of his Scheme because it is his nor any thing more of his Scheme than is espous'd by their Arminian Nominalist Brethren who are a great majority of the Church tho the Animadverter may not love to bear of it Socinus's Life is in Print among us both Latin and English the Memory of the Man is frequently revil'd but I do not hear that his Adversaries undertake to refute the historical Account which the Polonian Knight has giv'n of him Mr. Bidle in his Preface has these Words of Socinus He took the same course to propagate the Gospel that Christ and the Apostles had done before him forsaking his Estate and his nearest Relations and undergoing all manner of Labours and Hazards to draw Men to the Knowledg of the Truth He had no other End of all his Undertakings than the Glory of God and Christ it being impossible for Calumny it self to asperse him with the least Suspicion of worldly Interest He of all Interpreters explaineth the Precepts of Christ in the strictest manner and windeth up the Lives of Men to the highest Strain of Holiness The Author of the Growth of Error makes it an Article against Socinus that he accus'd the Reformed of immoral Practices and boasted of the Holiness of his own Followers But what says that Author Was Socinus's Accusation unjust or his Boasting rash and ill grounded Why he says Meisner answer'd Socinus but it seems he confesses too that Schlichtingius defended him Upon the whole matter to speak impartially Excepting that the foreign Unitarians are recorded to have sometimes dealt hardly with one another upon account of their different Perswasions concerning worshipping Jesus Christ it does not appear that their Lives were wicked and unchristian Here in England Men that know little of them or have Ends in traducing them load them with heavy Imputations but impartial Men abroad who have known and observ'd them notwithstanding they differ from them do yet bear honourable Testimony to their Piety and Vertue Monsieur Stoop a Protestant Officer in the French Army in his Religion of the Dutch Anno 1673. gives this Account of the Socinians in Holland They have their secret Assemblies in which they are very fervent in Prayer to God with groaning and weeping They affirm that they have no Interest in the maintaining their Doctrine save only the Perswasion they have of its Truth and the Zeal of appropriating to the only individual and sovereign God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Glory of his Divinity They are confirm'd in their Faith by reading the Word of God and by the Books which have been written against them Their Conversation is holy and without Reproach as far as Men can judg by what they see Much more this impartial Gentleman none of their Party says to their Praise Even of the English Unitarians one of our Reverend Bishops disputing against them when he look'd upon them as altogether Socinianiz'd fairly professes that he judges they would not think so meanly of our Lord Christ but for fear of taking away from the Honour of God Almighty But I have a Word or two to offer to the Reverend Bishop of Sarum before I speak of the English Unitarians of this last Age. As ill as he thinks now of these Unitarians I hope he will not retract the noble Character which he once gave of one George Van Par a Dutch-man burnt in England 1549 for Unitarianism which he could not in Conscience abjure He led a very exemplary Life for Fasting Devotion and a good Conversation and suffer'd with extraordinary Composedness of Mind It is out of the way to speak of Barth Legat a Man of whose vertuous Behaviour the Booksellers of Pauls among whom he convers'd for 7 Years before his Execution gave a good account for he was an Arian burnt An. 1611 re-burnt this last Year by Mr. Gailhard but it is a better Argument for that poor Man's Seriousness in his Religious Perswasion that he could endure to be burnt for it than it is for the Sincerity of Mr. Gailhard and the Honour of Calvinism that he thirsts after the Blood of thousands and damns all Orders and Degrees of Men that do not forward his Executions But that no ill-minded Person may hence take occasion to say that I insinuate that the Unitarians are a numerous Body I openly declare that whether they are many or few is more than I know or care who am an impartial tho not always a melancholy By-stander But that they are better Men truer Christians and more faithful Subjects than the revengeful Calvinists will appear to any Man that examines the Writings of both sides I now come to speak of those Persons of this last Age who have been distinguish'd by the Name of Unitarians Anthony Wood in his Athenae Oxonienses 2d Vol. p. 197-199 gives a large Account of John Bidle and says among other very commendable things that being Master of Crifts School in Glocester He was much esteem'd for Diligence in his Profession Severity of Manners and Sanctity of Life And when he came to converse in London after many Years Imprisonment He was very taking for his Religious Discourse and Saint-like Conversation Now Mr. Wood I presume cannot be suspected of Partiality in favour of an Unitarian John Bidle seal'd the Sincerity of his religious Perswasion by his Death for he took that Sickness in Newgate whereof he died 2 days after Removal Mr. Cooper succeeded Mr. Bidle Master of Crifts School in Glocester afterward Minister of Chelthenam in Glocestershire and after the Act of Uniformity Minister of an Unitarian Congregation in that Place We appeal to all that knew him whether he was not a Man always compos'd and grave but of a most sweet and obliging Temper and Conversation He suffer'd those Abuses from intemperate and riotous Men when the Nation was running mad they knew not for what that it broke his Health and hastned his End His Daughter Mary died about a Year and a half since a known Unitarian so that the Minister who preach'd her Funeral Sermon commended her to his Auditors for a Pattern of Christian Vertues however erroneous in her Judgment Mr. Cooper was succeeded in the Guidance of an Unitarian Congregation by Ralph Taylor Henry Sturmy Thomas Macock and Allen Kear all of them very serious and diligent in their way devout and pious strictly honest and charitable to their power however not so accomplish'd in Humane Learning John Knowles of Glocester by long and diligent Study became very knowing in the Critical Learning of the Scriptures his much Reading and Thoughtfulness won him to Unitarianism having in his younger Years been an Independent His singular Piety and Vertue were exemplarily conspicuous in divers Stations and Stages of his Life His Labours were directed to the

