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	religion_n	true_a	7,548	5	5.1593	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40371	A sermon preached in Christ's-Church, Dublin, on the 23d. of October, 1698 being the anniversary thanksgiving for putting an end to the Irish Rebellion, which broke out on that day, 1641, before the House of Lords / by Nathanael Lord Bishop of Waterford and Lismore.	Foy, Nathaniel, d. 1707.	1698 (1698)	Wing F2046; ESTC R33792	19,692	32

carry the Judgment Secondly The exact Harmony or Agreement betwixt the Religion of the Heathens and that of the Romish Church at this day Thirdly The wonderful Force of a misguided or ill-grounded Zeal which usually is fiercer and more impetuous than a true one First There is no Evidence of Sense Reason c. Of the truth of which First The whole Heathen World is an undeniable Evidence who before the coming of Our Blessed Lord were sunk and degenerated into such gross sottish Opinions and Practices relating to God and Humane Nature as were altogether inconsistent with either and did thereupon Impair and Endanger the whole Law of Nature which as to the Moral World is no other than a System of Opinions and Practices appertaining to God our selves and one another But to keep to the particular instance in the Text what can be more evident to Sense and Reason than that the Goddess the Silver-Smith made did not make the Silver-Smith Notwithstanding which and tho' the whole Corporation of Silver-Smiths got their Livelihood by doing Work about her nay tho' perhaps these very individual men had mended or adorn'd her Goddesship when Ruinous or Rusty yet Saint Paul must be exclaim'd against and brought in danger of his Life for saying They are no Gods which are made with Hands To this may be added that inhumane Practice which did of Old and doth at this time prevail amongst some Heathen Nations of Sacrificing the Wife the dearest Friends and most faithful Servants at the Funerals of their several Relations And what renders this Practice more wonderful is there is nothing of Interest in it beyond the avoiding Shame and Disgrace which by long Use and Practice is clearly of their own making The like may be said Secondly Of the Jewish Church which would not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Saviour of the World but Crucified him as a Malefactor tho' the Prophecies of the Old Testament foretelling him to come joyn'd to and explained by the History of Our Lord's Life and Death did so plainly Describe and Point out his Person that it was not possible any thing to a Nation which acknowledg'd the Divine Original of them as the Jews did should be more Evident to Reason or more Convictive of the Judgment And yet alass all these signified no more against the Education and Principles which then prevail'd by which they were taught to expect a Temporal Messias nor against the sensual Interest and worldly Grandure of that Church than Bullets shot against a Marble stone Nay when these forcible Weapons were afterwards manag'd by an Omnipotent Arm and received an Additional Strength and a New Edge by the Accession of the Miracle of the Resurrection yet made they little or no Impression on the Jewish Church but a very Fatal one upon the Publican and Fishermen with their Followers who were the Preachers of that Divine Doctrine Of all which Our Lord has given a most Wise profound Reason How can ye Believe that receive Honour of Men That is 't is Morally impossible ye should But beyond these and all other instances in the World put together Thirdly The Romish Church is the fullest proof how much it is within the Power of Interest and Education to warp the Judgment against the clearest Evidence of Sense Reason and Scripture Of a great heap of Opinions to single out but a few What can be more against the clear Evidence of Scripture than half Communion What more against Sense and Reason than that Popes and Councils who for these many years have been doing little but contradicting not only one another but themselves should set up for Infallibility Reason tells they may be deceiv'd Sense and Experience tell that they are so and they have not yet been able to urge the least plausible Argument to prove their Exemption from the common calamity of Humane Nature What more against the common Reason of Mankind and the Evidence of Scripture than that since Prayer is a lifting up of the Heart to God giving Thanks for what we have receiv'd and imploring what we need men should not be permitted to pray to God in a Tongue they understand Or what more against the Evidence of Sense Reason and Scripture than the Monstrous Doctrine of Transubstantiation Which to go about to confute would be to abuse the Auditory A Doctrine which if any thing in Sense Reason or Scripture be true is certainly false A Doctrine which as one has most ingeniously observ'd if it be true 't is the most ill natur'd truth in the World for 't will permit nothing else to be true besides it self A and Lastly a Doctrine in favour of which were a Miracle wrought it could not prove it true in as much as after such a Miracle wrought we should have the same Reason to believe the Doctrine to be false that we had to believe the Miracle was true And yet to the Eternal Disgrace of the Romish Church they have laid the greatest Wits of Europe both of our Church and their own under an absolute necessity of spending the Flower of their Years and the Strength of their Parts in Reading and Writing great Volumes for and against this portentous Doctrine tho' after all their Labours and Study they can arrive to no more knowledge in the whole matter than what every Child of Six years of Age has viz. To know that Bread is Bread Thus much Interest and Education is able to do against the strongest and most uncontested Evidence of the latter of which I think the World has not a fuller proof than the gross body of this Nation in which we live affords us who have not the least imaginable shadow of Reason why they are rather Papists than Protestants but that 't was the Religion their Fathers profest before them pleading nothing in their Defence but this as 't is notoriously known to all who converse with them And now 't were to be wisht these were all that are concerned in this imputation but Fourthly Every Sect or Sept has a share in it more or less as 't were easie to instance in the several Factions which of late years have prevail'd amongst us well nigh to the utter desolation of one of the most Flourishing Kingdoms and Apostolick Churches in the World whose Wounds are yet Green and Gaping so that the Romish Church is more Catholick than we Protestants think of extending it self not only to Rome and other Places subject to the Papal Power but to Geneva likewise and those who value themselves most for having no Communion with her I say 't were easie to instance in the Opinions and Practices but I forbear this being a day hallow'd by the Blood of many thousand Innocents to the Romish Church and upon that account 't is great pity but it should be all their own Secondly The exact Harmony or Agreement betwixt the Religion of the Heathens and that of the Church of Rome And now we are

