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	time_n	2,050	5	3.5238	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43057	A discourse about the charge of novelty upon the reformed Church of England made by the papists asking of us the question, Where was our religion before Luther?	Hascard, Gregory.	1683 (1683)	Wing H1110; ESTC R13685	23,223	39

would scarce know it to be the True Joseph's and would not trouble themselves so much to ask the time when this came to pass as lament the sadness of the change And the Apostles did not take so much care to tell the punctual time to the Disciples when Antichrist should discover himself as to make them stand vpon their guard to defend that Faith which he would invade where and whensoever he should come or whosoever he was 2. The difficulty of knowing the precise and punctual times when errors first began In many sorts of changes or Innovations 't is hard to know the nice time of their beginning but some latitude of Judging is allow'd and why not in things especially relating to Religion Are there not wild Opinions left upon Record among the Pagan Writers whose Authors are either unknown or which are falsly Father'd upon others and as hard to be known as the head of Nile Can the nicest Romanist tell us what Rabbi and in what Place and Age first superinduc't the several false glosses and senses to the Law of Moses yet our Saviour though he knew them well thought it sufficient to tell them that in the beginning it was not so and by comparing the Mosaick Religion it plainly appears they were new additions to the good old way And how many errors sprung up in the times of Christianity of whose original and other circumstances both the Romanists and our selves are yet uncertain And how many things of this Nature more near our own times are we puzled about and the difficulty of knowing them ariseth principally from this twofold account 1. From the subtilty of the contrivers of errors Which many times are the cunning and the Wise in their Generation which the necessity of their cause requires Truth being strong and error naturally weak and that Sly Deceiving Spirit lends it his utmost assistance to serve the design Such Men know how to disguise new falshoods in the old habits of Truth to make them look Ancient and Venerable they feel and know the temper of the Age and fit their Opinions to the Interest and Pleasure of it They prepare their errors to be received by degrees and one part must draw on the other and the whole must be insensibly swallow'd down So it hapned in the Adoration and Invocation of Saints and Images and the whole Structure of the Romish Religion which by several steps and in many Ages advanc't to its mighty bulk The cunning knew the consequences of their own positions how far they would reach which the Vulgar eye discern'd not they well foresaw how their Hey and Stubble variety of Phrases and changes of Syllables would at length fire the Foundation of Religion yet being invented at first by the Angelical Doctors and leaders of an Age for fame and reputation sake they and their followers first defended them for bare Truths afterwards for Sacred and Fundamental ones and things at first only Piously believ'd soon after have been adopted into a Creed And Men of rashness and Superstition only great in Place and Office have vented opinions whose fatal conclusions they at first we hope did not know yet the Cunning many times have hatcht what they left and improv'd in fatally to Religion the greatness of the Man whether an Innocent or an Hildebrand gave the error its first reputation and the cunning of others its Strength and Argument Many of the great and knowing heads of the World being corrupted unto the Roman side to defend those errors which had got footing in the Church But how can we unlock the secret methods of Rome or describe the ways and Policies by which the Mystery of Iniquity works Yet we are sure it 's carri'd on by the windings and turnings of the Serpent and Men that he imploys upon design to ruine truth for when the Apostle describes the sad Apostacies and Defections from the Faith they are said to be wrought by Men of Skill and Art who lye in wait to deceive 2. From the Passions and Infirmities of other Men. These give the false and busy deceiver and easy Victory When Opinions are so contriv'd as to serve the designs of Pride and Covetousness Ambition and Lust and other Vices they easily pass for mighty Truths their Original is not enquir'd into the Judgment is brid'd and they bear the Title of Ancient and Primitive or what the Deceiver pleaseth For these Passions have effeminated the mind made it soft and sluggish and any bold error shall slip down rather than be at the charge of a further search and enquiry to know whether these things be so or no. The Roman Religion being so well cut out in its different Doctrines to hit Mens Vices and Passions Gayety or Melancholy Enthusiasm or Fury Power or Design it 's no wonder it did prevail in a sly and silent manner interest having put out their Eyes this Kingdom came not with observation and the approaches of the Enemy in the Night of Ignorance viz. the darkness that could be felt of the ninth tenth and eleventh Century when all good Learning and Manners too were fast asleep the time when many of the new Devices of Rome were hammering out and the noise not heard were not discover'd till they had taken Possession and then by virtue of Power and great Names defended their title And their own Writers confess that many of the great Guardians of Faith the Popes of Rome were very Vicious and Illiterate Persons whose Vice and Ignorance kept them nodding while the little Thieves the Notions and Speculations of Men of Wit and Interest set open the Churches doors for the greater errors to come crowding in Our Saviour confirms the Truth of this when he compares his Church to a Field which had been sown by him and his Apostles with very good seed Wheat or some other Grain but while Men slept when Christians were grown Wicked and Careless Ignorant or Factious comes the Enemy and scatters the Tares and a new Harvest of Weeds Heretical Doctrines Superstitious Practices Foppish and Phantastick rites over-ran and choakt the purer Grain And the Apostle tells his Disciples that Men of dangerous principles abusing the Grace of God speaking Evil of Dignities and despising Dominions and denying Christ that bought them had crept in unaawares being well disguiz'd with Fine Names and Pretences while good Men were careless and sleepy And when most begin to broach new Errors and spread their Inventions for mighty Truths they do it with all the skill and artifice that so bad a design can possibly require Error and Innovation necessarily calling for the utmost Cunning and Slyness to its aid and assistance Religion therefore may easily suffer a considerable change yet good Men know not how neither the time nor Authors of it It being therefore only absolutely necessary for us to know that whensoever and howsoever these errors in the Church first sprung up that they were contrary to the Primitive Faith

