Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	deed_n	light_n	reprove_v	2,125	5	10.3012	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A32857	The religion of Protestants a safe way to salvation, or, An answer to a book entituled, Mercy and truth, or, Charity maintain'd by Catholiques, which pretends to prove the contrary to which is added in this third impression The apostolical institution of episcopacy : as also IX sermons ... / by William Chillingworth ...	Chillingworth, William, 1602-1644.; Chillingworth, William, 1602-1644. Apostolical institution of episcopacy.; Chillingworth, William, 1602-1644. Sermons. Selections.	1664 (1664)	Wing C3890; Wing C3884A_PARTIAL; ESTC R20665	761,347	567

sending to me and acquainting me with any Exceptions which you conceived might be justly taken to it or any part of it than which nothing could have been more welcome to me yet hitherto you have not been pleased to acquaint me with any one Nay more though you have been at sundry times and by several wayes entreated and sollicited nay pressed and importuned by me to joyn with me in a private discussion of the Controversie between us before the publication of my Answer because I was extremely unwilling to publish any thing which had not passed all manner of tryals as desiring not that I or my Side but that Truth might overcome on which Side soever it was though I have protested to you and sent it under my hand which protestation by Gods help I would have made good If you or any other would undertake your Cause would give me a fair meeting and choose out of your whole Book any one argument whereof you were most confident and by which you would be content the rest should be judged of and make it appear that I had not or could not answer it that I would desist from the work which I had undertaken and answer none at all though by all the Arts which possibly I could devise I have provoked you to such a trial in particular by assuring you that if you refused it the World should be informed of your tergiversation notwithstanding all this you have perpetually and obstinately declined it which to my understanding is a very evident sign that there is not any truth in your Cause nor which is impossible there should be strength in your Arguments especially considering what our Saviour hath told us Every one that doth evill hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved but he that doth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God 5. In the mean while though you despaired of compassing your desire this honest way yet you have not omitted to tempt me by base and unworthy considerations to desert the Cause which I had undertaken letting me understand from you by an Acquaintance common to us both how that in case my Work should come to light my inconstancy in Religion so you miscal my constancy in following that way to heaven which for the present seems to me the most probable should be to my great shame painted to the life that my own Writings should be produced against my self that I should be urged to answer my own Motives against Protestantism and that such things should be published to the World touching my belief for my Painter I must expect should have great skill in Perspective of the Doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of our Saviour and all supernaturall Verities as should endanger all my Benefices present or future that this warning was given me not out of fear of what I could say for that Catholiques if they might wish any ill would beg the Publication of my Book for respects obvious enough but out of a meer charitable desire of my good and reputation and that all this was said upon a supposition that I was answering or had a mind to answer Charity Maintain'd If not no harm was done To which courteous Premonition as I remember I desired the Gentleman who dealt between us to return this Answer or to this effect That I believed the Doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of our Saviour and all other supernatural Verities revealed in Scripture as truly and as heartily as your self or any man and therefore herein your Charity was very much mistaken but much more and more uncharitably in conceiving me a man that was to be wrought upon with these Terribiles visuformae those carnal and base fears which you presented to me which were very proper motives for the Devil and his instruments to tempt poor-spirited men out of the way of conscience and honesty but very incongruous either for Teachers of Truth to make use of or for Lovers of Truth in which Company I had been long ago matriculated to hearken to with any regard But if you were indeed desirous that I should not answer Charity Maintain'd one way there was and but one whereby you might obtain your desire and that was by letting me know when and where I might attend you and by a fair conference to be written down on both sides convincing mine understanding who was resolved not to be a Recusant if I were convicted that any one part of it any one Argument in it which was of moment and consequence and whereon the cause depends was indeed unanswerable This was the effect of my Answer which I am well assured was delivered but Reply from you I received none but this That you would have no conference with me but in Print and soon after finding me of proof against all these batteries and thereby I fear very much enraged you took up the resolution of the furious Goddess in the Poet madded with the unsuccessfulness of her malice Flectere si nequec superos Acheronta movebo 6. For certainly those indigne contumelies that masse of portentous and execrable calumnies wherewith in your Pamphlet of Directions to N. N. you have loaded not only my Person in particular but all the learned and moderate Divines of the Church of England and all Protestants in general nay all wise men of all Religions but your own could not proceed from any other fountain 7. To begin with the last You stick not in the beginning of your first Chapter to fasten the imputation of Atheism and Irreligion upon all wise and gallant men that are not of your own Religion In which uncharitable and unchristian judgment void of all colour or shadow of probability I know yet by experience that very many of the Bigots of your Faction are partakers with you God forbid I should think the like of you Yet if I should say that in your Religion there want not some temptations unto and some Principles of Irreligion and Atheism I am sure I could make my assertion much more probable than you have done or can make this horrible imputation 8. For to pass by First that which experience justifies That where and when your Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheism hath most abounded To say nothing Secondly of your notorious and confessed forging of so many false Miracles and so many lying Legends which is not unlikely to make suspicious men to question the truth of all Nor to object to you Thirdly the abundance of your weak and silly Ceremonies and ridiculous observances in your Religion which in all probability cannot but beget secret contempt and scorn of it in wise and considering men and consequently Atheism and Impiety if they have this perswasion setled in them which is too rife among you and which you account a piece of Wisdome and Gallantry that if they be not of your Religion they were