Engag'd in a Sea of Matter where Plenty makes it difficult to choose and time will not permit to insist on all that offers But I discourse before an Auditory that knows how to supply Defects and to go before the Preacher and truly 't is well it is so since 't is the great Unhappiness of Discourses of this kind that being measur'd by a short scantling of time nothing can be handled as it ought to be And therefore to lay the Proof of this Doctrinal Observation in these following particulars only some of which I shall mention rather than insist on The exact Harmony and Agreement betwixt both Religions I. As to the sottish Idolatrous Worship of both II. As to the Arguments upon the strength of which both Religions have been received III. As to the same Ends for the Promotion of which both are continued IV. As to the same Methods of Propagation Artifices of Imposture to prevail over the Weak and Simple and Practices of Blood and Cruelty over the more Understanding and Resolute In the Assigning of which particulars of Agreement we have not ransackt the Body of the Heathen and Romish Religion which would furnish us with many more but have kept our selves strictly to the Letter of the Text all these being formally contain'd in the Words we have read to you as will even now appear First As to the Sottish Idolatry of both in the Worship of Images For what can be more Sottish than it Since they are but Silver and Gold and the work of mens Hands They have Mouths but they speak not Eyes have they but see not They have Ears but they hear not neither is there any Breath in their Mouths They that make them are like unto them so is every one that trusteth in them And they that make them and put their trust in them are the Heathen and Romish Church The Trade of making Images is not less gainful to the Romish Church than 't was to Demetrius and his fellow Crafts-men or rather much more for amongst the Heathens one Houshold God many times serv'd a whole Family but now each single person abounds with great variety of Images and the Worship that is paid to them by both is the same nor can any thing be said in the Defence of the one which may not reasonably be urg'd in the Defence of the other If St. Paul had been a Roman Catholick as they of that Church tell us he undoubtedly was and had come to a personal Debate with Demetrius touching the Worship of Images and departed Souls with what Fore-head do we think he could have Objected Idolatry to him and his Companions or if he had been so unreasonable do we think Demetrius would not have been as ready with his Dulia and Hyperdulia his Terminatively and Transitively wherewith the Romanists incrustate their Idolatry as they themselves are Where Saints themselves are not Worship'd there their Images are not and we have the Confession of Cardinal Perron that in the earlier Ages of the Church Saints were not invok'd for which he gives this Reason for fear the Heathens might Judge the Christians were Guilty of Idolatry An ingenuous Confession how like the one is to the other And one would think this Charge against them of Symbolizing with the Heathens in their Image Worship is not very unacceptable to them for a Jesuite who has Written Large and Learned Commentaries on the Bible and this Chapter tells us that these Shrines were little Chappels or Images of Silver made in Imitation of the greater Temple of Diana in or upon which was the Image of Diana and these they either offer'd to Diana in her Temple or wore about their Necks or in their Caps and Cloaths as our Pilgrims do the Image of the Blessed Virgin of Loretto Another authentick Testimony how nearly they Symbolize with the Papists in their Worship Nay the Jesuite goes yet a pitch higher for he contends stifly with the Heathens for Diana her self saying that their Diana meaning the Heathen was False and Supposititious but the true Christian Diana was the Blessed Virgin Mary risum teneatis which he endeavours to prove in Six particulars three whereof I shall lay before you The Heathen Diana was the Daughter of Jupiter and Latona but Blessed Mary is the Daughter of the Eternal Father who has brought light to the World and shews the way to Heaven Again in the Temple of the Heathen Diana Kings us'd to lay up their most precious Treasures which no Enemy when they Sack'd and Plunder'd a City would be so prophane as to touch but Mary is the faithful Preservatrix of Vertue and Safety so that 't is impossible for him to perish who doth but diligently commit himself and his Goods to her Care and Protection as the common experience of every one shews And lastly the Heathen Diana had many Breasts as being the Nurse of all living Creatures but Mary is the second Eve the Mother of all living who gives the Milk of Grace and Consolation to all that Worship her which things are little less than Blasphemy but I forbear to insist upon these Follies To conclude whatever Cob-web distinctions may be Invented which Wise men see through and Fools are consounded with to Palliate their Image Worship if the Eucharistical Bread be not turn'd into the Body of the Son of God some of their own Writers acknowledge nothing can defend the Worship of the Host against the imputation of the most sottish unaccountable Idolatry the World much worse than that of the Heathens one of whom and he no mean one neither Cicero de Nat. Deorum speaking of Ceres by which Bread Corn was denoted says Do you think we are so senseless to believe that we eat to be God A Sareasme would but the time and Religion of the man admit one would say was design'd on purpose for the Romish Church Secondly As to the Arguments upon the strength of which both Religions have been receiv'd Universality and Antiquity Diana whom all Asia and the World Worshippeth and whose Image fell down from Jupiter Touching the former of which Universality as it is observable that were the matter of Fact true as to both Churches as 't is certainly false it would conclude nothing for either since Error is many times more spreading than Truth so is it likewise that the Heathens pretentions to Universality are much better grounded than the Romanists it being well nigh litterally true what Demetrius said of Diana that all Asia and the World Worship'd her But for the Romish Church to call themselves the Catholick Church when there are so many Churches besides themselves is just such a piece of Nonsense or rather contradiction as to say the half is the whole an Error which as it is of the greatest Magnitude so has it been particularly deriv'd to them from Transubstantiation or at least hugely strengthen'd by it which assures us when once the Bread is Consecrated every