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	holy_a	word_n	6,560	5	4.2187	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74652	The peace-maker or, a brief motive to unity and charitie in religion. By W.P. D.D.	W. P.	1652 (1652)	Wing P135; Thomason E1417_2; ESTC R209452	13,834	99

Romanists yet should we not be charitable to you as Christians we were much to blame But see how you mistake or rather indeed pervert and abuse this our charity For say you by your own acknowledgement there may be salvation in our Church but we all deny there can be Salvation in yours therefore all if they had care of themselves would have recourse to us for it is the safer way to be a member of that Church where both sides yeeld there may be salvation then in that where on side denies it This were something if Salvation or Damnation depended upon opinion but I suppose that charitable opinion of ours in hoping you may be saved makes you never a whit the neerer heaven but our selves that rough censure of yours in setting us all out for damnation makes us no whit the neerer hel but your selves And I had rather be a member of that Church which holds there may be Salvation in both then of that which holds there can be salvation but in one For holding with the first I am safe wheresoever I am but holding with the latter I must be in danger wheresoever I am I say wheresoever I am for I am not onely in danger of my salvation if I be in that Church wherein I think there is no Salvation but also if I be in that Church out of which I think there can be no Salvation because I confine Salvation to one of these which though I think it be in this alone yet it may be in the other alone this may suffice to satisfie that great Argument of our Adversaries wherein they so much glory and if it be possible to moderate their severity against us Many other motives unto Charity might be shewed but these briefly shall suffice The one is that we are Chrians and therefore brethren and so ought to love as brethren Another is in that I hope our intentions are good and that none maintains a false opinion perversly against his conscience Now let me say unto all Christians as S. Paul doth to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 6.11 12 13. O ye Christians our mouth is open unto you and not only so but our heart is enlarged not only to the Roman but even to the East Church and to as many as call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Ye are not straitned in us but ye are straitned in your own bowels now for a recompence in the same I speak unto you as unto Brethren be ye also enlarged Let me bespeak all learned Prelats and Pastors on all sides as S. Austine Epist 147. doth Proculianus a Bishop and a favourer of the Donatists I pray and beseech thee saith he if there be any good disposition in thee which many doe extoll and command if it be not a counterfeit courtesie by reason of worldly honour that the tender bowells of pitty and compassion begin to yerne in thee and that you would have these controversies discussd between us at the length not by wrangling and railing one at another but by fervent prayers and earnest supplications unto Almighty God and by comparing all things peaceably and examining them in the spirit of meekness lest the poor ignorant people which now yeeld to and willingly obey our jurisdiction and command over them press us with this their submission and dutifull obedience to us in the day of the Lord Jesus and say they did as their leaders directed them but rather by our unfeigned love and charity being together with us drawn from those by-paths of errour and dissention they should be directeed into the right way of truth and peace I will concude all with this prayer that it would please God to inspire continually the Universall Church with the spirit of truth unity and concord and grant that all they who do confess his holy name may agree in the truth of his holy word and live in unity and godly love And although we cannot at the first attain to that perfection to be of one mind yet let us begin to be charitable and bear with one another for who knows but that by entertaining this bond of peace we may in good time come to the unity of the spirit which he heartily wisheth and daily prayeth for who is Thine in Christ W.P.

