Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	faith_n	infallible_a	3,589	5	9.5501	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26998	The Protestant religion truely stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter ; prepared for the press some time before his death ; whereunto is added, by way of preface, some account of the learned author, by Mr. Danel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Williams, Daniel, 1643?-1716.; Sylvester, Matthew, 1636 or 7-1708.	1692 (1692)	Wing B1359; ESTC R1422	79,512	227

are thought to make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace and that are set in the least opposition or competition with Christs Merits or in any place save commanded subordination to him nay he says he firmly holds That Works done with a conceit of obliging God by Merit in commutative Justice or as conceited sufficient without a Saviour and the pardon of their failings do more further their Damnation than Salvation Yea p. 97. none but Christ merited of strict distributive Justice according to the Law of Innocency nor by any Works that will save from the charge of sin and desert of death And that thou mayest know what he ascribes to our Graces Holiness or Works He tells us p. 119. we mean by Merit but the moral aptitude for the reward of a free Benefactor who also is Rector when the ordering of a free gift suspended on official conditions is sapientially made a means of procuring obedience This one Clause if understood and he is a bold Traducer of so great a Man that cannot understand words so plain will acquit Mr. B. and inform thee of the place of all Gospel Conditions 1. All Gospel-blessings are the free gifts of Christ as Benefactor they have their being without any regard to what we do therefore nothing in man is a jot of the righteousness or merit for which they are bestowed 2. Christ is our Rector or Governor he will rule us as well as be beneficent to us 3. As a means to incline us to comply with him as Rector he suspends these blessings on terms of what he makes our Duty and wisely orders them as Motives to our Obedience 4. Any Act of our Obedience is no more than a conformity to that Order of his and doth not hinder all we receive from him to be of free gift Obj. But he saith that good Works are necessary to Salvation Answ He doth so and how few deny it But 1. Not if a man dye as soon as he be converted but if he have time p. 94. 2. Their rewardableness is by Gods free Grace and Promise for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness Sacrifice and Intercession their imperfection being pardoned and their holiness amiable through him These are his words p. 76. 3. He saith Not without or as a supplement to the Sacrifice Merits and free Grace of Christ our Saviour and Faith in him p. 93 75. And we give our selves to Christ as our Prophet Priest and King to be saved by his Merits p. 94.4 He saith our best Works will not save a man from the charge of sin and desert of death p. 97. 5. He denies that external Obedience is necessary to our admission into a justified state as he shews in the Thief on the Cross And when he saith we are justified by our Faith Godliness and Works Justification is not taken by him for the pardon of sin which he ascribes wholly to the Merits of Christ but he takes Justification there for our acquittance against the accusation that we are Infidels Ungodly and Hypocrites And saith that against the charge that we are Sinners deserving Hell we are justified by Christ believed in p. 94. His meaning is plainly this Christ alone by his Merits forgives our sins and purchased eternal Life for us But seeing that Christ hath promised to forgive none but the penitent Believer and declared he will destroy all impenitent unbelieving ungodly sinners Now he thinks that we must be truly acquitted that we are not such or we shall not be saved by Christ Yea he thinks that when God justifies a man for Christs Merits he doth also declare a man to be a true Believer because he will justifie no other and will justifie all such and when God admits a man into Glory he doth even thereby adjudge him a believing penitent holy and upright man and free from the charge of being an infidel hypocritical unholy Enemy against whom the Gospel denounceth Vengeance and bars relief Let these things be weighed and none will wonder that he should say on his sick bed No works I will leave out works if he grant me the other And truly in health none spake more humbly of his own Works than he used to do But because some confident weak persons have inferred from that passage that he changed his Principles when he came to dye we shall inform thee that after that passage was utter'd by him even the night before his death Mr. Baxter was asked whether he was of the same sentiments as formerly about Justification He answered That he had told the World sufficiently his thoughts about it by several Writings and otherwise and thither he referr'd them And after a little pause with his Eyes lifted up to Heaven he cryed Lord pity pity pity the Ignorance of this poor City And in the time of his sickness he declared to us and others that his thoughts in these things were the same as formerly Our regards to Mr. B. force the Publication of what we here insert tho' we would not be judged so happy as to arrive at his Light to lead us to a full Agreement with