Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	believe_v	faith_n	fundamental_a	1,746	5	10.1277	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60585	A sermon concerning the doctrine, unity, and profession of the Christian faith preached before the University of Oxford : to which is added an appendix concerning the Apostles Creed / by Tho. Smith ...	Smith, Thomas, 1638-1710.	1682 (1682)	Wing S4249; ESTC R17775	29,525	52

Constantinople under Theodosius the Emperor by which enlargement all good Christian People were to be establish'd in the belief of the Catholick Doctrine declared so to be according to Scripture and Universal Tradition By these mighty Arguments they convinced the Hereticks and justly subjected them to the Punishment which their refractoriness and guilt deserved They settled the Peace of the Church and secured the Faith from the like assaults in after-times Their Creed was the Test by which they discerned Truth from Heresie and it was received and acknowledged as such by all the Orthodox Christians in the Churches of Greece the lesser Asia Syria and Egypt and taught the Catechumeni as a necessary qualification of their admission into the number of the Faithful which is the true reason that the other short form which had been in use hitherto the sum and substance of it with all its necessary deductions being transfused into this began to be dis-used and in process of time wholly omitted and left out of their Liturgies Whereas at Rome and in the other Churches of the West where those Controversies about matters of Faith which had exercised the Wits and Curiosities of the Orientals whose prying and restless Genius drove them upon those subtilties never were admitted or made no considerable progress among them they continued constant and steddy in the profession of the Ancient Faith and therefore stuck to and retained the old form of words as they are summ'd up in the Creed which we call the Apostles with some little addition and needed not a larger explication 2. It follows from this that the Doctrine of Faith must necessarily be one and the same every where according to the assertion of the Text It was the common Faith Tit. 1. 4. not appropriated to any particular Sect but it lay in common and open to all The whole Faith that is so much as was necessary to denominate them true Believers was received by all without any difference in the main points of it For how could it be otherwise while they adhered so close to the Doctrine of the Apostles who all Preach'd the same Faith in the most distant parts of the World between which there could not possibly be as the times stood then that is before the Polarity or directive vertue of the Load-stone was known any communication or intercourse There was a perfect agreement and harmony of Confessions among all who had embraced the Doctrine of Christianity The Christians here in Britain believed no otherwise than those at Jerusalem and those in India whom St. Thomas Converted and all who lived in the intermediate spaces between those two vastly distant extreams which were the boundaries of the then known World exactly agreeing with both Though they differed in Language Customs Laws Behaviour and way of Living and were under different Governments yet they all held the same thing Which Argument is excellently handled by Irenoeus in his 1st Book 3d. Chap. adv Hoereses There cannot be a more convictive Argument of the truth of the sense of the Articles of Faith which the Hereticks reject than the profession of them in all Churches of the World For how came this universal Consent establish'd but from the soundness of the Doctrine and the Authority of its first Publishers Among that great variety of Opinions which prevailed every where there were certain essential points of Faith wherein they were all unanimous and so long as they were held and maintained a liberty of Judgment and Opinion was allowed in lesser matters witness those Ancient forms before-mentioned long before the Civil Power took the Christian Religion into its protection which whosoever admitted and processed was received into their Communion So that from this Unity of Faith which was received every where by the whole number of Christians except some obstinate Heretical Dissenters who were a small and inconsiderable Party at first in comparison of the rest the Christian Church was styled Catholick or Universal just as the great Ocean is one and the same though it receives particular denominations from the several shores which it washes as the Brittish Cantabrian Atlantick and the like and not from any pretended subjection to one Sovereign Pastor And the word Catholick became another name for Orthodox and the Bishops afterwards subscribed themselves Bishops of the Catholick Church of such a place as founded on the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles Universally received throughout the World and by vertue of the same Faith in Communion with all Christians Upon these two Suppositions I shall lay down these following Propositions That 1. Diversity of Opinions in matters of Religion of less moment does not interrupt and dissolve the Unity of Faith Opinions arise either from want of Evidence in the things themselves which causes a fluctuation and unsettlement in the mind as not knowing where to fix and rest to which we yield a wavering kind of assent more or less according to greater or lesser degrees of Probabilities or else from the weakness of the understanding which not being able to take a comprehensive view of things and resolve them into their first Principles and Original Causes or for want of a sure Foundation whether of Nature or Reason or Authority or Revelation takes up with Arguments and motives of assent which fall short of certainty and which cannot quiet the mind and secure it from all suspicion and fear of the contrary And indeed considering the great variety of mens tempers and complexions Education and Interests and the greater or lesser degrees of Knowledge Industry Curiosity and the like there is a Moral impossibility that Opinions should be one and the same And where God has left a liberty no Power upon Earth can oblige the Conscience and Understanding to admit them any otherwise than as Opinions That is either as true in their kind but far from the Infallibility of Divine Revelations or as piè credibilia Or as means and instruments of Agreement and Uniformity in Judgment to prevent Schism and Confusion so as yet no one particular Church shall prescribe to another but leave each to its liberty of securing their peace and quiet by what Confessions they judge best for that end and nothing be imposed as a matter of Doctrine which thwarts the Ancient Christian Doctrine and the Catholick Tradition of the Church 2. All truths are not fundamental and necessary to be believed with the same firmness of assent For several Propositions may be true and useful and yet not necessary and essential to the Faith the ignorance or dis-belief of which does not throw a man out of the Communion of the Church The neglect of this distinction has been one great cause of the troubles and turmoils of Christendom whilst fierce and eager Disputants have been engaged in the defence of several tenents which have no necessary dependance on the Doctrine of Faith and which are not determined in the Scriptures and by reason of their difficulty

