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	unity_n	2,197	5	9.0779	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33141	An Epistle to the authour of the Animadversions upon Fiat lux in excuse and justification of Fiat lux against the said animadversions.		1663 (1663)	Wing C428; ESTC R16551	53,082	113

schism c. So I speak there And to this you reply that the Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true not that Roman Church that now is So so then say I that former true Church must fall then som time or other when did she fall and how did she fall by apostacy heresy or schism Perhaps say you neither way for she might fall by an earthquake Sir we speak not here of any causal or natural downfal or death of mortals by plague famine or earthquake but a moral and voluntary laps in faith What do you speak to me of earthquakes you adde therfor the second time that she might fall by idolatry and so neither by apostacy heresy or schism Good Sir idolatry is a mixt misdemeanour both in faith and manners I speak of the single one of faith And he that falls by idolatry if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire he falls by heresy by apostacy if he keep none At last finding your self pusled in the third place you lay on load She fell say you by apostacy idolatry heresy schisme licentiousnes and prophanenes of life And in this you do not much unlike the drunken youth who being bid to hit his masters finger with his when he perceived he could not do it he ran his whole fist against it But did she fall by apostacy By a partial one say you not a total one Good sir in this division apostasy is set to expres a total relaps in opposition to heresy which is the partial Did she then fall by heresy in adhering to any error in faith contrary to the approved doctrin of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and catholik Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto Sir I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad bominem to one that does not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self but as an other ordinary particular Church as you say she is then might you find some one or other more general Church if any ther were to judg her som Oecumenical councel to condemn her som fathers either greek or latin expresly to write against her as Protestants now do som or other grave solemn autority to censur her or at least som company of beleevers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell none of which since you are not able to assign my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was The fourth assertion frequently say you pleaded by our Authour is that all things as to religion were ever quiet and in peace before the Protestants relinquishment of the Roman Sea This principle you pretend is drawn out of Fiat Lux not becaus it is there but only to open a door for your self to expatiate into som wide general discours about the many wars distractions and factious altercations that hav been aforetime up and down the world in som several ages of Christianity And you therfor say it is frequently pleaded by me becaus indeed I never speak one word of it And it is in truth a fals and fond assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account Fift is that the first reformers were most of them contemptible persons their means indirect and ends sinister Where is it sir where is it that I meddle with any mens persons or say they are contemptible What and how many are these persons and where did they live But this you adde of your own in a vast universal notion to the end you may bring in the apostles and prophets and som kings into the list of persons by me surnamed contemptible and liken my speech who never speak any such thing to the sarcasms of Celsus Lucian Porphiry Julian and other Pagans So likewise in the very beginning of this your second chapter you spend four leaves in a paralel betwixt me and the Pagan Celsus wherof ther is not any one member of it true Doth Fiat Lux say you lay the caus of all the troubles disorders tumults wars within the Nations of Europ upon the Protestants Doth he charg the Protestants that by their schisms and seditions they make a way for other revolts doth he gather a rapsody of insignificant words doth he insist upon their divisions doth he mannage the arguments of the Jews against Christ c. so doth Celsus who is confuted by learned Origen c. Where does Fiat Lux where does does he does he any such thing Are you not ashamed to talk at this rate I give a hint indeed of the divisions that be amongst us and the frequent argumentations that are made to imbroil and pusle one another with our much evil and little appearance of any good in order to unity and peace which is the end of my discours But must I therfor be Celsus Did Celsus do any such thing to such an end It is the end that moralises and specifies the action To diminish Christianity by upbraiding our frailties is paganish to exhort to unity by representing the inconvenience of faction is a Christian and pious work When honest Protestants in the Pulpit speak ten times more full and vehemently against the divisions wars and contentions that be amongst us than ever came into my thoughts must they therfor be every one of them a Celsus a pagan Celsus what stuff is this But it is not only my defamation you aim at your own glory coms in the reer If I be Celsus the pagan Celsus then must you forsooth be Origen that wrote against him honest Origen That is the thing Pray sir it is but a word let me advice you by the way that you do not forget your self in your heat and give your wife occasion to fall out with you However you may yet will not she like it perhaps so well that her husband should be Origen My sixt principle must be that our departure from Rome hath been the caus of all our evils This is but the same with the fourth in other words but added for one to make up the number and it is you say every where spread over the face of Fiat Lux. Sir you may say what you pleas to be in his face but I know best what is in the heart and bowels both of Fiat Lux and his authour And sure I am this never came into my thoughts Our dissentions in faith may well multiply as we see with our eyes they do by our further departur from unity and this may caus much evil But the branches of our too too manifold evils found among the sons of men spread all as Fiat Lux also speaks from that fertil root of our innate

