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	true_a	visible_a	8,046	5	9.4741	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A13235	A defence of the Appendix. Or A reply to certaine authorities alleaged in answere to a catalogue of Catholike professors, called, An appendix to the Antitdote VVherein also the booke fondly intituled, The Fisher catched in his owne net, is censured. And the sleights of D. Featly, and D. VVhite in shifting off the catalogue of their owne professors, which they vndertooke to shew, are plainly discouered. By L.D. To the Rt. VVorshipfull Syr Humphry Lynde.	L. D., fl. 1624.; Sweet, John, 1570-1632, attributed name.	1624 (1624)	STC 23528; ESTC S120948	43,888	74

of the Appendix shewing the continuall Visibility of the Catholike Church YOur owne Doctors in your owne house professed as you know The true Church must be able to name Professors in all Ages made it the very groūd of their Argument in that Dispute Wherefore in all reason before you went about to answere the Booke which you receaued of the Catalogue of our Professors you should haue giuen another or referred vs to some booke of an other of yours And that so much the more because hitherto such a Catalogue on your side hath byn held impossible to be found made or produced And hauing beene euermore demaunded and required for a hundred yeares togeather could neuer as yet be seene nor obtayned Certainly those your Champions which were chosen by your selfe and with great expectation vndertooke to doe it when they came to the Tryall performed nothing and all that they did was but cunningly to auoyde the Question giuen in these expresse termes Whether the Protestant Church was in all Ages visible especially in the Ages before Luther and whether the Names of such visible Protestants in all Ages can be shewed and proued out of good Authors Wherein euery man may see there was nothing els demaunded but a playne Catalogue or Table of the Names of your Professors in all Ages proued by good Authors According wherunto they receaued also another paper before the meeting which there was publickly read that ech partie should produce their Catalogues out of good Authors and then interchangably by termes defend them But this Table or Catalogue of the names of our Professors seemed a Lyon in the way of your Doctors which therefore they durst not come neere nor behold but sought by diuers straines to eschew it and to turne the eyes and eares of the audience from their expectation of it As first they sought to make two Questions of the Question propounded and flying the latter part insteed of shewing the visibility of their Church they would haue proued it à Priori as they tearmed it without shewing their visible Pastors which was the poynt demaunded Secondly they deride their Aduersaries for demaunding the Names of their Professors as if they had impertinently called for a Buttry Booke of the Names of those that euer were admitted into the Church of Christ irregiously comparing the Histories of the Church wherein the Names of her Bishops Martyrs and other holy Men were carefully recorded to Buttry Bookes of Names And for the same cause calling their Aduersaries Nominalls they boasted themselues to be Realls as if their Aduersaries had demaunded no Men but only Names of Men or as if the Professors of the true Faith like Knights Errants or those of the round Table had been no reall Men at all but only names which is asmuch to say as that the Hystories of the Church were meere fables Thirdly they sought to flinch by propounding sūdry tymes diuers other Questions to be disputed Which was as it were to put vp many Hares before the Hoūds thereby to conceale the Kennell of that Fox which was then hunted Fourthly they endeauoured to diuert the Question from prouing themselues the true Church by naming the visible Professors therof in all Ages which was the thing demaunded to proue the same by assuming they held the truth that is to say in euery particular Controuersie as for Example in denying of Transubstantiation Merits of Works and the like Which was as plaine a Transition as if in case the Question had byn about Transubstantiation their Aduersaries should haue gone about to proue it by prouing themselues to be the true Church that held it For both these kinde of proofes by a remote Medium do euidently transferre the Question the one from a generall to a particular point which was your Doctors fault the other from a particuler to a generall as in the other Example Fiftly being called vpon by the Hearers and especially by the Protestants themselues which were ten to one and confided much in their owne cause to giue the Names of their Professors in all Ages they named only Christ and his Apostles with others one or