shall in the mean time be perswaded that they goe not against their consciences and so farre forth it will goe better with them yet with this holy Father not free them from punishment but must refer the maner and measure thereof to the time of Judgement Those of the Church of Rome are so impatient of this doctrine that they care not for being saved unless they may be saved alone And their writers generally agree upon nothing so much as that out of their Communion there is no Salvation One of their late writers Barckly Paren li. 1. cap. 1. can profess thus We saith he proclaim with the whole Church and we command with Moses that Heaven and Earth would hear us that there is no communion between God and Belial that these Protestants doe so far differ from us in matters of faith that they altogether in vain expect those mansions of happiness which are prepared for us And afterwards he saith He that dares believe a stubborn and obstinate Protestant can be saved doth by so believing fall from the Catholick Faith And that this is no private or obscure sentence of the Church but that all Catholicks are of the same mind that none of them are ignorant if it nor any can dissemble it unless he be an unexpert Divine or for fear on ambition presfers some mens favour before the truth Another of their company Camp rat 10. avers the same with a very great and solemn protestation I call to witness saith he Gods throne and that tribunall at which I shall stand to give an accompt of these my reasons and of whatsoever I have spoken or done that either there is no heaven at all or that it peculiarly and properly belongs unto us I' Campian must ye be saved and none but yee what is not Heaven able to hold us as well as you Or will our salvation be any disparagement to yours It seems it will But to come a little closer to you Is it nothing with you at one breath to throw so many souls headlong to Hell for whom Christ died and which is more who are already incorporate into Christ by Baptism It cost more to redeem their souls but you will let that alone for ever Our comfort is that though you pass such sentence upon us here yet you are not to be our Judges hereafter but must your selves come to give an account as well as we and peradventure of these speeches Account us not men of so desperate and deplored an estate that we would wittingly and willingly run into hell why should not our salvation be as dear unto us as yours is unto you or why should you not think us to have as great a care of our salvation as you have of yours For could we be perswaded that we were inherisie and that there is no salvation out of your Church how quickly would we fly unto you How gladly would we be entertained by you what means and moans would we make to be members of your society Who can endure such peremptory pronunciations of Judgement of God's eternall wrath and condemnation upon us before fore we come to our hearing And seeing God's mercy is over all his works who can endure that you should interdict God's mercy and judge what the sentence of the Judge shall be before the day of judgement So that if God had a mind to spare such sinners as you say wee poor Protestants are yet by your verdict and prescription hee could not be suffered to do it as S. Jerom long ago complained of Critobulus the Pelagian lib. 1. advers Pelag. Were we such tares in the field of the Church as you would make the world believe yet if you would imitate Christ Mat. 13. you should let us grow till the harvest lest you pluck up the good corn with us Neither are you thus fierce alone there are some of our own side to requite you in your own kind are as confiden-that you cannot be saved as you are that we cannot so that the Question now is In which of our two Churches salvation is to be had For taking it for granted that we have excluded all others and got Heaven between us we cannot be content to share it but we must confine and ingross it to one of our Churches as though it could not be had in both nay as though it could not be had out of both for I am verily perswaded and dare undertake to make it good that those poor Eastern Christians who differ from us both will yet come to Heaven assoon as either of us vvich vvere it vvell considered might bee a good means to pacifie this Question and to abate the heat of many more betvveen us But this monopolizing of Christ although it be generally entertain'd by the Roman Partie yet are not all our reformed Divines so strait lac'd but many of them and those of no small note can be content that others should be saved with them and therefore they are called by you by way of derision good fellow Christians As though they had so much of the good fellow in them that they have too little of the good Christian And indeed you have most reason to be angry with these good fellow Christians for they are like to doe you all the mischief for having found that there may be salvati on in our Church as well yea with more ease than in yours we shall never be thinking of going any further As for those who are so eager that will consine salvation to one certain Church you have some hope of them that in time they may come over to you And what you object to us as a crime we esteem as our great glory and account it one of God's special blessings that we live in the bosome of a Church that is so charitable and we are willing to have so much of the good fellow in us because we would not have too little of the good Christian for though our Creed bee compris'd in a narrow room yet our charity extends farre not only to you but the Eastern Church We have a little Sister and she hath no breasts what shall we do for our Sister in the day when she shall be spoken of We have a little Sister Cant. 8.8 Though the Church of Rome call the Church of Greece Hereticall and Schismaticall yet we of the Church of England esteem her to be a Daughter of the Catholique Church and our Sister though now she be little yet she was a great one not inferiour any waies to the Church of Rome she brought forth many Children and gave Milk plentifully but now alas she is little by reason of her long persecution and her breasts dried up for now she is in a manner barren and able to bring forth but few Children And although She be in this poor and desolate estate yet the Church of Rome will doe nothing for her for when at the Councell of Florence she desired aid of them against