Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A27169
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A discourse shewing that Protestants are on the safer side, notwithstanding the uncharitable judgment of their adversaries and that their religion is the surest way to heaven.
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Beaulieu, Luke, 1644 or 5-1723.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing B1572; ESTC R20774
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24,111
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46
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IMPRIMATUR Septemb. 19. 1687. JO. BATTELY Rmo in Pri. ac Domino Wilhelmo Archiepiscop Cantuar. Ã Sacris domesticis A DISCOURSE SHEWING That Protestants are on the Safer Side notwithstanding the uncharitable Judgment of their Adversaries AND That THEIR RELIGION is the Surest Way to Heaven LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXVII The PREFACE COming accidentally into a Family always frequented and of late much disturbed by some Roman Catholicks who by fulminating Damnation against all Protestants had terrified some Friends I applied my self to clear their Doubts and to remove those Fears wherewith the Noise and Threats of Hell-fire had affected their Minds This engaged me into a long Debate with one of the Parties who was very positive and earnest in maintaining the utter Impossibility of being saved out of the Church of Rome And upon that it came to be enquired Whether it be their Relation to Rome or their Relation to Christ that Men are to be saved by Whether our State of Eternity depends upon the Talk or Confidence or hard Censures of Men or or upon the Truth of our Religion and our Sincerity in professing of it Whether it be the ever-living God or any mortal Men that make true Religion Whether that be not the Best which best agrees with the Divine Revelation And whether our Saviour had referr'd us to Rome and the Papal Authority for the knowledg of Saving Truth or plainly taught by Himself and by his Apostles all that is requisit and sufficient to Salvation About these we differ'd but yet agreed upon the whole that the great odds in point of safety which they apprehend to be betwixt them and us must be grounded upon the Excellency of their Religion above ours and must therefore appear in their Faith Worship and Morals which are the essential parts of Religion and make it right or wrong according as they are themselves The Talk I then had about this Subject and the occasion of it put me upon writing the ensuing Discourse Wherein my chiefest Aim hath been to fix my Reader upon that which is positive with us and is maintained on all sides that being altogether requisit and of it self sufficient to make a Man a good Christian And then to consider those Points in belief and practice about which we differ and to shew on which side lies the Advantage for means of Grace and certainty of Salvation The INTRODUCTION THE Church of Rome would not only have all her Dictates received as Divine and true but would likewise have nothing received as such but what she delivers insomuch that her Writers would persuade us that we can have no Assurance of the Truth of our common Christianity because we receive it not from the Infallible Chair and rely not on its Authority for the proving of it As if a Man could not know and firmly believe that Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners without so much as having heard any thing of a Roman Church and her Infallibility And as if those great Truths which God hath revealed were not to be embrac'd and assented to because they are his but depended upon the good Pleasure of a Party of Men who can no more add greater Authority to what God hath declared than they can make their own Sayings of an equal Authority with God's We can admit that Church for a joint Witness with other Christian Churches that the Bible is the Word of God and that the Christian Creed is the Catholick Faith But there is no reason to think that any thing is the more true or the more necessary meerly because she saith it That which is equally attested by all Christian Churches who were all Depositories of the Divine Oracles and of the Christian Religion hath a cogent and a clear Evidence But that wherein she stands divided from all the rest and bears witness only to her own Prerogatives is either true because she asserts it which none will dare to say or ought to be proved by the Testimony of the whole Christian Church and of Divine Revelation which she can never do So we have this great Advantage in those things which we assert as Points of Saving Faith that we have the plain and express Words of Holy Scripture and the Concurrence of the whole Church whereas those things which we reject are made a Creed only by one particular Church not above one hundred Years agone and have no Ground in Holy Writ Some may dispute with us about our Rites or Discipline or some abstruse and disputable Points But for that Faith whereon we ground our Hopes of Salvation nothing can be objected against it It is the same wherein every Christian is baptised the same which was before the Reformation and before the Want of it in Times of greatest Purity the same Faith was profest and in the worst of Times under the greatest Corruptions it was still preserved and that not in one Kingdom or only here in the West but in all Patriarchates and in all Christian Churches in the World We have neither added nor diminish'd nor made any Alteration in that Rule of Faith which is the Badge and the Ground of Christianity So that as to this Point our Religion is now as it was long before Luther We have no other Creed than that which was universally profest all along Our Dispute with the Church of Rome is about their new one made since Luther and profest no where else but in her Communion that we cannot embrace It hath neither the same Authority from God nor from Men as hath the Catholick Belief To make this plain here I set the two Creeds at large to be consulted as the Reader finds occasion The Catholick and Apostolick Creed explained by the Nicene and the Athanasian in what concerns our Saviour's Divinity but never enlarged until the Council of Trent I Believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary Suffered undâ—r Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried He descended into Hell the third Day he arose again from the Dead He ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty From thence he shall come to judg the Duick and the Dead I believe in the Holy Ghost The Holy Catholick Church The Communion of Saints The Forgiveness of Sins The Resurrection of the Body And the Life everlasting The Roman Creed I Most stedfastly admit and embrace the Apostolical and Ecclesiastical Traditions with the rest of the Constitutions and Observations of the Roman Church I also receive the Holy Scripture according to that sense which the Holy Mother Church whose it is to interpret it hath held and doth hold nor will ever understand or interpret it otherwise than acccording to the unanimous Consent of the Fathers I profess also that there are seven true