began to favour his new Faith and Innovation And so errors once superinduc't upon the Truth will become by Age Truth it self and are never to be mended for fear of this pert Question and charge of Innovation on And it 's plain that new and old are but uncertain Characters to Judge of Truth and falshood by there being sometimes a new Truth that is lately discover'd to be so but really old and an old error kept up a long time by Force of Art and Walking in the Garb of Truth but truly new having come in after the Truth it vies with Time like a River many times bringing down straw and trash and leaving weighter things behind which when they come to be retriev'd are call'd new Fashions and Inventions When Abraham restored the true Worship of God and stript it of Idolatry and Superstition the Chaldean Priests whose Power and Interest was shaken by it were very brisk and ready to charge this Pious and Mighty Man from the East with Novelty and Singularity in his Religion the false service of God in these Countries being then ancient and almost Universal though the Patriarchs Religion did derive it self from a very ancient stock that of Adams in Paradise kept up by an Enoch and a Noah in single Families when all Flesh had corrupted their ways and now deliver'd unto Abrabam and now all the sticklers for a false Religion began to upbraid the Sons and Followers of Abraham's Faith with Novelty and ask them where was your Religion before the times of Abraham who set up his but yesterday and Scorns and Uncharitably Damns all his Forefathers who of old liv'd beyond the River in our Religion The same Objection might have been cast in the teeth of Moses when he was setling a Religion deliver'd to him by God in opposition to the Idolatries and false Devotions of the World and to serve his further designs of providence that he affected Novelty and Singularity that all the World stood against him in this and one of his Disciples afterwards was Inhumane and Vncharitable in praying God to pour out his Indignation upon the Heathen who had not known his Laws And his Successor Joshua might have met with the same fare when he bids his People choose whom they will serve either the Gods beyond the Flood and in Egypt or the Gods of the Amorites Old and great Nations who might have had this Objection in its full strength on their side or the God of Abraham and stoutly tells them let that plausible argument weigh with them what it will as for himself and his Family they would serve the Lord. And as this Religion might degenerate in descending Ages so any restorer of it might be set upon by the same frivolous Objection and so it hapned to our Messias and his fore-runner who was to restore all things who when he began to reform the false glosses and corrupt senses which the Scribes and Pharisees had put upon the Law of Moses and cry down their Traditions which made the Commands of God of none effect was lookt upon as an Enemy to Moses a Blasphemer of the Law a Prophaner of the Temple and a Changer of all their Religion whose design was only to fill up their Law and restore it to its Natural Beauty and Perfection and before Abraham was I am not only in his Divine Nature and designation to his office but in his Religion also which now he was going to teach the Few and Gentile too And now the times of a general Reformation being come and the Apostles were Preaching this excellent Religion unto all the World Jew and Gentile comspire together in the same Language and call them setters forth of strange Gods and new Heresies Heads and Contrivers of new Sects and ways and are whipt for Vagrants and Impostors who would cheat the World out of their old paternal Religions that were entail'd upon them teach them to speak ill of the Gods of their Fathers and Predecessors and to think they all dyed in a false Religion and to embrace a new-fangled Faith of a few illiterate and rambling fellows who had turn'd the World upside down And had this argument prevail'd then as much as the Romanists do desire if should now we should have had no Christianity among us the Idol-Gods of our Ancestors in this Island their Woodens and Twisters would have prescribed against Christ himself 3. To turn the Question upon them and ask them some others of the like Nature Men that are insolent and ever boasting of the Antiquity of their Family and upbraiding others with their obscure Birth and extraction do many times meet with some cross Questions about the Head and Fountain of their Families which many times proves only to be a Shepherd or meaner Original made Glorious with arrogant Titles and borow'd Names Searching into the pedigree of Romes Religion we do not find Christ or St. Peter or any of his Apostles to be the Authors of it but Pride Interest and Design old Vices indeed but new Fathers of a Christian Church which brought in a late and new generation of opinions and additions to Christs Religion Clothing them with the venerable Names of Primitive and Apostolical Where was the Romish Religion before the Council of Trent concluded only about the year 1563. of a later date then when Luther first began which Legitimated all their Innovations the Issue of Scholastick Wranglings pretended Dreams and Visions Forc't and Unnatural Senses of Scripture Ambition and Profit the Exchequer of Rome to be made Sons of the Church and Fundamentals of the Christian Faith Many of their own Writers confess that for 1400. or 1500. years the Pope was not believ'd to be Infallible till of late some of their flaming Zealots have invested him with Infallibility whereby the Roman Church is sick unto Death and no cure is to be apply'd because She is so certain and sure that She is well Their lewd Doctrine of Transubstantiation was not made an Article of Faith till the Council of Lateran under Innocent the Third above 1200 years after Christ and many of their own Writers are still dissatisfied about it The Title of Vniversal Bishop was obtain'd by Pope Boniface the Third not till about 600 years after Christ fearing a powerful Rival the Constantinopolitan Bishop who affected the same and therefore by the Popes themselves was declaim'd against as Proud and Antichristian but now by Hypocrisie and base complyance with the Wicked Phocas who was Guilty of Treason and Murder against the Emperour Mauritius Rome gain'd the delicious point and has made it a Fundamental Article of her new Religion Though the Popes came not up to their Swaggering Temper and Power of Hectoring Christian Princes some hundreds of years afterwards The Doctrine of Purgatory which some derive from the Platonick Fancies of Origen the Montanism of Tertullian pretended Visions and Pagan Stories Rhetorical Flourishes and doubtful expressions of the