all his Sentiments As to this Book we wish there be not still great need of such helps against Popery and we are assured it will give more light than some greater Volumes on this Subject That God may render it useful shall be the Prayer of Thy Servants in the Gospel Daniel Williams Matthew Sylvester Protestant Religion Truly Stated and Justified c. THE Deceiver calleth his Book The Touchstone of the Reformed Gospel as if he owned a Gospel distinct from that of the Reformed Church And he undertakes to name fifty two points which the Protestants affirm but tells you not where nor proveth his affirmation but you must believe him as a Touchstone of Truth Dec. The first Protestant affirmation feigned is That there is not in the Church One and that an infallible Rule for understanding the Holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith Answ A meer Lye if he mean that this is any part of Protestant Doctrine but he may find as crude confused words in some ignorant person that is called a Protestant The Reformed Catholicks hold that there is in the Church one and that an infallible Rule for understanding the holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith And that Rule is The Evidence of its own meaning as inherent in its self discernible or intelligible by men prepared and instructed by competent Teaching and Study and the necessary help of Gods Grace and Spirit This is that Rule But the Reformed believe not 1. That there is any Rule by which ignorant prejudiced heretical wilfully blind wicked uncapable men can understand such Scripture as they are hereby undisposed to understand unless by a great change made on themselves Nor that any Prince can make a Statute which on Man can misunderstand abuse or violate 2. Nor that Men can understand it

lead them into all Truth and keep them from doing that Work Erroneously which they were commissioned to do Tho' not to make them absolutely free from Sin or Errour in all other things And therefore the Scripture written by them is free from Errour by Virtue of the special promise and Spirit 3. That all true Christians really regenerate are free from all Errour inconsistent with true saving Faith and Title to Salvation 4. That therefore the Church as it signifieth only the said regenerate true Christians hath no Damning Errour or none but what is pardoned as consistent with saving Faith and Holiness 5. That the Universal Visible Church is the whole Company of men on Earth that profess true saving Faith and are by Covenant Vow Baptized into this Profession And that all this true Visible Church professeth no Errour inconsistent with their Profession of the foresaid saving Faith Because the profession of saving Faith is essential to visible Christianity and to the visible Church For mark that I say not that they profess no Errour inconsistent with sincere Faith in themselves subjectively nor yet that as to objective Faith may not by unseen consequence overthrow it For there is such a concatenation of Divine revealed Truths that it is a doubtful case whether any one Errour which all men have do not by remote Consequence subvert the very Foundations But no true Visible Church or Christian so professeth any one Errour as not to profess the essential points of Faith and Godliness tho' they may think falsely that both are true Therefore Protestants teach that unseen Consequences are not to be so charged on those that see them not and hold fast the injured Truth as if it were a known or direct denyal of the Truth 6. But every Church and every man being imperfect both in knowledge Faith and Holiness have all some Errour For to be objectively de fide is to be of Divine Revelation And all the Scripture is Divine Revelation And if the question be Whether any Pope Council or Church understand all the Scripture without any Errour judge by Commentators and common Experience And now what saith the Deceiver against all this 1. He citeth Isa 59.21 God hath promised to preserve his Word in the Church Ergo the Church cannot Err A forged Consequence no more followeth but that the true Church shall not lose or forsake Gods Word For then it would cease to be the Church But 1. Not that the best Churches understand all that Word without any Errour 2. Nor that any particular Church visible may not apostatize or turn Hereticks or corrupt Gods Word and forbid men to use it in a known Tongue as the Papists do Next he citeth Joh. 14.16 As if all the Church had the same promise of the Spirit of Infallibility as the Apostles had If so then 1. Papists are none of the true Church because they have many Errours 2. And if the major part be the Church rather than a minor Sect then all other Christians that are against Popery are free from Errour for they are twice or thrice as many as the Papists 3. And when the far greater part were Arrians they were free from Errour Yea the Council of Sirmium to which Pope Liberius professed full consent Or did Christ break his promise to all these 4. If the Pope or all his Prelates have as full a promise of the Spirit as the Apostles then they may write us a new Bible and Word of God as they did No wonder then if the Canons and Decretals be as much Gods Word as the Bible But why then do they not confirm their Canons by Miracles as the Apostles did And why did so many Popes contradict each other Had both Stephanus Formosus Nicholas and