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	ground_n	infallible_a	1,901	5	9.8298	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57666	The new planet no planet, or, The earth no wandring star, except in the wandring heads of Galileans here out of the principles of divinity, philosophy, astronomy, reason, and sense, the earth's immobility is asserted : the true sense of Scripture in this point, cleared : the fathers and philosophers vindicated : divers theologicall and philosophicall points handled, and Copernicus his opinion, as erroneous, ridiculous, and impious, fully refuted / by Alexander Rosse ; in answer to a discourse, that the earth may be a planet.	Ross, Alexander, 1591-1654.	1646 (1646)	Wing R1970; ESTC R3474	118,883	127

about a hundred years before Pythagoras who live about the time that Brutus was Consul who drove out the Kings as Solinus witnesseth and Tullie Livie saith that he flourished in the time of Servius Tullus Neither doth Plutarch affirme that Numa was scholar to Pythagoras but because their institutions were much alike it was supposed by some saith he that Numa had familiarity with Pythagoras It is true that Numa built a round Temple not in reference to this opinion of the Earths motion as you dreame for he was not of this opinion but in reference to the roundnesse of the world as Plutarch saith And he placed the Vestall fire in the middle not to represent the Sunne in the center of the world that is your glosse but to represent the site of the elementary fire which he conceived to be in the midst of the world 7. Sure Brag is a good dog with you for you tell us that there is scarce any of note or skill who are not Copernicus his followers and more there are of his opinion then all the rest put together and yet you tell us but of one Cardinall Cusanus and sixe more to avoide tediousnesse But in this you speake by the figure Antiphrasis by contraries You name but one Cardinall on your side and within three leaves after you tell us of two Sessions of Cardinalls on our side who condemned this opinion are not twelve more then one and shall not the judgement of so many be preferred to one How many more can you picke out of the whole Colledge of Cardinalls that were of your opinion beside Cusanus who was knowne to be a man that affected singularitie But I think you looked through a multiplying glasse when you concluded from the induction of five Copernicits that there were more of his opinion then all the rest put together Are you not like him who thought that all the ships and goods that came into the Pyreum were his owne And yet of these five which you muster up for your defence there was one even the chiefest and of longest experience to wit Galileus who fell off from you being both ashamed and sorry that he had been so long bewitched with so ridiculous an opinion which was proved to him both by Cardinall Bellarmine and by other grave and learned men that it was contrary both to Scripture Divinitie and Philosophie therefore Galilie on his knees did abjure execrate and detest both by word and writ his errour which you maintaine and promised with his hand on the holy Evangil never to maintaine it againe the other five are men of no great note except in your Bookes 8. You advise us out of Aristotle and Ptolemy to speake that which is most likely to entertaine that which is most agreeable to reason to frame such suppositions of Heaven as be most simple and you tell us that Rheticus and Keplar wish that Aristotle were alive againe But your advice is superfluous and their wish is ridiculous for we speake and intertain that which is most reasonable if we do not prove it that we may amend our errour Our suppositions of Heaven are not so simple as could be wished but we were better content our selves with them then move the earth with you for that is ex fumo in flammam to leap out of the frying-pan into the fire Now to wish Aristotle alive or to thinke that he or Clavius would ever be of your opinion are meere dreames and phancies And though Clavius had found that Ptolomies Hypotheses had not beene so exact as should be yet he would not have beene so mad as to beleeve the Earths motion and the Suns rest And though some have fallen off from Aristotles and Ptolomies opinion to Copernicus that will but little help your cause for in all professions there have ever been some unconstant and giddy-headed men many have fallen off from Christianity to Mahumetisme from Calvinisme to Anabaptisme will you condemne therefore their former professions so some have revolted from Copernicus to Ptolomie You challenge then too great a priviledge when you say that none who having bin once setled with any strong assent on your side that have afterwards revolted from it besides that it is false there was never any profession that could brag of such a priviledge not Christianity the best of all professions And though some men reject that opinion in which they were nursed and have approved for truth and now embrace your absurd Paradox which is condemned in the Schooles yet it will not follow that yours is the righter side for will you say that because many Christians become Turks and Jews many Orthodox men have become Arians Nestorians Eutychians Macedonians that therefore these Heretickes were in the right There are too many wavering Spirits shaken like reeds and carried about like clouds with every winde of doctrine unsetled and