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
A74667	An answer to Monsieur de la Militiere his impertinent dedication of his imaginary triumph, to the king of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman Catholick religion. / By John Bramhall D.D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry.	Bramhall, John, 1594-1663.; La Milletière, Théophile Brachet, sieur de, ca. 1596-1665. Victory of truth for the peace of the Church.	1653 (1653)	Thomason E1542_1	53,892	235

Subjects He was no Changeling indeed neither to the right hand nor to the left Henry the Fourth his Grandfather did turn indeed to the Roman Church Had his change any such Influence upon the Protestant party in France I know no followers such a change would gain him but I foresee clearly how many hearts it would lose him Certainly Sir if you would do a meritorious piece of ●●…ice to his greatest Adversaries you could not fix upon any thing that would content them more highly than to see you successfull in this undertaking I have done with your Proposition Hee than compares it and your demonstration together will easily judge them to be twins at the first sight As a motive to his Majesties conversion you present him with a Treatise of Transubstantiation and desire that it may appear unto the world under his royall name P. 58. His improper choise of a Patron for his Treatise I meddle not with your Treatise some of your learned Adversaries friends will give you your hands full enough But how can his Majesty protect or patronise a Treatise against his Judgement against his Conscience so contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England not onely since the Reformation but before About the year seven hundred Serm. Saxon in fest● Paschat The body of Christ wherein he suffered and his Body Consecrated in the Host differ much The body wherein he suffred was born of the Virgin consisting of flesh and bones and humane members his Spirituall body which we call the Host consists of many grains without blood bones or human members wherefore nothing is to be understood there corporally but all spiritually Transubstantiation was neither held for an Article of Faith nor a point of Faith in those dayes You charge the Protestants in divers places P. 62. That they have neither Church nor Faith but have lost both And at the later end of your Treatise you undertake to demonstrate it P. 222. His unskilfulnes or his unfortunateness in his Demonstrations But your demonstration is a meer Paralogism You multiply your terms you confound your terms you change and alter your terms contrary to the rules of right arguing and vainly beat the air concluding nothing which you ought to prove nothing which your Adversary will denie You would prove that Protestants have no Church That you never attempt But you do attempt to prove how pittifully God knows that they are not the onely Church that is the one Holy Catholique Church This they did never affirm they did never think It sufficeth them to be a part of that Universall Church more pure more Orthodox more Catholique than the Roman alwayes professing Christ visibly never lurking invisibly in an other Communion which is another of your mistakes I should advise you to promise us no more evident demonstrations Either your skill or your luck is so extremely bad In the second place you affirm that Faith is founded upon divine Authority and Revelation and deposited with the Church All that is true But that which you add that it is founded in the Authority of Christ speaking by the mouth of his Church By this Church understanding the Church of this Age and which is yet worse the Church of one place and which is worst of all the Bishop of that one Church is most false The great advantage of the Prostant above the Roman Catholique in the choise of his foundation And so is that which you add that the faith of Protestants is founded upon their own reasonings which makes so many differences among them Reason must be subservient in the application of the Rule of Faith It cannot be the foundation of Faith Bad reasoning may bring forth differences and errors about Faith both with you and us but the abuse of Reason doth not take away the use of Reason We have this Advantage of you that if any one of us do build an erroneous Opinion upon the holy Scripture yet because our adherence to the Scripture is firmer and neerer than our adherence to our particular error that full and free and universall assent which we give to holy Scripture and to all things therein conteined is an implicite Condemnation and retractation of our particular error which we hold unwittingly and unwillingly against Scripture But your foundation of Faith being composed of uncertainties whether this man be Pope or not whether this Pope be Judge or not whether this Judge be infallible or not and if infallible wherein and how far the faith which is builded thereupon cannot but be fallible and uncertain The stricter the adherence is to a false uncertain or fallible rule the more dangerous is the error So our right foundation purgeeth away our error in superstruction And your wrong foundation lessens the value of