Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	bishop_n	church_n	succession_n	1,636	5	10.2155	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29214	A sermon preached at the opening of the lecture at Maldon in Essex, lately established by the Lord Bishop of London in vindication of the antiquity of the doctrine of the Church of England / by William Bramston ...	Bramston, William, d. 1735.	1697 (1697)	Wing B4243; ESTC R18304	16,131	26

a visible Succession and yet that Church that enjoys it in many respects may be very corrupt and unwarrantable and this I think is sufficiently acknowledg'd by the Church of Rome her self which does so far acknowledge the Succession of the Greek Church as to receive those Ordained by her into her Communion with allowance of Orders received before and yet whoever considers the terms in which the Eastern Church now stands with that at Rome must see little reason to conclude much of its Perfection from the Argument of Succession indeed there cannot be a true Church without true Pastors and Bishops but there may be true Pastors and Bishops i. e. Pastors and Bishops rightly called and truly ordained without a true Church in other respects Such Succession will indeed prove the Antiquity of the Seat and Place and justly denominate it a part of the Catholick Church of Christ but it can be no convincing Demonstration of the purity of its Faith and Doctrines And therefore it must sollow that even from an erroneous Church may be derived a true Ministery and Ordination but yet it can be no greater Argument that such a particular Church namely as the Church of Rome is a pure Church now because an other to wit the Church of England who is really so owes her Orders or first Episcopal imposition to hers than it can be that because such a particular Man for his own personal Virtue and Integrity shall certainly go to Heaven therefore he also shall do so who made him a Christian And this I the gladlier mention because it plainly answers that Sophistical Induction of the Romanists which infer that because we say our Church derives her Orders from her therefore by proving our selves to be a true Church we must necessarily conclude their's to be so which is the same as if a Man in declaring his Opinion of their being Orthodox in some points and particulars shou'd be concluded positively to maintain them to be most regular in all others A more rational Inference from what has been said in this case of Succession must certainly be this that such a Local Succession of Pastors and a settled Establishment from the days of the Apostles to this time is not essential to the constitution of a true Church but rather on the other side whatever Church hath a lawful Ministry and a right Profession of sound Doctrine let her Succession be never so inconsiderable though not exceeding two years must have an equal Right and Title to a Membership in the ancient Body of Christ as any particular Church of the most venerable Succession And the reason of the thing is very plain for if a Church has a true Ministry and a right belief now what signifies it how long she has enjoy'd it she can then want no means to bring Souls to Heaven and what advantage can the ancientest Constitution in the World obtain above her The Seat where the Religion is sixed may be new but the Religion Establish'd as Old as Truth it self And thus I hope the Churches which were the earliest planted in the World were as true Churches the first day after their Plantation as when they had survived various Centuries So that it must be impertinent in our Adversaries to require us to produce a Succession of Protestant Bishops so long as there cou'd be no reason any Bishops shou'd be called Protestant i. e. Such Bishops who protest against Innovations and Corruptions in the Religion of Christ till they had defiled God's heavenly Truths with their Traditionary Pollutions or again so long as we prove our Protestant Faith and Church to be no other but a Professor of that Faith and a Member of that Apostolical Church which they have Corrupted or lastly so long as they are Corruptions introduced by them which we disavow and protest against Let them prove us defective in any one essential point of a true Church and we will yet thankfully receive it but this their own fruitless endeavour towards it may evince they cannot and therefore to talk of Novelty and Innovations where the Truths are as ancient as the Gospel and the Apostles must argue great Folly in them that urge it but more inconsideration in us shou'd we regard it As we are able to justifie our cause from all their foulest Imputations so shall they never be able to prove our Religion a Novelty though its Establishment were but of Queen Elizabeth for it is the Antiquity of true Faith only that we contend for which can never be obscured by the latest Profession because what was truth in the Apostles time must be so now and that Church which cleaves stedfastly to that be its Succession never so late must be both Catholick and Apostolick in the purest meaning After all this stir of Novelty and Antiquity I see no other difference in our case and that of the Romanists but this that our Religion is apparently conspicuous in the best and most Apostolical Centuries and their 's manifest enough in the flourishing Days of Ignorance and Superstition when Scriptures were banished and the least appearance of such Truth as seemed to thwart the progress of an aspiring Monarchy was silenced and disabled That which seems so much to take with inconsiderate Men to wit such Queries as this Had not God his true Church in these days of Blindness and Ignorance which you Protestants allude to if so Then which cou'd be this true Church but that at Rome may easily be removed if they observe First That a local and visible Establishment such as can be pointed to though we have many such to refer to in the Eastern parts of Christendom even in the blindest Ages besides that at Rome is not essential to the proving of a true Church because the true Church of Christ was most illustrious before it had enjoyed any Local Establishment whatever Secondly If we consider that though there were in those times true Christians yet it cannot be imagined that they should have appear'd forward to make Discoveries of themselves in such Seasons when they experienc'd the sharpest Eyes and heaviest Hands ready to destroy them So that though we must believe God had always a true Church yet we stand not necessitated directly to know what numerical and individual People made up that true Church much less to confess it to have been the present Establishment at Rome no we can no more be oblig'd to such a Confession as this than to acknowledge that the visible company of the Jews made up the true Church of God than when they were even swallow'd up of Idolatry and none but the All-seeing Eye of God able to discover the 7000 Knees which had never bowed to Baal it is no Tergiversation therefore it is no Shuffling I say though we can't point to it's individual Members to assert That God had even then a true Church because he has expresly told us he will have a true Church for ever but it must be a