instable in all their wayes You tell us that most of those opposers of your opinion have been stirred thereunto either by a partiall conceit of their owne inventions for every one is affected to his owne brood or by a servile feare in derogating from the ancients authoritie or opposing of Scripture Phrases or by judging of things by sense rather then by reason Answ. The first of these reasons will be retorted upon your selfe for the partiall conceit of your owne inventions and the affection you carry to your own brood have made you fall off from that ancient and universall truth to embrace an errour and this was it that moved Copernicus to oppose Ptolomie Alphonsus and the other famous Astronomers Therefore Tycho did not oppose Copernicus to make way for his owne Hypothesis as you say but to maintaine that truth which had so long continued in the world As for your second reason I answer that we should not without extraordinary and urgent cause derogate from the authority of the ancients much lesse from the meaning of Scripture phrase which the Church of God from the beginning hitherto hath delivered to us neither doe we adhere to the meaning of Scripture phrase out of a superstitious feare of the supposed infallible Church as you say but out of a filiall feare to the true Church our Mother the ground and pillar of truth If wee heare not the voice of this Mother we cannot have God for our Father A wise son honoureth his father but he is a foole that will despise his mother Why should we thinke that you or Copernicus can better understand the Scripture phrase then the Church of God from time to time hath done this was the proud conceit of Nestorius that he onely understood the Scripture phrase as Vincentius complaines of him That which you call the new Creed of Pius the Fourth that no man should assent unto any interpretatione of Scripture which is not approved by the ancient Fathers is indeed the old Creed of the Church as Vincentius sheweth let us no wayes no wayes

that the earth turnes about the clouds refuted 17. Of a mixed motion of the place medium and space 18. Of the motion of comets 19. My nine arguments defended 1. That the earths motion would make it hot 2. The aire purer 3. A sound 4. Heaven hath all things fit for motion 5. Of similar parts and the whole 6. The sunne is the heart of the world 7. It workes by motion 8. The earth is the firme foundation 9. The authority of Divises the heaven called AEther the earth hath not two distinct motions CHAP. IX 1. The earth cannot be the cause of its owne motion 2. The vastnesse and thicknesse of the heaven no hinderance to its motion 3. The matter of the heavens and their smoothnesse no binderance to their motion 4. Bignesse helps motion 5. The heavens swistnesse illustrated by other motions 6. The earth neither the finall nor efficient cause of its motion the heaven sitter for motion because greater and more constant nature worketh not still the most compendious way some idle similitudes refuted 7. Bodies having the same properties have not alwayes the same motion motion belongs to the noblest creatures 8. The smoothnesse subtilty and purity of bodies no hinderance to their motion the aire moves the water the circular motion of the fire naturall how 9. Of Intelligences how and why they move the heavens 10. Magneticke vertue an idle conceit CHAP. X. 1. The idle and uncertaine conceits of Astronomers concerning the celestiall bodies 2. The appearances of the Sunne and other Planets cannot be so well discerned by the earth if it did move 3. The excellency of Divinity above Astronomy and an exhorlation to the study of it The new PLANET no PLANET The CONTENTS 1. The vanity and falshood of this new opinion 2. The Fathers concerning their judgement of the Antipodes cleared and vindicated and the Philosophers condemned 4. Pythagoras deciphered and his opinions condemned 5. Some Pythagoreans touched and censured Numa was not of this now opinion nor Pythagorean 6. This opinion hath few followers and how condemned by the Colledge of Cardinals 7. What is to be thought of those who have revolted from the truth of our opinion 8. The Church the Scripture sense and reason must be beleeved in this point of the earths stabilitie c. This new opinion how and when an heresie CHAPT I. I Had shewed how unreasonable it was that an upstart novelty concerning the Earth's motion should thrust out a truth of so long continuance and universality as this of the Earth's immobility You answer That wee must not so doat upon antiquity as to count that Canonicall which is approved by the consent of the Ancients To this I answer 1. Make it appeare that your opinion of the Earth's motion is true and ours false and we will prefer yours though new 2. If you can make it appeare that your opinion is any waies usefull or advantageous wee will admit it 3. Suppose that both your and our opinion were but conjecturall and that there were but an equall probability in both yet you must not prefer nor equall your opinion to ours because we have antiquity and consent of all times of all nations of so many holy wise and learned men for us which you want in this respect then if both our opinions were put in the balance yours will be found too light though you should adde to the scale that heavie Prussian Copernicus 4. Though there were no hurt in your opinion yet wee may not entertaine it for the world is pestered with too many