the foresaid Johns that denyed the Life to come c. the same Gift as the Apostles Surely we may well say to them as St. James Shew me thy Faith by thy Works They did shew it by most odious Simony Gluttony Drunkenness Lying with Maids and Wives even at the Apostolick Doors Murdering Christs Members by Thousands Silencing faithful Preachers Deposing Emperours Commanding Perjury and Rebellion even to Sons against their own Fathers Forbidding all Church Worship of God to whole Kingdoms for many years when a King will not obey the Pope By such Works they shew their Faith O the power of Satan and the horrid pravity of man when such things are not only Justified but trusted to for Justification and made consistent with a Church that never Erred Indeed these Errours crept in by Degrees which maketh it difficult to Expositors of Scripture Prophesie to know just the year when the mischief became so ripe as to prove Rome to be Babylon Apostate to Pagano-Christianity and the Pope to be Antichrist But if I see a man Raging mad in Bedlam I will not make it an Article of my Faith that he is Sanae mentis because I know not just when his amentia deliratio or Melancholly became a Mania or Furor The Deceiver also citeth Mat. 18.17 viz. Because men must hear the Church where a Sinner dwelleth that calleth him to Repentance after due Proof and Admonition therefore the Pope and his Prelates cannot Err. An Argument liker a Derision than a serious Proof Did not the Pope then Err when Bishops and Councils have in vain called him to Repent Doth not the Church Err then most damnably that commandeth Murder Treason and most heynous Sin and is the Leader of the Impenitent Must we take such then as Heathens and Publicans But as the man thinketh so the Bell tinketh Do but Fancy that by the Church is meant only the Pope and his Clergy and that all is such Sin which the Pope calleth so tho' God command us and then all such Texts will seem to them to say what they would have them say The man also citeth Eph. 5.27 viz. Christ will present his Regenerate Church perfect and spotless in Judgment What then Ergo the Visible Church on Earth hath no Errour or Spot And Ergo the Pope and his Clergy are this Visible perfect Church And why not as well Constantinople Alexandria Antioch or Jerusalem the Mother Church Which part is it that is the whole or indefectible What is profaining Gods Word if this be not If any should be forbidden the Scripture it is these prophaning Priests The Eighth accused Point That the Church hath been hidden and Invisible Ans We do not think that the Pope and his Clergy-Church have been hidden and invisible Their Wars even in Italy and Rome for many Ages made them Visible Yea and palpable too The Kings and Emperours that they Fought against or Deposed knew them above 100000 Waldenses and Albigenses felt them to the Death Quae Regio in terris talis non plena laboris Whether this man knew not the Protestants Judgment herein or whether he would not have his Reader know it I cannot tell but I shall tell you what it

to Effect 6. As for them that feign that we say that God decreeth that some shall be Saved and others Damned however they Live it is but the dictates of the Father of Lies We say that God at once decreeth the End and the Means as he doth not decree that men shall live though they neither Eat nor Drink nor that they shall have Corn though they neither Plow nor Sow but that they shall Eat and Drink and live thereby and that they shall Plow and Sow and mannure the Soil and so have Corn. So God doth at once decree that this and that man shall have the means of Grace especially a Saviour and the Gospel and shall faithfully use them and be Sanctified by them and sincerely obey God and overcome the World the Flesh and the Devil and persevere to the End and that for Christs Merits he will give them the Grace of his Spirit and pardon their Sins and bring them to Glory All this is our Decree of God But he doth not decree that men shall sin that they may be Damned For sin is no Work of God nor a means appointed by him for Men's Damnation no more than a Righteous King doth make men Traytors or Murderers that he may Hang them But he justly denyeth his Grace to many that forfeit it by willful Resistance Disobedience and Contempt though he take not the forfeiture of his Elect. He is deceived and wrongeth God that maketh him the Author of Men's sin And so doth he that feigneth God to send his Son to redeem the World and his Word and Ministers to call them and his Spirit to renew them and all this at Random not knowing whether it may not be all lost or leaving it chiefly to the Free-will of them whose wills are contrarily inclined and vitiated Whether Christ and all his Preparations shall be lost The plain Christian that holdeth but to these two points that our Destruction is of our selves but our help and Salvation of God and that God is the first and chief cause of all good and Men and Devils of all Evil is liker to be wise with Sobriety and Safety than the Ignorant Intruders into Gods Secrets and the prating Calumniators that speak Evil of the things which they understand not and reproach those that speak not as Rashly and Ignorantly as themselves even in some equivocal unexplained words Methinks Papists should be so kind to God as seeing the Pope can tell who is a Damned Heretick and to be kill'd even all that