Apostle St. Paul says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 8. 9. Where this Article of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead supposes the rest and is here expresly mentioned as the confirmation of the truth of Christ's Mission and Doctrine 2. That it is a very grievous Error to fancy that it is a matter of meer indifference what our belief is in particular and that it is enough that we believe that Christ is the Son of God without obliging our selves to believe all the just and necessary consequences of that Proposition meerly because that one single Act of Faith qualified the first Converts for Baptism when that only is mentioned as the Foundation and Basis of all the rest and does Necessarily include all the other Doctrinal Points that depend upon it 3. That we are obliged to profess our belief of the whole Doctrine of Christianity as it lyes in the writings of the New Testament which is the Rule of Faith and as out of them it is briefly summed up in the Creeds the explication which the Catholick Church has made of that Rule So that as on the one hand after this acknowledgment it is unjust to demand a more particular and distinct account or catalogue of the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Faith necessary to be believed in order to Salvation that being sufficient for the Catholick Church in all Ages which was so in the first so on the other hand to believe less and to reject any part of the Christian Doctrine and teach the contrary is justly chargeable with the guilt of Heresie and is not the effect of wariness but of pride and obstinacy The command of God to believe the Testimony that he has given of his Son and the revelations of his will and the Divine Authority on which they are founded are sufficient Arguments to move us to assent to the truth of them though the matter of them be so far above our comprehension They are Mysteries and necessarily must be such and therefore are to be adored and submitted to with that humility that befits Creatures conscious of their own weaknesses and faileurs and of the infinite and incomprehensible Majesty and perfection of God And if this troubles them they may as well murmur and quarrel and find fault with the dispensations of Providence as obscure and un-intelligible There is enough to satisfie all who will be content with just Proofs of it though not to take away all possible doubt and by this means they must side with the followers of Epicurus in their idle and foolish and impious attempts to raze the very notions of a Deity out of the minds of Men and extinguish and destroy all Religion out of the World This is not imposing upon them or doing violence to their Reason as they object only upon this pretence because the Mysteries of Religion are not as evident and clear to their understanding as visible objects are to the Eye in a clear and full light For then they would cease to be matters of Faith and lose their name and fall under the comprehension of Science And indeed so long as they retain this unreasonable Principle that all the Mysteries of Christian Religion are to be tryed and judged by the narrow Rules of Philosophy and natural Reason which can be no proper medium of proving things only knowable by Revelation they may well pretend that 't is not in their own power to change their Opinions and that 't is not possible for them to bring their understandings to admit them But can they hope that this should justifie their pertinaciousness and excuse them at God's Tribunal Is it not to be feared that the unjust prejudices which they entertain arise from a perverse will and from obstinacy and pride and peevishness and not from any dissatisfactoriness at the inevidence and incertainty of the grounds and motives of their Credibility It is only God who can convince such men by the mighty influences of his Grace and remove these prejudices which obstruct the reception of his truth to whose Mercy we leave them For us let us hold fast our Profession of Faith without wavering for God is faithful who hath called us to the knowledge of his Truth If you understand aright the Principles of the Christian Religion and the Principles of the Protestant Religion it is impossible for you to be debauched and perverted either by Socinian or Jesuit or Sectary All their pretended demonstrations for error and delusion are usually very bold and confident are meer Sophisms and Arguments of deceit tricks and artifices of Wit without any foundation of true Reason in the one or of Scripture or Apostolical Tradition in the other If as I said before the Primitive Christians went to Heaven you may be assured of the same hope of Salvation in the Communion of the Church of England if you add to a sound Faith the practises of a Vertuous and Holy and truly Christian Life and if you perform the Vows you made at your Baptism and renew every time you receive the most blessed Sacrament and so adorn the Primitive Faith with Primitive Purity and Holiness Appendix concerning the Apostles Creed THis form of Faith is called by Irenaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the invariable Rule of Faith received and openly profess'd and acknowledged by the new Convert at his Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so in several other places he refers not only to the Christian Faith in general but to a fixt and known rule of it As lib. 1. cap. 19. Cùm teneamus autem nos regulam veritatis And lib. 2. cap. 43. Nusquam transferentes regulam neque errantes ab artifice neque abjicientes fidem This rule of Faith is called somewhere by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or little body or System of Articles containing the sum and substance of the Christian Religion Tertullian does also often mention the regula fidei as a thing every where known and acknowledged as in his Book against Hermogenes in the beginning de praescript cap. 13. Apol. cap. 47. And in his Book de velandis Virginibus in the beginning Regula quidem fidei una omnino est soia immobilis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 irreformabilis and is the same with what he calls soon after Lex fidei or the unalterable Law of Faith which admits of no change whereas the Church has a Power in matters of Ecclesiastical Discipline and external behaviour to make what alteration shall be judged most suitable to the rules of Piety Prudence Decency and to variety of Circumstances of places and times and other accidents Hâc lege fidei manente caetera jam disciplinae conversationis admittunt novitatem corrections operante scilicet persiciente usque in finem gratiâ Dei Thus in general there was an explicite rule of Faith