opinions already and a great many might be well spared 5. But whereas your opinion is false absurd and dangerous as we have partly shewed and will shew afterwards wee were mad to receive it having neither truth reason sense consent antiquity or universality to countenance it 6. That which you call the preserving of Philosophicall libertie is indeed the loosing of the reines to exorbitant wits to run headlong into every kinde of absurdity 7. Wee doe not inslave our selves to the opinion of any one man as you suppose we doe but we are of the opinion of all men of all times and nations You inslave your selfe to one man and is guilty of that which you accuse in us Quis tulerit Gracchos 8. Wee condemne not your opinion because it is new but because not true A new falshood a false novelty and such a new deformed brat is to be choaked in the infancy Principiis obsta kill the Cockatrice in the egge 9. You say it 's but a novelty in Philosophy but I say it intrencheth upon Divinity for Divinity tells us that the standing of the sun and moving of the earth are the miraculous workes of Gods supernaturall power your new Philosophy tells us that they are the ordinary workes of Nature and so this scope being granted you may turn Divinity into naturall Philosophy and confound the works of God and of Nature 10. You tell us That Antiquity consists in the old age of the world not in the youth of it What Antiquity Of the world then you speak not properly as you say you doe but tautologically the worlds old age consists in its old age If you mean that your opinion is not new but old because the world is old you speak absurdly for old opinions are so called not because they were found out in the youth or in the old age of the world but because they have continued a long time in the world and so new opinions are new though found out in the old age of the world Opinions have no relation to the ages of the world but to their owne continuance Are you older then your great Grand-father because the world is older now than it was when hee lived 11. You are the fathers you say in such learning as may be increased by experiments and discoveries and of more authority then former ages Why doe you not tell us plainly that you are fathers of learning as well as in learning but indeed you are not the fathers of learning you are onely fathers of your new discoveries and fresh experiments that is of new fond and savourlesse phansies and why you must be of more authority then former ages I see no reason Shall not Iuball and Tuball-Cain the inventors and fathers of their Arts be of as great authority as you that are the fathers of such mishapen monsters though they lived in the infancy and you in the old age of the world Why should I rather credit you in telling us of a world in the Moon and of the Earth that it is a planet then those wise men of former ages who never dreamt of such idle and ridiculous conceits You say Truth is the daughter of time so say I but errors heresies falshoods are times daughters too We see how fruitfull this later age of the world is of new and frivolous opinions But how much are you beholding to old mother Time who hath bestowed

us to beleeve the truth of this assertion and yet you spurning at Scripture sense and reason as if your phansie were instar omnium would have our judgements senses Scripture Church and all regulated by your absurd dictates therefore it is an unreasonable thing in you to desire that the holy Ghost should not be Judge of his owne assertions in naturall truths and that there should be more credit given to your conceits which you call industry and experience then to Gods own words Indeed this travell hath God left to the sonnes of men to be exercised with as a punishment for their sins to toile and labour all their dayes about shadowes imaginations and indeed meer nothing groping at the doore of knowledge like blinde Sodomites all their dayes and cannot finde it so that they who have spent their whole life in Astronomie may with Saint Peter say on their death bed Master We have laboured all night but have caught nothing Thus with Martha they are busie about many things and neglect that one thing which is onely necessary 2. It is but a conceit of yours to say That the Scripture accommodates it selfe to the vulgars conceit in saying the Sunne riseth and falleth c. I warrant you if the vulgar should conceive that the heavens were made of water as the Gnostickes held or that the Sunne and Moone were two ships with the Manichees or that the world was made of the sweat of the AEones with the Valentinians or whatsoever other absurd opinion they should hold you would make the Scripture say so and to accommodate it selfe to their conceits The stability of the Earth and motion of the Heaven are absurd and false opinions in your conceit and yet the Scripture affirmes them You are as unapt I know to beleeve that the Sunne moves as others are that it stands still therefore it 's a wonder you do not begin to call the Scripture authority in question that affirmes the Suns motion seeing you say men would be apt to doe so if the Scripture had said the Sunne standeth c. How shall the Scripture please both parties if it say the Sun moveth your side will except against it if it say the Sun standeth ours will be offended at it Why should the Scripture be more loath to offend us then you except it be because we are the stronger side and we have