and proper Sacraments of the new Covenant instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ and necessary to the Salvation of Mankind tho not all of them necessary to every Man viz. Baptism Confirmation the Eucharist Pennance extreme Unction Orders and Matrimony all which do confer Grace and whereof Baptism Confirmation and Orders cannot be repeated without Sacriledg I likewise receive and admit all the received and approved Rites of the Catholique Church in the solemn Administration of all the aforesaid Sacraments All and every thing which was defined and declared about Original Sin and Justification by the most holy Council of Trent I embrace and receive I profess likewise that in the Mass is offered to God a true proper and propitiatory Sacrifice for the Quick Dead and that in the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist there is really and substantially the Body and Blood together with the Soul Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ And that there is a Conversion made of the whole Substance of Bread into his Body and of the whole Substance of Wine into his Blood which Conversion the Catholick Church calls Transubstantiation I also confess that under either Kind or Species only whole and entire Christ and the true Sacrament is received I constantly hold that there is a Purgatory and that the Souls there detained are helped by the Suffrages of the Faithful As also that the Saints who reign together with Christ are to be worshipped and prayed to and their Reliques to be venerated I most firmly assert that the Images of Christ of the Blessed Virgin and of the other Saints are to be had and retained and that due Honour and Worship is to be imparted to them I also affirm that the Power of Indulgences was left by Christ to his Church and that the Vse of them is most salutary to Christian People I acknowledge the Holy Catholick and Apostolick Roman Church to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches And I promise and swear true Obedience to the Pope of Rome who is Christ's Vicar and Successor to St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles I also without doubt receive and profess all other things delivered defined and declared by the sacred Canons and Occumenical Councils especially by the most holy Synod of Trent and all things contrary to them with all Heresies whatsoever condemned rejected and cursed by the Church I likewise reject and condemn and curse This true Catholick Faith without which no Man can be saved which at present I freely hold and profess I will by God's help constantly retain and confess intire and inviolable to my last Breath and take care to the utmost of my Power that the same shall be taught held and profest by all under me and whose Care shall belong to me in my Office I the aforesaid N. promise vow and swear it So help me God and these holy Evangils This Roman Creed it is about which we differ for as to the Christian Creed there is no Dispute betwixt us only that we account it sufficient and will profess none else This is the State of the Difference betwixt the Church of Rome and ours We stand for that Faith which is confest of all sides to be truly Catholick and Apostolick and disown that Roman which they would impose upon us I know that they seek to retort this Objection of making of new Creeds and would make the distinct Denial of the several Points of theirs to be in like manner so many Articles of ours as if it were with us as fundamental a Truth that there is no Roman Purgatory as that the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all Sins Whereas it is most apparent that the Negative of false Opinions doth in no wise become a Part of the Christian Doctrine nor of the Christian Creed True Religion is not to swell in Proportion to the Encrease of Errors for then every new Addition to Christianity would make a new necessary Article for the rejecting of it and it would be in the Power of every Heresiarch to enlarge the Rule of Faith against him Whereas the Christian Faith was once delivered to the Saints and must ever remain the same whatever Heresies some Men are pleased to broach That Saints and Images are to be worshipped is a Point of the Roman Faith that they are not is not a Point of mine 't is only a Declaration of my disowning this Roman Doctrine as being neither in the Christian Creed nor in the Word of God The refusing of Mens Errors whether they be Pagans or any Hereticks is not a Part of our Belief but rather of our Disbelief Our denying that Jupiter or Great Diana or any Creature though never so solemnly canoniz'd are to receive Religious Honours is only a renouncing of Mens Devices but doth not constitute so many new Doctrines only what God hath commanded in this case is Part of our Religion Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Our Creed and Religion therefore is still universal and truly Primitive although our rejecting some Points which they have made Part of theirs in the Church of Rome can be neither so Primitive nor so Universal What our Church owns for her Saving Belief is own'd and ever was by all Christian Churches what she rejects from being such is of a later Date and was never so general So that instead of asking us Where was our Religion before our Forefathers were forc'd to leave the Roman Church it should rather be enquired why they threw off those several Tenets contained in the Roman Creed and then the Question would be plain and fairly stated and might from every Man that hath but read the Bible receive a clear Answer But it is very unreasonable to demand such Authorities for refusing of any new and absurd humane Inventions as for the receiving those Truths which God hath expresly revealed and his Church received all along As for the Vices or Vertues of King Henry the 8th or any others who were engaged to struggle with the Papal Power and Usurpations they signify nothing to us The enormous Faults of such as are reputed Supreme and Infallible Guides of a Party may well reproach them But our Religion hath no dependence on Historical Passages of any Mens Doings God's Veracity and Revelation is the Ground we depend upon Him we worship and in Him we believe as is to be seen in our Publick Liturgies For that we claim the Warrant of his Word and the Suffrage of all Christian Churches than which no better Ground nor no higher Authority is ever to be had If the Roman Creed had the same we would embrace it heartily for the well-being of our Souls or if it were less repugnant to the Christian Institution we might be persuaded to comply or to be silent for the Peace and Tranquillity of our present Welfare But my Design is only to settle and to pacify them that are stagger'd and disturb'd with the ruder