Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	call_v	faith_n	word_n	4,676	5	4.3616	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A68833	A briefe declaration of the universalitie of the Church of Christ, and the unitie of the Catholike faith professed therein delivered in a sermon before His Maiestie the 20th. of Iune 1624. at Wansted. By Iames Ussher, Bishop of Meath.	Ussher, James, 1581-1656.	1629 (1629)	STC 24547; ESTC S118942	28,513	46

essentially necessary for the making of one a member of the Church Now the profession which she required of all that were to receive Baptisme was for the Agenda or practicall part an abrenuntiation of the Divell the World and the Flesh with all their sinfull workes and lustes and for the Credenda the things to be beleeved an acknowledgement of the articles of the Creed which being solemnly done she then baptised them in this faith intimating thereby sufficiently that this was that one Faith commended unto her by the Apostles as the other that one Baptisme which was appointed to be the Sacrament of it This Creed though for substance it was the same every where yet for forme was somewhat different and in some places received moe enlargements than in others The Westerne Churches herein applyed themselves to the capacitie of the meaner sort more than the Easterne did using in their Baptisme that shorter Forme of Confession commonly called The Apostles Creed which in the more ancient times was briefer also than now it is As we may easily perceive by comparing the Symbol recited by Marcellus Ancyranus in the Profession of the faith which he delivered to Pope Iulius with the expositions of the Apostles Creed written by the Latin Doctors wherein the mention of the Fathers being Maker of heaven and earth the Sonnes Death and Descending into Hell and the Communion of Saints is wholly omitted All which though they were of undoubted veritie yet for brevities sake seeme at first to have beene omitted in this short Summe because some of them perhaps were not thought to be altogether so necessary for all men which is Suarez his judgement touching the point of the descent into Hell and some that were most necessary either thought to be sufficiently implied in other Articles as that of Christ's death in those of his crucifixion and buriall or thought to be sufficiently manifested by the light of reason as that of the creation of heaven and earth For howsoever this as it is a truth revealed by God's Word becommeth an object for faith to apprehend Heb. 11.3 yet it is otherwise also clearely to be understood by the discourse of reason Rom. 1.20 even as the unitie and all the other attributes of the Godhead likewise are Which therefore may be well referred unto those Praecognita or common principles which nature may possesse the minde withall before that grace enlightneth it and need not necessarily to be inserted into that Symbol which is the badge and cognizance whereby the Beleever is to be differenced and distinguished from the Vnbeleever The Creed which the Easterne Churches used in Baptisme was larger then this being either the same or very little different from that which we commonly call the Nicene Creed because the greatest part of it was repeated and confirmed in the first generall Councell held at Nice where the first draught thereof was presented to the Synod by Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea with this Preamble As wee have received from the Bishops that were before us both at our first catechizing and when we received Baptisme and as we have learned from the holy Scriptures and as we have both beleeved and taught when wee entred into the Ministery and in our Bishoprick it selfe so beleeving at this present also we declare this our faith unto you To this the Nicene Fathers added a more cleare explication of the Deitie of the Sonne against the Arrian heresie wherewith the Church was then troubled professing him to be begotten not made and to be of one substance with the Father The second generall Councell which was assembled fiftie-six yeares after at Constantinople approving this confession of the faith as most ancient and agreeable to Baptisme inlarged it somewhat in the Article that concerned the Holy Ghost especially which at that time was most oppugned by the Macedonian Heretickes And whereas the Nicene confession proceeded no further than to the beliefe which we have in the holy Trinitie the Fathers of Constantinople made it up by adding that which was commonly professed touching the Catholicke Church and the priviledges belonging thereunto Epiphanius repeating this Creed at large affirmeth it to haue been delivered unto the Church by the Apostles Cassianus avoucheth as much where he urgeth this against Nestorius as the Creed anciently received in the Church of Antioch from whence hee came The Romane Church after the dayes of Charles the great added the article of the procession of the H●ly Ghost from the Sonne unto this Symboll and the Councell of Trent hath now recommended it unto us as that principle in which all that professe the faith of Christ doe necessarily agree and the firme and ONELY FOVNDATION against which the Gates of Hell shall never prevaile It is a matter confessed therefore by the Fathers of Trent themselues that in the Constantinopolitane Creed or in the Romane Creed at the farthest which differeth nothing from the other but that it hath added Filióque to the procession of the Holy Ghost and out of the Nicene Creed Deum de Deo to the articles that concerne the Sonne that onely foundation and principle of faith is to be found in the unitie whereof all Christians must necessarily agree Which is otherwise cleared sufficiently by the constant practice of the Apostles and their successours in the first receiving of men into the Societie of the Church For in one of the Apostles ordinary Sermons we see there was so much matter delivered as was sufficient to convert men unto the faith and to make them capable of Baptisme and those Sermons treated onely of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ upon the receiving whereof the Church following the example of the Apostles never did denie Baptisme unto her Catechumeni In these first principles therefore must the foundation be contained and that common unitie of faith which is required in all the members of the Church The foundation then being thus cleared concerning the superstruction we learne from the Apostle that some build upon this foundation gold silver precious stones wood hay stubble Some proceed from one degree of wholesome knowledge unto another increasing their maine stock by the addition of those other sacred truthes that are revealed in the word of God and these build upon the foundation gold and silver and precious stones Others retaine the precious foundation but lay base matter upon it wood hay stubble and such other eyther unprofitable or more dangerous stuffe and others goe so farre that they overthrow the very foundation it selfe The first of these be wise the second foolish the third madde builders When the day of tryall commeth the first mans worke shall abide and hee himselfe shall receive a reward the second shall lose his worke but not himselfe he shall suffer losse saith the Apostle but he himselfe shall be saved the third shall lose both himselfe and his worke together And as in this spirituall