two more of the first Age alone Which according to the question vndertaken they should haue proued to be Protetestāts by naming Protestants that succeeded them in all Ages following but seeking euermore to auoyde that Rocke they would haue stayed there and before they went any further vrged to proue the Professors of the first Age to be Protestants not by naming their Successors but by examining their Doctrine Which againe had been to diuerte from the matter and to runne from the generall point then in Question to all particular Controuersies Sixtly Therefore when none of these deuises could satisfy the expectation of the Hearers fearing as it seemed least according to the words of the Question and playne intention of that meeting they should haue byn vrged againe by the Hearers to set downe a full Catalogue of all Ages as once before they were importuned to doe they suddenly brake off and so departed Seauenthly My L. of Warwicke imagining perchāce that this proceeded not so much from lacke of ability as from want of due preparation on their behalfe promised a Catalogue within 2. or 3. dayes which though sought agayne by letter neuer yet appeared Eightly The Answerers themselues repayred the next day to your owne house agayne offering to deliuer their Catalogue with one hand so they might receaue yours with the other Which another stāding by whome they also tooke to be a Protestant Minister affirmed to be very reasonable and indifferent But you answered You knew their minde for that point and that they would neuer doe it before the Names of the first Age were tryed and so of the rest in order Ninthly a printed Catalogue was sent to your selfe in particuler hoping it might serue as an engine to importune and as it were to extort another from you or from your Doctours But all in vayne which maketh many much to feare that this Catalogue of your Professors will neuer be produced and consequently that your Church cannot possible be the true Church of Christ And now no maruell if some of the Hearers when they saw the Booke of The Fisher catched in his owne Net writen as it were in triumph of your victory in that Dispute compared it to those other Puritan Bookes which haue been lately printed of the great victories of the Protestants in their Warres against the Catholiks beyond the Seas whereas in truth not the Catholikes but the Protestants themselues haue beene alwayes notoriously vanquished and ouerthrowne And presuming it came forth from his owne fingers that hath the principall part therin they spare not to say that it better deserued to be called The feates and lyes of Doctor Feat-Lye then the other Title which in falshood well agreeing with the Booke it selfe in that respect alone might iustly seeme a fit lace or facing for it For besides the sundry shifts

occasion to admire the little conscience of your late English Doctors in challenging the Fathers of the first fiue hundred yeares wherein if their Aduersaries might come to an indifferent and equall tryall with them the very Titles of the Fathers Books against them were sufficient to ouerthrow them Only in this place I will giue the Reader this short Notandum for the which if he desire sincerely to know and belieue the Doctrine of the Fathers he shall haue cause to thanke me When any of the holy Fathers do censure any poynt of Doctrine taxing it of Heresy or noteth it as the particuler opinion of some Heretike or reproueth it very much or wondreth at it especially if it be such a thing as euery learned Man may easily know or was necessary to be taught and that no other Father did therein oppose himself against him It is an euident Testimony that his Doctrine therein was the generall Doctrine of the Church at that tyme and ought to be so receaued of the Ages that follow Wherefore the Author of that Booke hauing shewed so many poynts of your Doctrine to haue beene so notoriously cēsured and condemned by the Auncient Fathers of the first fiue hundred yeares in the Hetetikes of those tymes besides many other poynts and some of those also condemned by Fathers and Councells in after Ages whereunto you haue not answered a word it is for ought I can see or perceaue a cleare demonstration that the Fathers of those tymes were theirs and that eyther your Professors were none at all or no other then those that were condemned by them Thus all things with them are infallibly certaine easie to be knowne and most conspicuous They follow the streame and current of that Doctrine which by many knowne Successions of holy and learned Men Martyres and Bishops as it were by so many Channells they deriue from Christ and his Apostles They follow the fame and greatnes of that Church which by conuerting Countries and Nations in all Ages is become eminent and