our senses to witnesse with us which you have not I wish you would conceive a more reverend opinion of the Spirit of truth who cannot lie nor will affirme a falshood upon any pretence whatsoever neither will he countenance a lie to confirme a truth or speake false in one thing that wee may conceive his meaning the better in another thing He needs not such weake and wicked helps as falshoods to make us understand his will his word is strong and mighty in operation it 's the power of God unto salvation a sharp two edged sword his hammer his scepter c. As it stands not with his truth to affirme a lie so doth it no wayes consist with the power of his Word and Spirit to helpe our understanding by a lie 3. You say That if the Scripture had said the Earth riseth and setteth and the Sunne stands still the people being unacquainted with that secret would not have understood the meaning of it Answ. What matter is it whether they had understood it or not For you tell us that these things are not necessary in themselves and that it is besides the scope of these places to instruct us in Philosophicall points Will you have the holy Ghost then speake a falshood for feare lest we should not understand the meaning of a secret which is not necessary for us to know if it be not needfull for us to know whether the Earth stands or not so it was lesse needfull for the Scripture to say the Earth standeth when it doth not stand But you doe well to call the motion of the Earth a secret for so it is a great secret hid from the wise and prudent of this world and revealed onely to such babes as your selfe But why is this a secret If it be a naturall effect it is no secret for though naturall causes doe not incurre into our senses yet the effects doe and if this be a secret effect and not sensible it cannot be an effect of nature but I thinke it be such another secret as the Philosophers stone which never was and never shall be Though it be beside the chiefe scope of Scripture to instruct us in Philosophicall points yet it will not follow that these Philosophicall tearmes are to be otherwise understood then as they are expressed There be many Geographicall Historicall and Chronologicall passages in Scripture mentioned incidently and not chiefly to instruct us in such points shall we therefore understand them otherwise then they are set downe or rather the cleane contrary way But when you say the Earths motion is beyond our reach I grant it because we cannot reach that which is not made manifest to us either by sense or reason or divine authority If you can either of these wayes make it appeare I doubt not but our understanding will reach it and if you cannot one of these wayes make it appear to us we will account it a meere nothing For idem est non esse non videri and indeed you say well out of the Glosse that God doth not teach curiosities which are not apprehended easily for your motion of the Earth is an incomprehensible curiosity And it is well said by you againe that the Scriptures authority might be questioned if it did teach naturall things contrary to our senses and therefore if any booke of Scripture should affirme as you doe that the earth moves naturally and circularly I should verily beleeve that that booke had never been indicted by the holy Spirit but rather by a Pythagorean spirit or by the spirit of Dutch beer You condemne Tertullians Heretickes for retching Scripture a wrong way and forcing it to some other sense agreeable to their false imagination and rather then they would forgoe their tenents yeelded the Scripture to be erroneous De te fabula narretur You retch the Scripture a wrong way forcing it to your false imaginations you do not indeed call the Scripture erroneous but you make it to speake one thing and meane the cleane contrary therefore you shall doe well to apply Saint Austins counsell to your selfe and doe not settle your opinion rashly on that darke and obscure conceit of the Earths motion It is true also what you alledge out of Saint Austin that the holy Ghost being to deliver more necessary truths left out to speake of the forme or figure of Heaven c. because hee would not have us spend too much time in these things and neglect the meanes of salvation but you should have done well to have subjoined the following words of that same Father to

that this miracle hapned when Hesiod flourished you faile in your Chronologie for Hesiod was above a hundred yeares before this miracle was effected if you will beleeve Gentbrard and the other Chronologers You are a wise Philosopher to tell us that the shadow as well as the heat and beames is the effect of the Sunne Can darknesse be the effect of light a privation is a defect not an effect if the shadow were an effect at all it should be the effect of the darke and condensate body but not of the luminous Take heed that the light which is in you be not darknesse for then how great will that darknesse be CHAP. III. 1. The Scripture doth not speake according to vulgar opinion when it calls the Moone a great light for so it is 2. Not when it speakes of waters above the Heavens for such there are 3. Nor when it calls the Starres innumerable for so they are 4. Nor when it mentions by circumference of the brasin Sea to be thirty cubits and the diameter tenne for so it was Why the lesser number is sometime omitted 5. Nor in saying the earth is founded on the waters which is true 6. The right and