that a man hath not the wings of an eagle Yet so you deal with me here a great master of arts with a civil logician But that I may go along with you we had not sir our Christianity immediately from the East nor from Joseph of Arimathea as I have already told you we Englishmen had not For as he delivered his Christianity to som Brittons when our land was not called England but Albion or Brittany and the inhabitants were not Englishmen but Brittons or Kimbrians so likewise did that Christianity and the whole news of it quite vanish being sodainly overwhelmed by the ancient deluge of paganisme nor did it ever come from them to us Nay the Brittons themselves had so forgot and lost it that even they also needed a second conversion which they received from Pope Eleutherius And that was the only news of Christianity which prevailed and lasted even amongst the very Brittons which seems to me a great secret of divine providence in planting and governing his Church as if he would have nothing to stand firm and lasting but what was immediately fixed by and seated upon that rock For all other conversions have vanisht and the very seats of the other Apostles failed that all might the better cement in an unity of one head Nay the tables which God wrote with his own hand were broken but the other written by Moses remained that we might learn to give a due respect to him whom God hath set over us as our head and ruler under him and none exalt himself against him I know you will laugh at this my observation but I cannot but tell you what I think To return then to my former discours when I speak good sir of the news of Christianity first brought to this land I mean not that which was first brought upon the earth or soil of this land and spoken to any body then dwelling here but which was delivered to the forefathers of the now present inhabitants who be Saxes or Englishmen And I say that we the now present inhabitants of England off-spring of the English or Saxons had the first news of our Christianity immediately from Rome and from Pope Gregorius the Roman Patriarch by the hands of his missioner Saint Austin And this all men know to be as true as they know that Papists are now becom odious Sith then the categorick assertions are both clear namely that the Papist first brought us the news of Christianity and secondly that the Papist is now become odious amongst us what say you to my consequence that the whole story of Christianity may as well be deemed a Romance as any part of that Christianity we at first received is now judged to be part of a Romance This consequence of mine it behoved a man of those great parts you would be thought to have to heed attentively and yet you never mind it You adde in the close of your discours that many things delivered us at first with the first news of Christianity may be afterwards rejected for the love of Christ and by the commission of Christ But sir what love of Christ dictates what commission of Christ allows you to choos and reject at your own pleasure what heretick was ever so much a fool as not to pretend the love of Christ and commission of Christ for what he did How shall any one know you do it out of any such either love or commission sith those who delivered the articles of faith now rejected pretended equal love of Christ and commission of Christ for the delivery of them as of any other And why may we not at length reject all the rest for love of somthing els when this love of Christ which is now crept out into the very outside of our lips is slipt off thence Do you think men cannot finde a cavil against him as well as his law delivered unto us with the first news of him and as easily dig up the root as cut up the branches Is not the thing already don and many becom atheists upon that account Pray speak to me somthing of reason Did not the Jews by pretens of their love to that immortal God whom their forefathers served reject the whole gospel at once and why may not we possibly as well do it by peece meals Let us leav cavils Grant my supposition which you know you cannot deny then speak to my consequence which I deem most strong and good to infer a conclusion which neither you nor I can grant I tell you plainly and without tergiversation before God and all his holy angels what I should think if I descended unto any conclusion in this affair And it is this either the Papist who holds at this day all those articles of faith which were delivered at the first conversion of this land by S. Austin is unjustly becom odious amongst us or els my honest Parsons throw off your cassocks and resign your benefices and glebe-lands into the hands of your neighbours whose they were aforetime my consequence is irrefragable If any part much more if many parts great substantial parts of religion brought into the land with the first news of Christianity be once rejected as they are now amongst us as Romish or Romancical and that rejection or reformation be permitted then may other parts and all parts if the gap be not stopt be lookt upon at length as points of no better a condition Nay it must needs be so for the same way and means that lopt off som branches will do the like to others and root too A villification of that Church wherein they find themselvs who have a minde to prevaricate upon pretens of Scriptur and power of interpreting it light spirit or reason adjoyned with a personal obstinacy that will not submit will do it roundly and to effect This first brought off the Protestants from the Roman catholick Church this lately separated the Presbyterian from the English Protestant Church the Independent from the Presbyterian the Quaker from the other Independents And this last good man heeds nothing of Christian religion but only the moral part which in deed and truth is but honest paganisme This speech is worthy of all serious consideration And I could wish you would ponder it seriously See if the Quaker deny not as resolutely the regenerating power of baptism as you the efficacy of absolution See if the Presbyterian do not with as much reason evacuate the prelacy of Protestants as they the Papacy See if the Socinian arguments against the Trinity be not as strong as yours against the Eucharist See if the Jew do not with as much plausibility deride Christ as you his Church See if Porphiry Julian and other ancient pagans do not as strongly confute all Christianity as we any part of it He is a fool that having a will and power enough cannot find out as plausible a pretence for the pulling down of churches as we had any for the destroying of monasteries