your truths and doubles the guilt of your errors I will by your leave requite your demonstration and turn the mouthes of your own Canons against your self That Church which hath changed the Apostolical Creed the Apostolicall Succession the Apostolicall Regiment and the Apostolicall Communion is no Apostolicall Orthodox or Catholique Church But the Church of Rome hath changed the Apostolicall Creed the Apostolicall Succession the Apostolicall Regiment and the Apostolicall Communion Therefore the Church of Rome is no Apostolicall Orthodox or Catholick Church They have changed the Apostolicall Creed by making a new Creed wherein are many things inserted that hold no Analogie with the old Apostles Creed The Apostolicall Succession by ingrossing the whole succession to Rome and making all other Bishops to be but the Popes Vicars and Substitutes as to their Jurisdiction The Apostolicall Regiment by erecting a visible and Universall Monarchy in the Church And lastly the Apostolicall Communion by excommunicating three parts of the holy Catholique Apostolique Church Again That Church which resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority but into Humane infallibility or the Infallibilitie of the present Church without knowing or according what that present Church is whether the Virtuall or the representative or the essentiall Church or a body compounded of some of these hath no true faith But the Church of Rome resolves it Faith not into didine Revelation and Authority but into the Infallibility of the present Church not knowing or not according what that present Church is whether the Virtual Church that is the Pope or the representative Church that is a generall Councill or the Essentiall Church that is the Church of Believers diffused over the world or a body compounded of some of these that is the Pope and a Generall or Provinciall Councill Therefore the Church of Rome hath not true faith The greater number of your Writers is for the Pope that this infallibility is fixed to this Chair But of all other Judgements this is most fallible and uncertain for if Simony make a Nullity in a Papall Election we have great reason to doubt that that Chair hath not been filled by

edge of the razor doth touch the very throats of his servants that the glory of the work may wholy redound to himself We may not limit God to those means which seem most probable in our eyes So long as Joseph trusted to his friend in Court God did forget him when Pharaohs Butler had quite forgotten Joseph then God remembred him God hath nobler wayes of restitution than by Battails and bloudshed that is by changing the hearts of his creatures at his pleasure and turning Esau's vowed revenge into love and kindness I confess P. 74. 75. His Majesties escape out of England almost miraculous his Majesties resolution was great so was his prudence that neither fear which useth to betray the succours of the Soul nor any indiscreet Action or word or gesture in so long a time should either discover him or render him suspected When I consider that the Heir of a Crown in the midst of that Kingdom where he had his breeding whom all mens eyes had used to Court as the rising Sun of no common features or physiognomy at such time when he was not onely believed but known to be among them when every Corner of the Kingdom was full of Spys to search him and every Port and Inne full of Officers to apprehend him I say that he should travail at such a time so long so far so freely in the sight of the Sun exposed to the view of all persons without either discovery or suspition seeme little less than a miracle That God had smitten the eyes of those who met him with blindness as the eyes of the Sodomites that they could not find Lots door or the Syrian Souldiers that were sent to apprehend Elisha This strange escape and that former out of Scotland where his condition was not much better And seems to presage that God hath something to do with him nor his person much safer do seem strangely to presage that God hath yet some great work to be done by him in his own due time You attribute this rare deliverance P. 76. Prayers and tears the proper Arms of woman and the hopes of his conversion in part to the prayers and tears of his Mother prayers and tears were the onely proper Arms of the old Primitive Christians more particularly they are the best and most agreeable defence of that sex but especially the prayers and tears of a Mother for the Son of her desires are most powerfull As it was said of the prayers and tears of Monica Especially of Mothers for St. Austine her Son fieri non potuit ut filius istarum lacrymarum periret It could not be that a Son should perish for whom so many tears were shed God sees her tears and hears her prayers and will grant her request if not according to her will and desire we often ask those things which being granted would prove prejudiciall to our selves and our friends yet ad utilitatem to his Majesties greater advantage which is much better She wisheth him a good Catholick and God will preserve him a good Catholick as he is We do not doubt but the prayers of his Father who now follows the Lamb in his whites for his perseverance Yet not so powerfull as his Fathers intercession now in Heaven will be more effectuall with God than the prayers of his Mother for his change P. 77. The Authors instance of Henry the great not pertinent Your instance of his Majesties Grand-father your grand King Henry the fourth is not so apposite or fit for your purpose He gained his Crown by turning himself towards his people you would perswade his Majesty to turn from his people and to cast away his possibilities of restitution that is Plutarch to cut off a naturall leg and take one of wood To the tears of his Mother you adde the blood of his Father P. 77. 