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	matter_n	4,045	5	5.7347	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65798	Notes on Mr. F.D.'s Result of a dialogue concerning the middle state of souls in a letter from Thomas White.	White, Thomas, 1593-1676.	1660 (1660)	Wing W1838; ESTC R27876	31,093	81

of as great mutability as time hath mutation is in potentia another thing to the proportion of the changes of time as because a man who walks can stop and the flame of a candle go out in an instant therefore the consistency of a material subject as to our minds consideration is but moment-strong and we can affirm nothing of it in force of contradiction more durable then the unchangeableness or identity of time which is purely a thought or an abstraction Out of this it follows that if we put in spirituall substances a more then momentanean constancy we must also put the force of contradiction in them proportionable to that constancy or identity of it self to it self Now your self seeming to admit this constancy under the name of aeviternity in spirits for a future eternity it seems to me you should admit nothing in spirits that is not compossible together in the subject and by evident consequence that not to have an act and to have one in the same aeviternity is as impossible as not to have and to have in the same instant of time You will peradventure tell me this position ruins some common opinions in Divinity and my brittle Vindicator would tell me it moulder'd away his faith Sir if you be of the opinion that Theology is arriv'd to its non plus ultra I am not I think many now common and probable opinions will in after ages be demonstrated against and prove erroneous and therefore the pure authority of Divines who build upon pure reason hath no farther force with me then their reason And I think I have learned this lesson out of Saint Augustin as I am sure your self also have how ever in practice apparences may seduce you from the exercise of it as if you believe it consonant to Scriptures Fathers Councils c. without a legitimate examination of them which when you go about you find them to be easily eluded by the glosses of blasted Authors many of which kind of Authors nevertheless Saint Hierom in his Comments upon the Scriptures was used to cite that men of understanding might see in the variety of divers conceits what truths might be picked out even of blasted Authors as Aristotle out of the verities mingled among false opinions drew his own demonstrations The rest of these Chapters is but an explication indifferent to both sides in which as you admit in Purgatory a disposition to charity so me thinks you should to the change of affections by it And whereas you say that the soul is extra viam the common Tenet of Divines should admonish you that she is not in state to have new revelations and changes which are the propriety of Via Notes on the tenth Chapter WHich is for its Positions entirely true and holy but you seem to suppose as true some misinformations or misapprehensions concerning your Adversary as that he questions generall traditions and calls them novelties which how you can do who know Saint Austin testifies in his time as yet the question was not agitated and that each part might prove either true or false and that the Authour of the celebrated Dialogues expresly teaches they were unknown till his dayes and from thence till Saint Odilo's time very little esteemed or noysed How such an opinion can chuse but be a Novelty in respect of the Church of God I cannot understand or that six hundred years ago with a known beginning can enroll it into the practices or doctrins delivered by the Apostles passes my reach As for the universall sense of the Church I hope the Council of Florence's act will demonstrate the contrary as you may see in my answer to the Vindicator whither I beg leave to remit you The Text you cite out of Saint Austin is excellently true Quae universa tenet Ecclesia ab Apostolis praecepta bene creduntur quanquam scripta non reperiantur but with these cautions That the Church that is the community of Believers as such not as a multitude of men hold them as of faith not opine them only to be current truths else every common perswasion grounded on any probable Reason or Authority would become an unchangeable Article of Christian Religion and in this I think I have your consent if I mistake not the the 32. Chapter of your Systema which I formerly cited and desire my Reader to peruse the whole Chapter being excellently pertinent to this purpose As also Verons general Rule of Catholike faith which I hear is newly translated into English There you shall see how warily that experienced Controvertist proceeds in separating faith from opinions No doctrin says he begun since the Apostles though confirm'd by miracles and those miracles reported by Saints or approved by generall Councils or attested in the Bulls of canonization can ever be an Article of faith Nor is the practice says the same Auhor even of the universall Church a ground firm enough to build a point of Catholike faith upon because the object of faith is truth and the Church often guides her practices by probable opinions which upon occasion she may change And for Decrees of Councils the same Doctor maintains and cites Bellarmin for his opinion that unless the Council proceed conciliarly that is by due examination c. and define properly not barely affirm a thing by simple assertion and occasionally as it were en passant it does not oblige our belief and which is highest of all though the Council decree expresly and professedly a Doctrin debated yet unless it be defined as a truth to be believed with Catholike faith they are not properly heretiques that hold the contrary What you deliver that one mans satispassion may by way of impetration satisfie for another and profit him is very acceptable and none but they who mistake the words can dislike the sense for we see humiliations accompany solemn prayers both in the Law of Moses and Grace and nature it self teaches us it is a convenient habit for him that intreats mercy Notes on the eleventh Chapter WHere I see very little for me particularly to except against but that you term our Tenet an Innovation which name better becomes your own But this is an Indulgence to be granted to the conceit every one has of his own arguments For the opinion that the sensitive or corporeall part of man is capable of venial sin in it self and so of goodness I neither have nor will have any thing to do with it You say 't is taught by the most speculative Divines as Scotus's Scool and Cajetan c. I dare not meddle with such great men As for your Opiniators you speak of I cannot point you to a fairer example then the Vindicators Creed which he hath declared to be his faith in his Discourse against me To the touch you give about probable opinions the question is too great to engage in on so slight an occasion The place you quote out of Saint Austin seems not to concern the