true Love of God or a desire to advance the Happiness of Mankind but by an undue Love of themselves and a desire to advance some not very honourable Interest which might be much impeded by an indulg'd Liberty of Prophesying 't is something of this kind which has mingled so many bitter Reproaches false Stories and malicious Insinuations with our controversial religious Pleadings That I may avoid the envy of descending to Particulars I leave my Observation as it is propounded only in general being satisfied that free impartial Considerers will soon perceive its Truth and as to those Persons who are less us'd to look into the Reason of things I will for their sakes cover it with a great Authority Bp of Sarum's 4 Tracts p. 185. If it be said that Error does disturb the Peace and Order of the Church beyond what is to be apprehended from Sin Error runs Men into Parties and out of those Factions do arise which break not only the Peace of the Church but the whole Order of the World and the quiet of Civil Society whereas Sin does only harm to those who are guilty of it or to a few who may be corrupted by their ill example To this it is to be answer'd That Sin does naturally much more Mischief to Mankind than Error He that errs if he is not immoral with it is quiet and peaceable in his Error therefore still the greatest Mischief is from Sin which corrupts Mens Natures thro its own Influence And the Mischief that Error does procure arises chiefly from the Pretensions to Infallibility or something that is near a-kin to it for if Men were suffer'd to go on in their Errors with the same undisturb'd quiet that they have for most of their Sins they would probably be much quieter in them since Sin of its Nature is a much fiercer thing than a point of Speculation can be suppos'd to be but if Men apprehend Inquisitions or other Miseries upon the account of their Opinions then they stand together and combine for their own defence so that it is not from the Errors themselves but from the Methods of treating them that all those Convulsions have arisen which have so violently shaken Churches and Kingdoms I quote no other Author nor no more from this to the Purpose before me purely to avoid being tedious but there is that plenty of concurring Testimonies obvious to be collected from the printed Discourses of the most eminent of our Ecclesiasticks that hardly a considerable Man of any order can call for the Sword of the Magistrate to punish Differences of Opinion in Matters of Faith but he must do it in defiance of his own Conscience as well as the Laws of the Land I lay it down then not only for a very certain evident but also for a generally confess'd Truth that it is always a Vice more or less artificially conceal'd which prompts religious Disputants to fight the Lord's Battels with angry Noise and fiery Words and flaming Censures that Thunder and Lightning of theirs which does more Mischief than all the Artillery of Nature from the stormy Sky or the sulphureous Caverns of the Earth And now there 's no avoiding the Inquiry Whether the Unitarians or their Adversaries or both have manag'd their Disputes with any of these unjust and unbeseeming Methods It is urg'd hard upon the Unitarians that they have ridicul'd the venerable Articles of the Christian Religion and spoke disrespectfully and contemtuously of the most eminent learned and pious Fathers of the Church for proof of the first Charge the Story of Dulcinea and one or two Passages more of the second the two Tracts call'd Considerations of the Explications c. are much insisted on But methinks what the Unitarians say for themselves in their own Defence is weighty as much of it as has been communicated to me I will set down and add what more is obvious and may be justly added but for the evener Thred of Discourse I offer both the one and the other as from my self I have scarce met with that Person who has read the Considerations but confesses those two Tracts may pass for Models of elegant proper and decent Writing in the controversial way and I was amazed that two Reverend Bishops should think themselves affronted or disrespected there for my part I know not how a greater Deference could have been paid them unless they had been honour'd as inspir'd and infallible Interpreters and worshipp'd with Mr. Edwards's gross Flattery which hallows their Names and makes them signify profound Learning and solid Religion The severe Vertue of one of the old Romans would have resented this as a Libel But however Mr. Edwards vouches his elevated Compliment with a solemn Asseveration Without the least shew of Adulation it may be most truly said that your Name is now not so much the Name of a Person or Family as it is the Name of profound Learning and solid Religion He that makes no conscience of such Strains and such Vouching tho to a Bishop very Learned and Orthodox would have bated nothing had his Patron 's Merit been no greater than his own But I digress The briskness and saltness in those two Tracts the Considerations has nothing that is personal nothing that reflected on the Persons of their Lordships or of any other Antagonists it is no more than is allow'd to all Writers that their Books may not nauseate an ingenuous Reader or weary and tire the more Delicate by a continued Chain and Course of severe and close Reasoning like a high Tragedy without any Interludes of Musick and Dancing And perhaps if their Lordships had leisure to look into their former controversial Writings when they were engag'd with other Adversaries they might find that themselves had us'd as much Liberty as here they condemn A long deduced Narration of Argument upon Argument naked Argument without pleasing turns of Wit or well-suted Ornaments of proper and manly Rhetorick is a very dry Business of which their Lordships have been so sensible that when I was a young Fellow I us'd to read their Writings for my Pleasure as well as my Profit and I will undertake to prove that in the controversial Discourses which they have publish'd in Print whether against Papists or other Dissenters from the Church of England they have us'd the Persons of their Adversaries more disrespectfully and contemtuously than it can be pretended the Considerer has us'd them so that were their Charge against the Considerer just they ought to forgive him for their own sakes It is a good Spanish Proverb If a Man 's own House be made of Glass he should have a care of breaking his Neighbour's Windows But that which is aggravated most invidiously against the Considerer is the manner of his Reply to the late Archbishop to expose which the Bp of Worcester repeats what he pleases without its Dependance and Connexion and then pronounces Pref. p. 54. The plain meaning of all this is that the