78. The just commendation of K. Charls whom you justly stile happy and say most truly of him that he preferred the Catholick Faith before his Crown his liberty his life and whatsoever was most dear unto him This faith was formerly rooted in his heart by God not secretly and invisibly in the last moments of his life to unite him to the Roman Catholick Church but openly during his whole Reign all which time he lived in the bosom of the true Catholick Church It is gross impudence to feign that he dyed a Roman Catholick Yet you are so extremely partiall to your self that you affirm that he died invisibly a Member of your Roman Catholick Church as it is by you contre-distinguished to the rest of the Christian world An old pious fraud or artifice of yours learned from Machiavell to gain credit to your Religion by all means either true or false but contrary to his own profession at his death contrary to the express knowledge of all that were present at his murther Upon a vain presumption that Talem nisi vestra Ecclesia nulla parerit filium And because you are not able to produce one living witness you cite St. Austin to no purpose to prove that the elect before they are converted do belong invisibly to the Church Yea and before they were born also But St. Austine neither said nor thought that after they are converted they make no visible profession or profess the contrary to that which they beleeve Seek not thus to adorn your particular Church not with barrowed but with stollen Saints Whom all the world know to have been none of yours What Faith he professed living he confirmed dying In the Communion of the Church of England he lived and in that Communion at his death he commended his soul into the hands of God his Saviour The Authors confession confutes his demonstration that Prostants have no faith That which you have confessed here concerning King Charls will spoil your former demonstration that the Protestants have neither Church nor Faith But you confess no more in particular here than I have heard some of your famous Roman Doctors in this City acknowledge to be true in generall And no more than that which the Bishop of Chalcedon a man that cannot be suspected of partiality on our side hath affirmed and published in two of his Books to the world in Print That Protestantibus credentes c. persons living in the Communion of the Protestant Church if they endeavour to learn the truth and are not able to attein unto it but hold it implicitely in the preparation of their minds and are ready to receive it when God shall be pleased to reveal it which all good Protestants and all good Christians are they neither want Church nor Faith nor Salvation Mark these words well They have neither Church nor Faith say you If they be thus qualified as they all are they want neither Church nor Faith nor Salvation saith he His intelligence as good in Heaven as upon earth Lastly Sir to let us see that your

a Church nor that Church any privileges unless the Court of Rome might have the Monopoly of them There is a vast difference between the Catholick Church and a Patriarchall Church The Ca-Catholick Church can never fail any Patriarchall Church may Apostate and fail We have a promise that the Candle shall not be put out we have no promise that the Candlesticks shall not be removed Rev. 2.5 The Roman Church it self not absolutely faln to ruin But suppossing that which wee can never grant the Catholick Church and Roman Church were Convertibles yet still you do us wrong First we do not maintain that the Roman Church it self is faln to ruin and desolation we grant to it a true metaphysicall being though not a true morall being we hope their errors are rather in superstructures than in fundamentals wee doe not say that the Plants of saving truth which are common to you and us are plucked up by the roots in the Roman Church but we say that they are over-grown with weeds and in danger to be choked Next for Idolatry Whether the Roman Church be guilty of Idolatry whether and why and how far we accuse your Church of it deserves further Consideration First you agree with us That God alone is the Object of Religion and consequently that all Religious worship is due terminatively only to him that God alone is to be invocated absolutely or ultimately that is so as to grant our requests and fulfill our desires by himself and that the Saints are not the objects of our prayers but joynt petitioners with us and intercessors for us to the throne of Grace Secondly we profess as well as you that there