Katherin of Siena who spake with great confidence of knowing the mind of God being now in his last sickness took the B. Sacrament in his hands and with most solemn and fervent intreaties conjur'd his successors not to govern themselves by the Visions of such persons as give no reason for their counsels Compare now the probabilities of your Revelations with these that deceiv'd this good Pope Reflect first on the persons engag'd a famous Ermit and two canoniz'd Saints pretend to have it immediately from God on the one side on the other that is on yours some well meaning people perhaps and devout Pilgrims the graver Persons that write of such curiosities being generally if not altogether bare relaters of what they hear from others tell strange tales of Visions and Apparitions sometimes to themselves sometimes to their neighbours of which not one in a hundred but has something of ridiculous or superstitious Remember the poor soul that was put to scrub and wash in the Baths at Rome mentioned in those you will call Saint Gregory's Dialogues Read well Saint Bedes Revelations I mean those he as an Historian recounts to have happen'd to others as they said and you will find besides heaven hell and a penal place where imperfect Christians are punisht that is Purgatory that Revelation tells us of a fourth where was no punishment at all but in it agmina laetantia foelices Incolae c. Now let us ask in the name of Faith and Divinity what place is this The Revealer puts it utterly void of pain and so neither Hell nor Purgatory and full of joy nay so full that he could not imagin greater and so took it for Heaven but the Angel which guarded him checkt him in that thought and shew'd him Heaven afterwards What Divine can acquaint us with so much as the name of this place or explicate to us why in Justice the very little imperfect Christians whom he places in this gay place should not feel some pain proportion'd to their fault as wel as the venially more imperfect souls had to theirs and these so horrid too that he who had the Vision took the place for Hell Again he affirms absolutely of those very little imperfect souls that they all go to Heaven in the day of Judgment and the self same of those seen in Purgatory which makes the words following concerning some coming sooner subjoyn'd to this later seem an addition no such words being annex'd to the other state whereas me thinks according to the doctrin even of my opposers those who needed little or no purging should come to heaven sooner In a word this fourth place either contain'd souls perfect in charity and then 't is the heresy of John 22. to hold it or imperfect that is to be purg'd and yet in no penal place that is not in Purgatory which is equally opposit to Catholicism How strange a thing is it then that men should build us Articles of Faith upon Revelations which are at least subcontrary to Faith Besides which is remarkable Saint Gregory and Saint Bede are not pretended revealers or ascertaining the Visions on their own experience but upon the testimony of others they could never be assur'd of whereas those other engag'd the testimonys of the Saints themselves and yet miscarry'd most utterly After these two Revelations of the Dialogues and Bede there is none for any thing I know more authentique for this point then that which you recount in your first Chapter usher in so solemnly and rely on so assuredly how that once upon a time a certain dead mans skul told a certain holy man that every time he pray'd for the dead we feel said the deaths-head some comfort Now as ill luck would have it this was the skul of a meer Heathen and so if heathens use to go to Hell and not to Purgatory it might sound indeed in behalf of the damned but not the least concern those in Purgatory for whose relief only the Church prays Next consider the things they meddle with the one side fairly foretold what in time we could discover the truth of and so was concern'd to be wary and the matter it self so far from incredible that it was not improbable Your side tell stories far more craftily such as can never be disproved such as may defy all the world to discover any falshood in them but hold a little all this high confidence I doubt is not granted on their assuredness of truth but impossibilty of triall for who can detect the fraud of such subtil Merchants who pay us in coyn that no touchstone can examin who can charge them as those mistaken ones in Gregory the ninth's case were by dear experience of the whole Christian world in the miscarriage of the Holy War lamentably confuted Many other instances there are which all conspire to the confirmation of the holy Popes wise advice let them give Reason for their promises The third note which I think I also omitted relates to your cencession that by the order of Nature souls in the state of separation are absolutely immutable and cannot change their posture from Purgatory to Heaven but supernaturally they may If you mean by supernaturality the extraordinary power of God I agree with you and so our controversy will be at an end but if you mean any constant ordinary way appointed by God to effect that change before the day of Judgment I conceive it very reasonable some cleer evidence be produced such as may warrant an Opinion that by your own Tenet so directly crosses the course of nature when I see that you shall immediately find me most ready to submit till then I hope neither you nor any of my fiercest opposers will have the least just cause to condemn me If after this you demand How shall we distinguish what the Church or Councils teach to be believed as of Faith from other doctrins promiscuously delivered First I do not remember this Objection anywhere insisted on by either of my late Opponents and I am very slow to stir farther then I am mov'd and indeed think it inconvenient to start new game before we have hunted down the old Secondly Are not you oblig'd as well as I to provide an answer for such a Question I am confident that the strictest of you do not hold all that is taught in the Church or defin'd by Councils even in doctrin and manners are Apostolicall Revelations if you agree with me so far why do you think me bound to sever the points of rigorous Catholique Faith from Tenets of an inferiour degree rather then your selves where we are all indifferently concern'd why do you exact the performance from me alone as if it were not your duty as well as mine not that I conceive it impossible to be done to full satisfaction but that I am no more engaged to do it then you though perhaps upon occasion of a second Essay I may offer my endeavours towards the cleering that point