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	know_v	teach_v	2,229	5	5.7463	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50883	Areopagitica; a speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of vnlicens'd printing, to the Parlament of England.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1644 (1644)	Wing M2092; ESTC R210022	36,202	42

begun it was as little in my fear that what words of complaint I heard among lerned men of other parts utter'd against the Inquisition the same I shou'd hear by as lerned men at home utterd in time of Parlament against an order of licencing and that so generally that when I had disclos'd my self a companion of their discontent I might say if without envy that he whom an honest questorship had indear'd to the Sicilians was not more by them importun'd against Verres then the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye and are known and respected by ye loaded me with entreaties and perswasions that I would not despair to lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon lerning That this is not therefore the disburdning of a particular fancie but the common grievance of all those who had prepar'd their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch to advance truth in others and from others to entertain it thus much may satisfie And in their name I shall for neither friend nor foe conceal what the generall murmur is that if it come to inquisitioning again and licencing and that we are so timorous of our selvs and so suspicious of all men as to fear each book and the shaking of every leaf before we know what the contents are if some who but of late were little better then silenc't from preaching shall come now to silence us from reading except what they please it cannot be guest what is intended by som but a second tyranny over learning and will soon put it out of controversie that Bishops and Presbyters are the same to us both name and thing That those evills of Prelaty which before from five or six and twenty Sees were distributivly charg'd upon the whole people will now light wholly upon learning is not obscure to us whenas now the Pastor of a small unlearned Parish on the sudden shall be exalted Archbishop over a large dioces of books and yet not remove but keep his other cure too a mysticall pluralist He who but of late cry'd down the sole ordination of every novice Batchelor of Art and deny'd sole jurisdiction over the simplest Parishioner shall now at home in his privat chair assume both these over worthiest and excellentest books and ablest authors that write them This is not Yee Covnants and Protestations that we have made this is not to put down Prelaty this is but to chop an Episcopacy this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another this is but an old canonicall flight of commuting our penance To startle thus betimes at a meer unlicenc't pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle and a while after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting But I am certain that a State govern'd by the rules of justice and fortitude or a Church built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge cannot be so pusillanimous While things are yet not constituted in Religion that freedom of writing should be restrain'd by a discipline imitated from the Prelats and learnt by them from the Inquisition to shut us up all again into the brest of a licencer must needs give cause of doubt and discouragement to all learned and religious men Who cannot but discern the finenes of this politic drift and who are the contrivers that while Bishops were to be baited down then all Presses might be open it was the peoples birthright and priviledge in time of Parlament it was the breaking forth of light But now the Bishops abrogated and voided out of the Church as if our Reformation sought no more but to make room for others into their seats under another name the Episcopall arts begin to bud again the cruse of truth must run no more oyle liberty of Printing must be enthrall'd again under a Prelaticall commission of twenty the privilege of the people nullify'd and which is wors the freedom of learning must groan again and to her old fetters all this the Parlament yet sitting Although their own late arguments and defences against the Prelats might remember them that this obstructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly opposite to the end which it drives at instead of suppressing sects and schisms it raises them and invests them with a reputation The punishing of wits enhaunces their autority saith the Vicount St. Albans and a forbidd'n writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seeke to tread it out This order therefore may prove a nursing mother to sects but I shall easily shew how it will be a step-dame to Truth and first by disinabling us to the maintenance of what is known already Well knows he who uses to consider that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise as well as our limbs and complexion Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition A man may be a heretick in the truth and if he beleeve things only because his Pastor sayes so or the Assembly so determins without knowing other reason though his belief be true yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresie There is not any burden that som would gladlier post off to another then the charge and care of their Religion There be who knows not that there be of Protestants and professors who live and dye in as arrant an implicit faith as any lay Papist of Loretto A wealthy man addicted to his pleasure and to his profits finds Religion to be a traffick so entangl'd and of so many piddling accounts that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade What should he doe fain he would have the name to be religious fain he would bear up with his neighbours in that What does he therefore but resolvs to give over toyling and to find himself out som factor to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs som Divine of note and estimation that must be To him he adheres resigns the whole ware-house of his religion with all the locks and keyes into his custody and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself but is becom a dividuall movable and goes and comes neer him according as that good man frequents the house He entertains him gives him gifts feasts him lodges him his religion comes home at night praies is liberally supt and sumptuously laid to sleep rises is saluted and after the malmsey or some well spic't bruage and better breakfasted then he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and