is a proportionable degree of honour and respect due to every creature in Heaven and Earth according to the dignity of it and therefore more honour due to a glorified Spirit than to a mortall man But withall we adde that this honour is not servitutis but charitatis not of service as to our Lords and Masters but of love and charity as to our friends and fellow servants of the same kind and nature with that Honour which we give to holy men on Earth And herein we are confident that we shall have your consent Thirdly we agree in this also that abundant love and duty doth extend an honourable respect from the person of a dear friend or noble benefactor to his Posterity to his memory to his Monument to his Image to his Reliques to every thing that he loved or that pertained to him even to the Earth which he did tread upon for his sake Put a Liefhebber or Virtueso among a company of rare Pictures and he will pick out the best pieces for their proper value But a friend or a child will more esteem the Picture of a Benefactor or Ancestor for its relation The respect of the one is terminated in the Picture that of the other is radicated in the exemplar Yet still an Image is but an Image and the kinds of respect must not be confounded The respect given to an Image must be respect proper for an Image not Courtship not Worship not Adoration More respect is due to the person of the meanest beggar than to all the Images of Christ and his Apostles and a 1000. Primitive Saints or Progenitors Hitherto there is neither difference nor perill either of Idolatry or superstition Wherein then did consist this guilt of Idolatry contracted by the Roman Church I am willing for the present to pass by the private abuses of particular persons which seem to me no otherwise chargeable upon the whole Church than for Connivence As the making Images to counterfeit tears and words and gestures and complements for advantage to induce silly people to believe that there was something of divinity in them and the multitude of fictitious Relicks and suppositious Saints which credulity first introduced since covetousness hath nourished I take no notice now of those remote suspitions or suppositions of the possibility of want of intention either in the Priest that consecrates the Sacrament or in him that Baptised or in the Bishop that ordeined him or in any one through the whole line of succession in all which cases according to your own principles you give divine worship to corporeall Elements which is at least materiall Idolatry I will not stand now to examine the truth of your distinctions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet you know well enough that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no religious worship and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is coin lately minted that will not pass for current in the Catholick Church Whilst your common people understand not these distinctions of degrees of honour what holds them from falling downright into Idolatry Neither do I urge how you have distributed the Patronage of particular Countries the Cure of severall Diseases the protection of all distinct professions of men and all kinds of creatures among the Saints just as the Heathen did among their Tutelary Gods nor how little warrant you have for this practise from experience nor lastly how you build more Churches erect more Altars offer more presents powr out more prayers make more vows perform more offices to the Mother than to the Son Yet though we should hold our peace methinks you should ponder these things seriously and either for your own satisfaction or ours take away such unnecessary occasions of scandall and disunion But I cannot omit that the Councill of Trent is not contented to enjoyn the Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament which we never deny but of the Sacrament it self that is according to the common current of your Schoolmen the Accidents or Species of Bread and Wine because it conteins Christ Why do they not adde upon the same grounds that the pix is to be adored with divine worship because it conteins the Sacrament Divine honour is not due to the very Humanity of Christ as it is abstracted from the Deity but to the whole person Deity and Humanity hypostatically united Neither the Grace of Union nor the Grace of Unction can confer more upon the Humanity than the Humanity is capable of There is no such Union between the Deity and the Sacrament neither immediatly nor yet mediately mediante corpore Neither do you ordinarily ascribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or divine worship to a Crucifix or to the Image of Christ indeed not Terminatively but transeuntly so as not to rest in the Image or Crucifix but to pass to the exemplar or person crucified But why a piece of Wood should be made partaker of divine honours even in Transitu or in the passage passeth my understanding The Heathens wanted not the same pretext for all their gross Idolatry Let them plead for themselves Non ego c. I do not worship that stone which I see but I serve him whom I do not see Lastly whilst you are pleased to use them I may not forget those strange