believe not in the Pope or are not his Subjects and who is in Purgatory and how long he shall stay there Or how many years Torment the Pope can shorten They should allow God to know a little more and that not as one whose Power and Grace is Conquered by impotent Worms against his absolute Will The Five and Twentieth accused Point That every one ought Infallibly to assure himself of his Salvation and to believe that he is of the number of the Predestinate Ans I would fain excuse the man as far as I can and therefore I hope that as the man was excusable that did eat Snakes for Snigs or Eels so he read some Pamphlet of an Antimonian either Crisp or Saltmarsh or some other such or talkt with some of their silly Novices and thought he had Convers'd with the Reformed Catholicks or read the Confessions of the Reformed Churches The first Sentence is a Fundamental Truth and a damnable Falshood as the Equivocal words are variously understood And is it not pity that the Priests of the Infallible Church should put things so different into the same words and that in an accusation of so many Churches and Nations when yet God himself is feigned by them to write by his Spirit so Unintelligibly that without these Doctors skilful Exposition it is but like to make men Hereticks that is Adversaries to the Pope and his Clergy To assure our selves of our Salvation may mean to give all diligence to make our Salvation infallibly sure This every one ought to do Or it may mean that every man ought to believe it as an infallible Truth that he shall be saved The next Sentence seemeth to make this his meaning in the first Which if it be he is a false Calumniator of the Reformed Churches But if the first be his meaning and he deny it he is an open Enemy to Man's Salvation What is all the Scripture for and all our Religion but to make sure of our Salvation 2 Pet. 1. 10. Give all diligence to make your Calling and Election sure And if no man can be sure to what purpose hath God made so many promises of it expressing the Conditions to them that believe that love God that forsake all for him if no man can know whether he perform the Condition and that he is within this promise Why doth God lay down so many signs to difference the Children of God from the Children of the Devil if they cannot be discerned Sure Heaven and Hell be not like and yet are the Heirs of Heaven and Hell undistinguishable Is the Image of God and the Devil so like that none can know them asunder No not the man that hath had them both And why doth God so aften call on Believers to Rejoyce if they cannot know whether they shall be in Heaven and Hell for ever If you say he is not sure to persevere many Papists grant that the Confirmed may And why may not Bradford Hooper Sanders and Thousands else that are Dying by the Sacred blood-thirsty Church be assured when they are Dying that they have forsaken Life and all for Christ But oportet mendacem esse memorem still Why do you not tell men when the Pope is selling them Pardons and saving them out of Purgatory that when all 's done they can have no assurance of Salvation yea that they ought not to endeavour to make it sure And whose now is the safe Church and Religion if a Papist can never be sure that he shall be saved in your Church and Religion nor sure that he is in a State of Salvation That is that he is a true Christian and hath Charity and is an honest man 2. A man that hath got true and clear Evidence that he hath a Confirmed Faith and Hope and loveth God as God above all ought consequently to take it for an infallible Truth that so Dying he shall be saved Else he must either give God the Lie that hath promised it or he must be supposed to be deceived when he thinketh that he believeth and loveth God But that every man must believe that he is of the Number of the Predestinate to Salvation is a damnable Doctrine because it requireth all the Millions of ungodly men to believe a Lie yea to believe it as a Divine Truth and to make God both the Author of the Lie and of the deceit of our selves by this Command And when Millions are not of the

separating from the far greater part of the Christian World because they refuse Subjection to this usurping Vice-Christ and judging all to Fire and Ruine that renounce not all humane Senses and worship not Bread pretended to be deifyed by daily numerous Miracles of the basest Priests and deposing Kings that will not be such Executioners and justifying their Subjects in Perjury and Rebellion We will not differ with you for the Name whether you will call those that are such Antichrists or Diabolists Whether such a State be the Babylon or far worse as sinning against more Light and by more horrid abuse of the Name of Christ against himself The Fourteenth accused Point That no man nor any but God can forgive or retain Sins Ans False as undistinguished We hold 1. That to forgive Sin being the forgiving of the Punishment of Sin and the obligation thereto 1. Parents may on just cause forgive Corrective punishment to their Children and Masters to their Servants 2. Magistrates may on just cause forgive Corporal punishment to Subjects 3. Equals may forgive Injuries to Friends and Enemies 4. Pastors may on just cause forgive the Church penalties of Excommunication which they had power to inflict And all the Flock must forgive and receive the penitent accordingly 5. When a Sinner by