structure verie different kindes of materialls may be laid upon the same foundation some sound and some unsound so in either of them there is a great difference to be made betwixt such as are more contiguous to the foundation and such as be remoter off The fuller explication of the first principles of faith and the conclusions deduced from thence are in the ranke of those verities that be more neerely conjoyned to the foundation to which those falsities are answerable on the other side that grate upon the foundation and any way endanger it For that there be diverse degrees both of truthes and errors in Religion which necessarily must be distinguished is a thing acknowledged not by us alone but by the learnedest also of our Adversaries There be some Catholick verities say they which doe so pertaine to faith that these being taken away the faith it selfe must be taken away also And these by common use wee call not onely Catholick but verities of Faith also There are other verities which bee Catholick also and universall namely such as the whole Church holdeth which yet being overthrowne the faith is shaken indeed but not overturned And in the errors that are contrary to such truthes as these the faith is obscured not extinguished weakened not perished Neverthelesse though the faith bee not altogether destroyed by them yet is it evill at ease and shaken and as it were disposed to corruption For as there be certaine hurts of the bodie which doe not take away the life but yet a man is the worse for them and disposed to corruption eyther in whole or in part as there be other mortall hurts which take away the life so likewise are there certaine degrees of propositions which containe unsound doctrine although they have not manifest heresie In a word the generall rule concerning all these superstructions is that the more neere they are to the foundation of so much greater importance be the truthes and so much more perillous be the errors as againe the farther they are removed off the lesse necessary doth the knowledge of such verities prove to be and the swarving from the truth lesse dangerous Now from all that hath beene said two great Questions may be resolved which trouble manie The first is What wee may judge of our Fore-fathers who lived in the communion of the Church of Rome Whereunto I answere that wee have no reason to thinke otherwise but that they lived and dyed under the mercie of God For wee must distinguish the Papacie from the Church wherein it is as the Apostle doth Antichrist from the Temple of God wherein hee sitteth The foundation upon which the Church standeth is that common faith as we have heard in the unitie whereof all Christians doe generally accord Vpon this old foundation Antichrist raiseth up his new buildings and layeth upon it not hay and stubble onely but farre more vile and pernicious matter which wrencheth and disturbeth the very foundation it selfe For example It is a ground of the Catholick faith that Christ was borne of the Virgin Mary which in the Scripture is thus explained God sent forth his Sonne Made of a Woman This the Papacie admitteth for a certaine truth but insinuateth withall that upon the Altar God sendeth forth his Sonne made of Bread For the Transsubstantiation which these man would haue us beleeve is not an annihilation of the Bread and a substitution of the Bodie of Christ in the stead thereof but a reall conversion of the one into the other such as they themselves would have esteemed to be a bringing forth of Christ and a kinde of Generation of him For to omit the wilde conceits of Postellus in his booke De Nativitate Mediatoris ultimâ this is the doctrine of their graver Divines as Cornelius à Lapide the Iesuite doth acknowledge in his Romane Lectures that by the words of consecration truely and really as the bread is transsubstantiated so Christ is produced and as it were generated upon the Altar in such a powerfull and effectuall manner that if Christ as yet had not beene incarnate by these words Hoc est corpus meum he should be incarnated and assume an humane bodie And doth not this new Divinitie thinke you shrewdly threaten the ancient foundation of the Catholick beleefe of the Incarnation Yet such as in the dayes of our fore-fathers opposed the Popish doctrine of Transsubstantiation could alledge for themselues that the faith which they maintained was then preserved among the laitie and so had anciently beene preserved And of mine owne knowledge I can testifie that when I have dealt with some of the common people that would be counted members of the Romane Church and demanded of them what they thought of that which I knew to be the common Tenet of their Doctors in this point they not onely rejected it with indignation but wondered also that I should imagine any of their side to be so foolish as to give credit to such a senselesse thing Neither may we account it to have been a small blessing of God unto our ancestors who lived in that kingdome of darkenesse that the Ignorance wherein they were bred freed them from the understanding of those things which being known might prove so prejudiciall to their soules health For there be some things which it is better for a man to be ignorant of than to know and the not knowing of those profundities which are indeed the depths of Satan is to those that have not the skil to dive into the bottome of such mysteries of iniquitie a good and an happie Ignorance The ignorance of those principles of the Catholique faith that are absolutely necessarie to salvation is as dangerous a gulfe on the other side but the light of those common truthes of Christianitie was so great and so firmely fixed in the mindes of those that professed the name of Christ that it was not possible for the power of darkenesse to extinguish it nor the gates of Hell to prevaile against it Nay the verie solemne dayes which by the ancient institution of the Church were celebrated for the commemoration of the Blessed Trinitie the Nativitie Passion Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour Christ did so preserve the memorie of these things among the common people that by the Popish Doctors themselves it is made an argument of grosse and supine Ignorance that any should not have explicite knowledge of those mysteries of Christ which were thus publikely solemnized in the Church And which is the principall point of all the ordinary instruction appointed to be given unto men upon their death-beds was that they should looke to come to glorie not by their owne merits but by the vertue and merit of the passion of our Lord Iesus Christ that they should place their whole confidence in his death onely and in no other thing and that they should interpose his death betwixt God and their sinnes betwixt