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	reveal_v	5,457	5	8.8529	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40086	The resolution of this case of conscience whether the Church of England's symbolizing so far as it doth with the Church of Rome, makes it unlawful to hold communion with the Church of England?	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1683 (1683)	Wing F1713; ESTC R9491	34,420	57

Catholick Christian Church from Christ and his Apostles downwards is so of the Canon of the New Yet as it ought not to Decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought it not to inforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation If it be asked who is to Judge what is agreeable or contrary to Holy Writ t is manifest that Our Church leaves it to every Man to Judge for himself But 't is Objected that 't is to be acknowledged that if the Church only claimed a Power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies that is according to the general Rules of doing all things Decently and Orderly and to Edification which Power all Churches have ever Exercised this may well enough consist with private Persons Liberty to Judge for themselves but 't is also said in the now Cited Article that the Church hath Authority in Controversies of Faith and accordingly Our Church hath Publisht 39 Articles and requires of the Clergy c. Subscription to them To this we Answer that we shall make one Article Egregiously to Contradict another and one and the same to Contradict it self if we understand by the Authority in Controversies of Faith which Our Church acknowledges all Churches to have nay more than Authority to Oblige their Members to outward Submission when their Decisions are such as Contradict not any of the Essentials of our Religion whether they be Articles of Faith or Rules of Life not an Authority to Oblige them to assent to their Decrees as infallibly true But it is necessary to the maintaining of Peace that all Churches should be invested with a Power to bind their Members to outward submission in the Case aforesaid that is when their supposed Errors are not of that Moment as that 't is of more pernicious Consequence to bear with them than to break the Peace of the Church by opposing them And as to the forementioned Subscription that is required to the 39 Articles it is very Consistent with Our Churches giving all Men Liberty to Judge for themselves and not Exercising Authority as the Romish Church doth over our Faith for she requires no Man to believe those Articles but at worst only thinks it Convenient that none should receive Orders or be admitted to Benefices c. but such as do believe them not all as Articles of our Faith but many as inferiour truths and requires Subscription to them as a Test whereby to Judge who doth so believe them But the Church of Rome requires all under Pain of Damnation to believe all her long Bed-roul of Doctrines which have only the Stamp of her Authority and to believe them too as Articles of Faith or to believe them with the same Divine Faith that we do the indisputable Doctrines of our Saviour and his Apostles For a proof hereof the Reader may consult the Bull of Pope Pius the Fourth which is to be found at the End of the Council of Trent Herein it is Ordained that Profession of Faith shall be made and sworn by all Dignitaries Prebendaries and such as have Benefices with Cure Military Officers c. In the Form following I. N. Do believe with a firm Faith and do profess all and every thing contained in the Confession of Faith which is used by the Holy Roman Church viz. I believe in one God the Father Almighty and so to the end of the Nicene Creed I most firmly admit and Embrace the Apostolical and Ecclesiastical Traditions and the other Observances and constitutions of the said Church Also the Holy Scriptures according to the Sense which our Holy Mother the Church hath held and doth hold c. I profess also that there are truly and properly Seven Sacraments of the New Law instituted by Iesus Christ our Lord and necessary to the Salvation of Mankind although all are not necessary to every individual Person c. I also admit and receive the Received and approved Rites of the Catholick Church in the Solemn Administration of all the foresaid Sacraments of which I have given the Reader a taste I Embrace and Receive all and every thing which hath been declared and defined concerning Original Sin and Justification in the Holy Synod of Trent I likewise profess that in the Mass a True Proper and Propitiatory Sacrifice is Offered to God for the quick and dead And that the Body and Blood of Christ is truly really and substantially in the most Holy Eucharist c. I also Confess that whole and intire Christ and the true Sacrament is received under one of the kinds only I Constantly hold that there is a Purgatory and that the Souls there detained are relieved by the Prayers of the Faithful And in like manner that the Saints Reigning with Christ are to be Worshipped and Invoked c. And that their Relicks are to be Worshipped I most firmly assert that the Images of Christ and of the Mother of God always a Virgin and of the other Saints are to be had and kept and that due Honor and Worship is to be given to them I Affirm also that the Power of Indulgences is left by Christ in his Church and that the use of them is very Salutiferous to Christian People I acknowledge the Holy Catholick and Apostolick Roman Church the Mother and Mistress of all Churches and I Profess and Swear Obedience to the Bishop of Rome the Successor of St. Peter Prince of the Apostles and the Vicar of Iesus Christ. Also all the other things delivered decreed and declared by the Holy Canons and Oecumenical Councils and especially by the Holy Synod of Trent I undoubtedly receive and profess As also all things contrary to these and all Heresies Condemned Rejected and Anathematized by the Church I in like manner Condemn Reject and Anathematize This true Catholick Faith viz. all this Stuff of their own together with the Articles of the Creed without which no Man can be Saved which at this present I truly profess and sincerely hold I will God Assisting me most constantly Retain and Confess intire and inviolate and as much as in me lies will take Care that it be held taught and declared by those that are under me or the Care of whom shall be committed to me I the same N. do Profess Vow and Swear So help me God and the Holy Gospels of God Who when he Reads this can forbear pronouncing the Reformation of the Church of England a most Glorious Reformation 2. As to the Motives our Church proposeth for our belief of the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures viz. that that Doctrine is of Divine Revelation they are no other than such as are found in the Scriptures themselves viz. the Excellency thereof which consists in its being wholly adapted to the reforming of mens lives and renewing their natures after the Image of God and the Miracles by which it is confirmed And as to the Evidence of the truth of the matters of Fact viz. that there were such Persons as the