S. Augustine spake when they will have men to believe the Roman-Church delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning Luther and the rest Against whom when they first opposed themselves to the Roman Church S. Augustine may seem to have spoken no less Prophetically than Doctrinally when he said Why should I not most z Lib. de util ere Cap. 14. diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them before all others by whose authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Canst thou better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by thee to me This therefore I believed by fame strengthened with celebrity consent Antiquity But every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving authority What madness is this Believe them Catholiques that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said Why I beseech thee Surely if they Catholiques were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my self that I were not to believe Christ than that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other than them by whom I believed him If therefore we receive the knowledge of Christ and Scriptures from the Church from her also must we take his Doctrine and the interpretation thereof 19. But besides all this the Scriptures cannot be Judge of Controversies who ought to be such as that to him not only the learned or Veterans but also the unlearned and Novices may have recourse for these being capable of Salvation and endued with Faith of the same nature with that of the learned there must be some universal Judge which the ignorant may understand and to whom the greatest Clerks must submit Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such 20. Now the inconveniences which follow by referring all Controversies to Scripture alone are very clear For by this Principle all is finally in very deed and truth reduced to the internal private Spirit because there is really no middle way betwixt a publique external and a private internal voice and whosoever refuseth the one must of necessity adhere to the other 21. This Tenet also of Protestants by taking the office of Judicature from the Church comes to conferr it upon every particular man who being driven from submission to the Church cannot be blamed if he trust himself as farr as any other his conscience dictating that wittingly he means not to cozen himself as others maliciously may do Which inference is so manifest that it hath extorted from divers Protestants the open confession of so vast an absurdity Hear Luther The Governors of a Churches o To. 2. Wittemb fol. 375. and Pastors of Christs Sheep have indeed power to teach but the Sheep ought to give judgement whether they propound the voice of Christ or of Aliens Lubertus saith As we have b In lib de principiis Christian dogm li 6. c. 13. demonstrated that all publique Judges may be deceived in interpreting so we affirm that they may err in judging All faithful men are private Judges and they also have power to judge of Doctrins and interpretations Whitaker even of the unlearned saith They c De sacra Scriptura pag. 529. ought to have recourse unto the more learned but in the mean time we must be careful not to attribute to them over-much but so that still we retain our own freedom Bilson also affirmeth that The people d In his true Difference part 2. must be discerners and Judges of that which is taught The same pernicious Doctrine is delivered by Brentius Zanchius Cartwright and others exactly cited by e Tract 2. cap. 1 Sect. 1. Breerely and nothing is more common in every Protestants mouth than that he admits of Fathers Councles Church c. as far as they agree with Scripture which upon the matter is himself Thus Heresie ever falls upon extreams It pretends to have Scripture alone for Judge of Controversies and in the mean time sets up as many Judges as there are men and women in the Christian world What good Statesmen would they be who should ideate or fancy such a Common-wealth as these men have framed to themselves a Church They verifie what S. Augustine objecteth against certain Heretiques You see f Lib. 32. cont Faust that you go about to overthrow all authority of Scripture and that every mans mind may be to himself a Rule what he is to allow or disallow in every Scripture 22. Moreover what confusion to the Church what danger to the Common-wealth this denial of the Authority of the Church may bring I leave to the consideration of any judicious indifferent man I will only set down some words of D. Potter who speaking of the Proposition of revealed Truths sufficient to prove him that gain-saith them to be an Heretique saith thus This Proposition g Pag. ●4 of revealed truths is not by the infallible determination of Pope or Church Pope and Church being excluded let us hear what more secure rule he will prescribe but by whatsoever means a man may be convinced in conscience of divine Revelation If a Preacher do clear any Point of Faith to his Hearers if a private Christian do make it appear to his Neighbour that any Conclusion or Point of Faith is delivered by divine revelation of Gods Word if a man himself without any Teacher by reading the Scriptures or hearing them read be convinced of the truth of any such Conclusion this is a sufficient Proposition to prove him that gain sayeth any such proof to be an Heretique and obstinate opposer of the Faith Behold what goodly safe Propounders of Faith arise in place of Gods universal visible Church which must yield to a single Preacher a Neighbour a man himself if he can read or at least have ears to hear Scripture read Verily I do not see but that every well-governed civil Common-wealth ought to concur towards the exterminating of this Doctrin whereby the Interpretation of Scripture is taken from the Church and conferred upon every man who whatsoever is pretended to the contrary may be a passionate seditious creature 23. Moreover there was no Scripture or written Word for about two thousand years from Adam to Moses whom all acknowledge to have been the first Author of Canonical Scripture And again for about two thousand years more from Moses to Christ our Lord holy Scripture was only among the people of Israel and yet there were Gentiles endued in those dayes with divine Faith as appeareth in Job and his friends Wherefore during so many Ages the Church alone was the Decider of Controversies and Instructor of the faithful Neither did the Word written by Moses deprive the Church of her former Infallibility or other qualities requisite for a Judge yea D. Potter acknowledgeth that besides the Law there was a living Judge in