left side of heaven how understood and how the heaven is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the Intelligences 7. The Scripture speaketh properly in attributing understanding to the heart The Galenists opinion discussed 8. Of ova aspidum and the Vipers egges how understood 9. The Aspe or Adler how hee stops his eare 10. Of the North and South winde in Scripture 11. The Sun shall be truely darkned the Moon turned to blood and the starres shall fall amp c. 12. Of the Windes whence they come c. 13. The sea the onely cause of springs 14. The thunder is truly Gods voice 15. The 7. Stars IN this Proposition you goe about to shew us That the Scripture in naturall things conformes it selfe to our conceived errours and that it speakes of things not as they are in themselves but as they appeare And yet the testimony of Vallesius which you bring to help you overthrowes you for Whatsoever saith hee is in Scripture concerning Nature is most true as proceeding from the God of Nature from whom nothing could be hid If the Scripture expressions of naturall things be most true then they cannot agree with our erroneous conceits for truth and errour agree like light and darknesse and you confesse your selfe that all naturall points in Scripture are certain and infallible but in that sense say you wherein they were first intended and that is the sense that you give for you only are acquainted with the first intended sense of the holy Ghost and so wee must take it upon your bare word that that onely is the true sense which your side delivereth and I pray you what heresie may not be maintained by Scripture this way for heretickes will also say That all things in Scripture are true certaine and evident in that sense which was at first intended but when it comes to the point it is the sense which they themselves have invented obtruded The first instance which you bring for proof of your assertion is from the Moon which is called in Scripture One of the great lights and yet by infallible observation say you may be proved to be lesse then any visible starre Answ. Other Astronomers will prove as strongly as you can that Mercury is the least of all starres shall wee beleeve you or them 2. Though I should yeeld that the Moon were a small starre in bulk will it follow that therefore it is a lesser light Must the light be intended as the body is extended I have seen a fire yeeld lesse light then a candle Mercury which you say is bigger then the Moon hath not the hundreth part of that light which is in the Moon so that if Mercury and the Moon should change places yet the light of the Moon would not appeare much lesser nor the light of Mercury much bigger the eie which is the light of the body is not the clearer because the bigger there is not so much light in an Oxe eie as in an Eagle's Divines hold That the light which was created the first day was no other then the light of the Sun diffused over the hemispheare the whole hemispheare is much bigger I hope then the body of the Sun and yet the world I think was not more enlightened the first day then the fourth when that diffused light was contracted and compacted in a narrower compasse 3. To what end should there be so much light in each starre exceeding the light of the Moone They received their light not for themselves but for us except you will say there be innumerable worlds which must be enlightened aswell as ours but wee receive by many degrees more light from one halfe of the Moon then wee doe from all the starres together Surely God made nothing in vaine but in vain hath the starres so much light if man for whom they were made receive no sight nor benefit from this light 4. Astronomicall positions concerning the magnitude and heighth of each starre on which they ground their darke conjecture of light are toyes and fictions of their owne heads they make false Maximes and on these they build confused Babels of their owne conceits yeeld to them that they have the semidiameter of the earth and then Graeculus esuriens ad Coelum jusseris ibit Every smatterer will exactly tell you the height and bignesse of each starre Haud secus ac si oculo rubricam dirigat uno 5. I will tell you what St. Austine saith of this Question and of the Astronomers of his time Let them saith hee talk of heaven who have but small interest in heaven wee confidently beleeve that these lights are greater then others which the Scripture commends to be such Let them give us leave to trust our owne eyes it is manifest that they give more light to the earth then all the rest do c. The Scripture then and our owne senses assure us that these are the great lights If you say that each starre is a bigger light in it selfe then the Moon I will beleeve it when I see it or have talked with one of your world in the Moon who perhaps can informe us better then any reason you can bring to evince us 2. Wee grant that Moses tells us of waters above the firmament but we deny that this is in reference to an erroneous conceit as you say but rather wee hold That it is an erroneous conceit to forsake the true fountaines of knowledge to digge crackt cisternes to preferre any opinion to the plaine text of Scripture What a forced exposition is it to call clouds and raine below in the aire and which are oftentimes lower then the tops of hills to call these I say waters above the heaven of which the Psalmist speaks whereas these waters are so farre below