Scriptures declare to have revealed Gods will to the World such as Moses our Saviour Christ and his Apostles and that these Persons delivered such Doctrine and Confirmed it by such Miracles and that the Books of Scripture were written by those whose names they bear I say as to the Evidence of the truth of these matters of Fact our Church placeth it not in her own Testimony or in the Testimony of any Particular Church and much less that of Rome but in the Testimony of the whole Catholick Church down to us from the time of the Apostles and of Vniversal Tradition taking in that of Strangers and Enemies as well as Friends of Iews and Pagans as well as Christians Secondly We proceed to shew that a Churches Symbolizing or agreeing in some things with the Church of Rome is no Warrant for Separation from the Church so agreeing Agreement with the Church of Rome in things either in their own nature good or made so by a Divine Precept none of our Dissenting Brethren could ever imagine not to be an indispensable duty Agreement with her in what is in its own nature Evil or made so by a Divine Prohibition none of us are so forsaken of all Modesty as to deny it to be an inexcusable sin The Question therefore is whether to agree with this Apostate Church in some things of an indifferent nature be a Sin and therefore a just ground for Separation from the Church so agreeing But by the way if we should suppose that a Churches agreeing with the Church of Rome in some indifferent things is sinful I cannot think that any of the more Sober Sort of Dissenters and I despair of success in arguing with any but such will thence infer that Separation from the Church so agreeing is otherwise warrantable than upon the account of those things being imposed as necessary terms of Communion But I am so far from taking it for granted that a Church is guilty of Sin in agreeing in some indifferent things with the Church of Rome that I must needs profess I have often wondred how this should become a Question Seeing whatsoever is of an indifferent nature as it is not Commanded so neither is it Forbidden by any Moral or Positive Law and where there is no Law the Apostle saith there is no transgression Sin being according to his definition the transgression of the Law And whereas certain Circumstances will make things that in themselves are neither duties nor sins to be either duties or sins and to fall by Consequence under some Divine Command or Prohibition I have admired how this Circumstance of an indifferent thing 's being used by the Church of Rome can be thought to alter the Nature of that thing and make it cease to be indifferent and become sinful But that it doth so is endeavoured to be proved by that general Prohibition to the Israelites of imitating the doings of the Aegyptians and Canaanites in those Words Lev. 18.2 After the doings of the Land of Aegypt wherein ye dwell shall ye not do and after the doings of the Land of Canaan whither I bring you shall ye not do neither shall ye walk in their Ordinances This place divers of the Defenders of Nonconformity have laid great weight upon as a proof of the Sinfulness of Symbolizing with the Church of Rome Even in indifferent things But I chuse to forbear the Naming of any whose Arguings I purpose to enquire into because I would prevent if it be possible the least suspition in the Readers that I design in this Performance to expose any Mans weakness in particular or that I am therein Acted by any Personal Piques Now then as to the Text now Cited Not to insist upon the Fallaciousness of Arguing without mighty caution from Laws given by Moses to the Israelites so as to infer the Obligation of Christians who are under a dispensation so different from theirs and in Circumstances so vastly differing from those they were in I say not to insist upon the Fallaciousness of this way of Arguing which all considering Persons must needs be aware of if this general Prohibition be not at all to be limited then it will follow from thence that the Israelites might have no usages whatsoever in common with the Aegyptians or Canaanites and therefore in as general terms as the Prohibition runs our Brethren must needs acknowledge that there is a restriction therein intended it being the most absurd thing to Imagine that the Israelites were so bound up by God as to be Obliged to an unlikeness to those People in all their Actions For as the Apostles said of the Christians if they were never to Company with Wicked Men they must needs go out of the World we may say of the Israelites in reference to this Case of theirs they then must needs have gone out of the World Now if this general Prohibition after their doings ye shall not do be to be limited and restrained what way have we to do it but by considering the Context and confining the restriction to those particulars Prohibited in the following verses But I need not shew that the particulars forbidden in all these viz. from v. 5 th to the 24 th were not things of an indifferent Nature but Incestuous Copulations and other abominable Acts of Vncleanness And God doth Expresly enough thus restrain that general Prohibition in the 24 th v. in these Words Defile not your selves in any of these things for in all these the Nations are Defiled which I cast out before you But those that alledge this Text to the foresaid purpose will not hear of the general Proposition's being thus limited by the Context as apparent as it is that it necessarily must because say they we find that God forbids the Israelites in other places to imitate Heathens in things of an Indifferent and Innocent Nature To this I Answer First That supposing this were so it doth not from thence follow that God intended to forbid such imitations in this place the contrary being so manifest as we have seen But Secondly That God hath any where prohibited the Israelites to Symbolize with Heathens in things of a meer Indifferent and Innocent Nature I mean that he hath made it Unlawful to them to observe any such Customs of the Heathens meerly upon the account of their being like them is a very great mistake Which will appear by considering those places which are produced for it One is Deut. 14.1 You shall not Cut your selves nor make any baldness between your Eyes for the dead Now as to the former of these prohibited things who seeth not that 't is Vnnatural and therefore not indifferent And as to the latter viz. the disfiguring of themselves by Cutting off their Eyebrows this was not meerly an indifferent thing neither It being a Custom at Funerals much disbecoming the People of God which would make them look as if they sorrowed for the dead as Men without hope Another place insisted