Ierusalem his Religion walks abroad at eight and leavs his kind entertainer in the shop trading all day without his religion Another sort there be who when they hear that all things shall be order'd all things regulated and setl'd nothing writt'n but what passes through the custom-house of certain Publicans that have the tunaging and the poundaging of all free spok'n truth will strait give themselvs up into your hands mak 'em cut 'em out what religion ye please there be delights there be recreations and jolly pastimes that will fetch the day about from sun to sun and rock the tedious year as in a delightfull dream What need they torture their heads with that which others have tak'n so strictly and so unalterably into their own pourveying These are the fruits which a dull ease and cessation of our knowledge will bring forth among the people How goodly and how to be wisht were such an obedient unanimity as this what a fine conformity would it starch us all into doubtles a stanch and solid peece of frame-work as any January could freeze together Nor much better will be the consequence ev'n among the Clergy themselvs it is no new thing never heard of before for a parochiall Minister who has his reward and is at his Hercules pillars in a warm benefice to be easily inclinable if he have nothing else that may rouse up his studies to finish his circuit in an English concordance and a topic folio the gatherings and savings of a sober graduatship a Harmony and a Catena treading the constant round of certain common doctrinall heads attended with their uses motives marks and means out of which as out of an alphabet or sol fa by forming and transforming joyning and dis-joyning variously a little book-craft and two hours meditation might furnish him unspeakably to the performance of more then a weekly charge of sermoning not to reck'n up the infinit helps of interlinearies breviaries synopses and other loitering gear But as for the multitude of Sermons ready printed and pil'd up on every text that is not difficult our London trading St. Thomas in his vestry and adde to boot St. Martin and St. Hugh have not within their hallow'd limits more vendible ware of all sorts ready made so that penury he never need fear of Pulpit provision having where so plenteously to refresh his magazin But if his rear and flanks be not impal'd if his back dore be not secur'd by the rigid licencer but that a bold book may now and then issue forth and give the assault to some of his old collections in their trenches it will concern him then to keep waking to stand in watch to set good guards and sentinells about his receiv'd opinions to walk the round and counter-round with his fellow inspectors fearing lest any of his flock be seduc't who also then would be better instructed better exercis'd and disciplin'd And God send that the fear of this diligence which must then be us'd doe not make us affect the lazines of a licencing Church For if we be sure we are in the right and doe not hold the truth guiltily which becomes not if we our selves condemn not our own weak and frivolous teaching and the people for an untaught and irreligious gadding rout what can be more fair then when a man judicious learned and of a conscience for ought we know as good as theirs that taught us what we know shall not privily from house to house which is more dangerous but openly by writing publish to the world what his opinion is what his reasons and wherefore that which is now thought cannot be found Christ urg'd it as wherewith to justifie himself that he preacht in publick yet writing is more publick then preaching and more easie to refutation if need be there being so many whose businesse and profession meerly it is to be the champions of Truth which if they neglect what can be imputed but their sloth or unability Thus much we are hinder'd and dis-inur'd by this cours of licencing toward the true knowledge of what we seem to know For how much it hurts and hinders the licencers themselves in the calling of their Ministery more then any secular employment if they will discharge that office as they ought so that of necessity they must neglect either the one duty or the other I insist not because it is a particular but leave it to their own conscience how they will decide it there There is yet behind of what I purpos'd to lay open the incredible losse and detriment that this plot of licencing puts us to more then if som enemy at sea should stop up all our hav'ns and ports and creeks it hinders and retards the importation of our richest Marchandize Truth nay it was first establisht and put in practice by Antichristian malice and mystery on set purpose to extinguish if it were possible the light of Reformation and to settle falshood little differing from that policie wherewith the Turk upholds his Alcoran by the prohibition of Printing 'T is not deny'd but gladly confest we are to send our thanks and vows to heav'n louder then most of Nations for that great measure of truth which we enjoy especially in those main points between us and the Pope with his appertinences the Prelats but he who thinks we are to pitch our tent here and have attain'd the utmost prospect of reformation that the mortall glasse wherein we contemplate can shew us till we come to beatisic vision that man by this very opinion declares that he is yet farre short of Truth Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on but when he ascended and his Apostles after him were laid asleep then strait arose a wicked race of deceivers who as that story goes of the AEgyptian Typhon with his conspirators how they dealt with the good Osiris took the virgin Truth hewd her lovely form into a thousand peeces and scatter'd them to the four winds From that time ever since the sad friends of Truth such as durst appear imitating the carefull search that Isis made for the mangl'd body of Osiris went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them We have not yet found them all Lords and Commons nor ever shall doe till her Masters second comming he shall bring together every joynt and member and shall mould them into an immortall feature of lovelines and perfection Suffer not these licencing prohibitions to stand at every place of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking that continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyr'd Saint We boast our light but if we look not wisely on the Sun it self it smites us into darknes Who can discern those planets that are oft Combust and those stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the Sun untill the opposite motion of their orbs bring them