Faith and Repentance truly performeth the Condition of Gods pardon expressed in Scripture the Ministers of Christ are by Office authorized to declare and pronounce him pardoned by God and by the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper to Invest him in a pardoned State by delivering him a Sealed pardon But only Suppositively If his Faith and Repentance be sincere else he hath not Gods pardon of the Divine Punishment This is all true and plain and enough But we detest their Doctrine that say 1. That men can pardon the Spiritual and Eternal Punishment any otherwise than consequently declaring and delivering Gods pardon which shall hold good if the Priest refuse to declare or deliver it 2. Or that Popes or Priests pardon Purgatory pains and Masses and Money and the Redundance of Saints Merits and pleasing the Pope conduce thereto But if you will Speak so absurdly as to say that if the King send a pardon to a Traytor or Murderer the Messenger pardoned him we leave you to your phrases None of the Texts or Fathers cited speak for any more than what we hold The Pastors are to declare men pardoned that God pardoneth And while they so judge according to Gods Word it is pardoned in Heaven But not if they pardon the wicked and impenitent The Fifteenth accused Point That we ought not to confess our Sins to any man but to God only Ans This is a mere impudent Lie 1. We ought to confess our Sin to the Magistrate at his Judicature when we are justly accused of it 2. And to those that we have injured when it is needful to repair the wrong or to procure their forgiveness 3. And to those that we have tempted into Sin or encouraged in it when it is needful to their Repentance 4. And to some faithful bosome Friend when it is needful that such know our Faults that they may watch over us or advise us or pray for our pardon and deliverance 5. And when in Sickness danger of Death or other Affliction we get the Pastors of the Church to pray for us we should confess our Sin to them that they may know on what cause they speak to God for our forgiveness 6. And in any case of Guilt Trouble Fear or Difficulty in which we need the Pastors Counsel for our safety ease and peace of Conscience our selves and other Friends being insufficient hereto we should confess our Sins to the Pastors whose advice we seek As a Patient must truly open his Case to his Physician and a Clyent to his Councellor if he will not be deceived by deceiving them Is all this no Confession But Protestants believe not 1. That we must go to a Physician for every Flea-biting or Scratch or Cut-Finger or to a Lawyer to give him an account of all our Actions Money ot Lands nor to Priests in cases that our selves or ordinary Friends can safely and satisfactorily resolve 2. Nor that our Confessor must needs be a Papist Priest or one chosen by the Pope or our Enemies and not by our selves 3. Nor that we must open all our Secrets to him or make any Confession which will do more hurt than good nor over far to trust the Fidelity of a Knave nor a suspected or untryed person 4. And we have reason to suspect them that are importunate to know our Secrets 5. And when Confession is required as in order to obtain a false forged pardon and to set up the Domination of Usurpers over men's Consciences and over the World it 's then unlawful If Protestants would force Papists to confess all their secret Sins to them would not this same Deceiver say it were unlawful The Sixteenth accused Point That Pardons and Indulgences were not in the Apostles time Ans Another meer Lie as undistinguished Such Pardons as I before owned were in the Apostles times But the Popish feigned pardons were not The Seventeenth accused Point That the actions and passions of the Saints do serve for nothing to the Church Ans Most impudent calumny and falsehood 1. We hold that the Prayers of all the Saints on Earth are of great importance for the Churches welfare 2. And that their Doctrine Counsel and Reproof is so too they being the Lights of the World and the Salt of the Earth 3. And that their Example is of grea● benefit to the Church and World whi●● their Light so shineth before men that the● may see their good works and glorifie the●● Father which is in Heaven 4. And their Charitable Works of themselves sure are beneficial to the Church And so is their Defence of the Truth 5. And their Sufferings Glorifie Gods Power and his promises of reward and they encourage others to Victorious Constancy Do all these serve for nothing to the Church 6. Yea we are so far from holding what he feigneth that it is not the least cause of our hatred of Popery that it liveth by the Defamations Slander Persecution and cruel Murder of Saints 7. Yea as Abels Blood cryed against Cain so the Blood of Martyrs and dead Saints cryeth for Vengeance against the Persecutors of the Church 8. And seeing Christ saith that the Children of the Resurrection are like or equal to the Angels we have reason to believe that even now they are perfected Spirits Heb. 12.24 And knowing that Angels are very serviceable and beneficial to the Church on Earth we know not how far the Spirits of the just are so too But we have a sufficient Mediator and Advocate with the Father whose Sacrifice Merits and Advocation are perfect and need no supplement And the Spirits of the just do praise him as saved by his Merits and never boast that they