though the Church of England may be later than the Church of Rome in such respects as these either because our Conversion to the Faith might possibly have been after theirs or again because our particular establishment as it now stands was enacted many Ages since the first settlement of a Christian Church at Rome Yet our Religion now may be ancienter still than their's at present if they are now changged and degenerated as 't is demonstrable they are from that Christian Purity which anciently denominated them an uncorrupted part of the Catholick Church and we now faithfully adhere with all Uprightness and Integrity which we are ready to make appear we do to that Faith of Christ which was once delivered to the Saints and as by many other Churches so anciently maintain'd by the Church at Rome For as their new corruptions and additional definitions of Faith must fall short of those Ages wherein Christianity flourished with all Truth and Purity and those can be no other than the Days of Christ and his Apostles so the old truths retained and prosessed by us must have been then most triumphant and prevailing And therefore that which has puzzled so many weak and unlearned People of our Communion to wit the question about the Age of our Religion and our Church may easily be resolved if they distinguish the Antiquity of Seat and Place which is nothing to the business from the Antiquity of Truths and Doctrines and this distinction must be allowed good even by our Adversaries themselves if they consider that the dispute now is not about the Antiquity of particular Sees and national Constitutions but the Antiquity of Faith and Religion its self which I hope may be the same in a Church of Yesterday's Conversion as it was in Antioch which had the honour to give the first Name to Christians Did the Church of Rome at any time esteem her own Antiquity lessened upon such a Consideration as this that St. Peter erected his Apostolical Seat first at Antioch before ever he had arrived at Rome Or will she acknowledge a deference due to that Church in point of Faith and Purity because she had the happiness to be Christened before her I doubt the Mother and Mistress of all Churches as she delights to stile her self could never stoop to such a Condescension If my Faith be found and perfect now can it be believed the more new and up-start because not professed by my Fore-fathers who knew not the Truths Or does my late Conversion if good and upright diminish or derogate from the Antiquity of Truth its self The Antiquity of all other things is calculated from their Original and beginning in the World and why the same rule won't do in Faith and Religion I understand not Indeed if any particular Church cou'd make out a continu'd Succession in all circumstances of Doctrine and Discipline from the times of the Apostles unto this very day this wou'd no doubt be an incomparable Argument both of her Antiquity and of God's especial Goodness and Providence over her But the present Roman Church can no more make out such a Succession than the present Church of England and if she could still such a Succession is not to be esteem'd the only mark of Truth and Antiquity And this I think cannot be more clearly illustrated than from Matter of Fact to which we may appeal in this case for instance there can be no Question but the ancient Faith of Christ is now professed by the true Faithful of Christ and shall continue to be so professed till the Day of Judgment and yet there is now no particular Church of the Faithful that can make out such a Succession nor any one Church endowed with an assurance of continuing indefectibly in that very State in which she is now till the Day of Judgment I know the Church of Rome wou'd fain have us believe her inspired with these infallible Accomplishments but she must produce a better Scheme of her Perfections than what we meet in her Trent Definitions or she will never perswade us that she is any more like the Church Establish'd at Rome by St Peter than St. Peter himself was like the most changed and backsliding Apostle For as to her Magnificent Stile in writing her felt the Church Apostolick this must appear rather a Character of Ornament and Shew than any certain signification of her necessary continuance in Truth and Purity For were not the Apostolick Sees as liable to relapse and degenerate as any founded by their Successors Where is the glory of Antioch Ephesus and Alexandria which the Apostles themselves planted and watered with the Dew of Heaven which those Heavenly Shepherds nourish'd with the blessed Food of Evangelical Righteousness And notwithstanding all the applauses with which the present Romanists exalt themselves I doubt not but were St. Peter to arise this moment from the Dead and visit the Conclave or inspect the Councils of Rome but he wou'd be very much put to it where to find Faith on Earth I say therefore her being founded by an Apostle if we grant thus much can no more Entitle her indefectible in the Faith than it has the Churches of Antioch Ephesus and Alexandria which have either altogether failed and forsaken the Name of Christ or are at least according to their own Roman Tenents quite cut off for Schism or Heresie from the Communion of what they call the true Church let her shew when and where God has anointed her with this Oyl of Perfection above her Fellows But now then if an Apostolick Church may thus recoil and become impure nay since Christianity shall not fail why must not some Churches be most pure which yet are not Apostolical I mean taught and instructed by the lively voice of the Apostles If this be bad arguing what may we think of all the Churches Converted and founded many Ages since the days of the Apostles Or if this be a good Inference what Objection can it be against any particular Church which is sound and upright in all her Doctrines that she has not continued for ever that she is yet but of a very late Birth and Duration If her Doctrines are as Old as the Scriptures can the Religion of such a Church fall short of the Age of the Gospel If her holy Principles flourished in the ancientest Creeds and Councils can she reasonably be Reproach'd for an Innovation of Two Hundred Years ago This is the very case of the Church of England and for the truth of it we appeal to the Scriptures to the ancientest Creeds and Councils Indeed the Church of Rome makes a great noise and show with the flourish of her Succession but if she means a Succession in purity of Doctrines we may easily convince her of Vanity and Tattle if she means a Succession in the outward circumstances and appearances of a Church such as consists in true Pastors Bishops and the like I answer that there may be such