apparent aboue all other sortes of Christians like a Citty vpon a Hill aboue the Moale-hills or like the Little Stone in Daniel which growing to be a Mountaine filleth the world with it's greatnes They follow the security of those Letters-Patents which the hand of God hath signed with his owne Seale and cōmended to the world by Attestation of many Myracles in confirmation of their Doctrine And lastly they follow the infallible and powerfull Authority of that Body which by Cēsures of Doctors Decrees of Coūcells from tyme to tyme hath euer confounded all those that opposed themselues against it While you in the meane tyme without any lineall Descente from those whome you pretend to haue beene your Auncestors without the Progenie of any Gentills conuerted by you without any warrant of Gods hand or sentence of his Iudges for you do still remayne in the darcknes of your inuisible Church tossed in the Sea of Error with euery winde of new Doctrine not knowing certainly whome to follow nor what to belieue vntill at the last euen the wisest of you being wearie of seeking and desperate of finding that which they seeke come to hold all opinions probable which is in effect to belieue nothing Good Syr had you produced such a Successiō such cōuersions of Nations such Myracles and Censures in the defence of your Church as that Booke hath shewed in confirmation of theirs all zealous Protestants had been bound to haue fallen at your feete and to haue honoured you for euer But now on the other side against such weighty and massie matters such cleare and conuincing proofes as these not being able to giue in euidence so much as one Professor in euery Age nor in any Age the conuersion of any Nation or the testimony of any Myracle or the Censure of any one Father in fauour of your Religion who seeth not that insteed of reason there is nothing but passion on your part and certainly for the honour of your cause it were better to hold your peace then reply so weakely in a matter of such importance For besides all that hath beene sayd against many other most expresse Sentences of the Auncient Fathers in those very poynts which you haue chosen to touch you haue only produced a few dribling Authorities as it were on the Bye some falsely translated and some falsely cited and some in respect of other expresse words agaynst you plainely falsified that not to accuse you of a bad Conscience though you make profession to be much versed in the Fathers yet the Reader must needes think you neuer saw or read so much as those few places which your selfe haue cited but only tooke them by retaile frō others And howsoeuer though they were admitted and taken as you giue them vp yet in my poore opinion they eyther touch not your Aduersaries at all or being a little considered make rather with them then against them Which sheweth great want of iudgment in you and I verily thinke if you will be pleased to examine them with me I shall make you see it Wherefore as in the former Section soe that you may know in this also how far you are chargable I giue you the summe of your accompt in this manner The Doctrine of that Church which was condemned by the Fathers of the first fiue hundred yeares was condemned by Christ and his Apostles But the Doctrine of the Protestant Church was condemned by the Fathers of the first 500. yeares as the most and best learned Protestants themselues haue also confessed Ergo the Doctrine of the Protestant Church was likewise condemned by Christ and his Apostles Section V. Myracles defended to be a sufficient Testimony of Truth and the Doctrine of the Fathers therein declared WHerefore to begin as you doe with Myracles most certaine it is that no true Myracle can be wrought but only by him Qui facit mirabilia magna solus and therefore whēsoeuer any true Myracle is shewed or sufficiently testified vnto vs in confirmation of any point of Doctrine it is an euident proofe of the truth thereof For a Myracle in that case is the Testimony of God who speaketh by workes as men by wordes sayth S. Aug. Epist 49. quaest 6. and is the subscription as it were of his hand and seale vnto it And certainly if Myracles were no sufficiēt proofes of true Doctrine they would neuer haue beene called Signes and Testimonyes in holy Scripture God would not haue giuen Moyses power of working Myracles Exod. 4. That the People of Israel might belieue he had appeared vnto him Our Sauiour would not haue sayd the Iewes had not sinned in not receauing him if he had not done those workes which no man els had done before him Ioan. 15. And in vayne should he haue promised that Signes should follow those that belieued and haue cooperated and confirmed the Doctrine of the Apostles by them Neyther could he in Iustice haue commaunded the world