Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	divine_a	reason_n	revelation_n	1,875	5	9.2536	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87879	An answer to the Marques of Worcester's last paper; to the late King. Representing in their true posture, and discussing briefly, the main controversies between the English and the Romish Church. Together with some considerations, upon Dr Bayly's parenthetical interlocution; relating to the Churches power in deciding controversies. To these is annext, Smectymnuo-Mastix : or, short animadversions upon Smectymnuus in the point of lyturgie. / By Hamon L'Estrange, Esqr.	L'Estrange, Hamon, 1605-1660.	1651 (1651)	Wing L1187; Wing L1191; Thomason E1218_2; ESTC R202717	68,906	120

lamentable But though to the members of the Church the Authority of the Church be a vehement and strong motive yet to Pagans and Infidels who will own no such thing as a Church it is no motive at all if they question the Scriptures Divinity studious either of cavil or to be converted they must be refuted or invited by arguments drawn from reason wherein they intercommune with us and to speak truth reason will carry them a very great way on towards even to the very brink of Faith reason will tell them that the Soul is immortal that it is not onely capable but desirous of happinesse that that felicity of the Soul cannot consist in either riches honour Beauty strength learning or any earthly thing they being all too narrow for it and too short-lived but in the beatifical vision and contemplation of its Creator who is onely able to fill it and in whose presence is the fulness of joy for evermore It will tell them that though God is their last home videant quo eant they may see whither they should go non habent qua eant yet how to come there is beyond the ken of Reason and that though Religion be the way to him yet dim-sighted reason will never be able to find that way till God himself reveals it for Author de Deo est ipse Deus God himself is and must be the Authour of that which brings us to him and it were inconsistent with the Providence of the All-wise God to withhold from man that means without which impossible it is for man to attain that end for which he was created Therefore Augustine chargeth it hence upon the Pagan Gods as a grosse neglect in not instructing of their worshippers in the way and means to happinesse To the care of the solicitous Gods saith he it did belong not to conceal from their worshippers the rudiments of living well but to teach them by clear publication also to convent and reprove offenders by their Prophets to threaten open punishment to those who do ill and to promise reward to those who live well Reason therefore will thus teach them the necessity of some conveyance from God of his revealed will and that necessity will also infer the actual being of such a Revelation considering that Deus non deficit in necessariis God is not wanting in affording what is necessary This necessity and being of Divine revelation once allowed reason will make it further credible that the Scriptures now received and entertained amongst us Christians as the word of God are indeed and in truth that revealed will of God For first they have no rival there is none other stands in competition with them the Gods of the Ethnicks gave their worshippers none Secondly if there were any other yet none must compare with them they having many Prerogatives above all other These Prerogatives are First Antiquity the Doctrine of them being far ancienter then all other Religions in the world and almost as ancient as time it self had it but begun with Moses it had carried the priority and antecedency of time from all other by the confession of the heathens themselves as Josephus proveth but it was before him Nam unde Noe c. For how was Noah found righteous but by the preceding Justice of the Law of nature How was Abraham reputed the friend of God but by the equity of the same Law How was Melchisedeck called the Priest of the most high God if before the Priest-hood settled by the Levetical Law there were not Priests to offer Sacrifice Nay it was before the Floud even in Paradise it self there was the doctrine of saving Truth first instituted which afterward was not renewed but enlarged was not changed but perfected Secondly the Spirituality of the doctrine as God is a Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth so is the fabrique frame and contrivance of the Scriptures conformable to him 't is not a doctrine of sensuality and dissolutenesse not a doctrine of self-ends and by-respects not a doctrine of worldly pomp and state not a doctrine of wicked principles and discipline but a doctrine of sobriety and of self-denial and of humility and of virtue a doctrine tending onely to God and what is in order to him which sequestreth the soul from all earthly imaginations and cogitations and fixeth them onely upon God Thirdly the perfection of them the excellent symmetry of parts there is nothing lame nothing idle nothing impertinent in them they were not written by chance and at all adventure there 's not a syllable not a tittle but hath a masse of treasure comprehended and contrived in them Fourthly the excellency of the mode stile and form of expression descending to the meanest transcending the highest capacities where God one whiles insinuates himself into the conscience in the language of a familiar Friend another while reclaims it with the indignation of an incensed Judge where Elegancy is without levity and affectation plainnesse without irksonesse and satiety wherein the most curious spirits may be exercised the most ignorant instructed Fifthly the truth of them in the accomplishment of what was there prophesied and we may confidently believe what we see performed as Cyrus his very Name principal atchievements foretold by Esay the end of the Siege of Jerusalem by Jeremiah the translation of the Assyrian Empire to the Medes and Persians by Daniel but most especially the coming of our Saviour Christ the true Messias at the very time designed of seventy Weeks by Daniel 9. 24. The calling of the Gentiles by Esay c. 60. The rejection and dispersion of the Jews by Zechariah 12. 13. Lastly the destruction of the second Temple by Daniel c. 9. And our Saviour Christ Luke 19. 43. Sixthly the miraculous preservation of the Books themselves first against the injuries of neglect as the Law found in the rubbish of the Temple 2 Kings 22. after the wretched neglect thereof in the time of Manasseth Secondly against the injuries of alteration {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. For in the Flux of so many Ages no man durst either add diminish or change any part of them for which end Esdras Gamaliel Eleazar and others contrived that excellent Treasure of the Masoreth to denote the diversity of Readings in the Hebrew Text Lastly against the injuries of persecution as in the time of Dioclesian who commanded all the Bibles he could discover to be burnt They who delivered them up being call'd Traditores Traitors a word frequent in Saint Augustine against the Donatists the main quarrell being between the Church and them about the non-reception of those Apostates into the Congregation Seventhly the thrift and propagation of the Gospel in spite of all opposition and persecution By how many Tyrants was the Church afflicted yet never conquered and destroyed The Romans often pruned and lopt its Professors off

nurture for Children who are adult and grown to full stature and past the danger of cutting their own fingers sometimes to be their own Carvers though their Mother be at the Table But how commeth it to passe that the Doctor here placeth our Mother the Church in no obscure place neither but in the Carvers place at the Tables end where she should be visible enough and yet say afterward he would fain finde out this Church And if at the Table she be the more hard-hearted is she sure for truly Doctor I must say as Powhaton did to the Jesuit or Attaliba an Indian Prince too to Frier Vincent she hath carved me nothing no nor any man else for these fifteen hundred years and 't is an hard case that Children should cry and pine and sterve and die eternally for want of this Food everlasting which is before them and all because their Mother will not carve them and themselves they must not 'T is time then for God to take away and I heartily pray he may not take away and deprive this Church of that blessed Food for such wicked Tenets as this They must not slight all Orders Constitutions Appeals and Rules of Faith Most true the Churches Orders are not to be slighted nor yet to be obeyed without further disquisition and scrutiny the Apostle spake as to wise men yet left them to judge what he said so may the Church determine what she please and if not agreeable to my sense endeavour I will to inform my self better and if after after all my study I cannot subdue my Reason to hers yet to her Orders my outward conformity I will provided she makes no Rules of Faith and obtrudeth nothing destructive to saving principles things above her sphere Saving knowledge and divine Truths must not be wrested from the Scripture by private hands This is that we desire let them there remain fit it is that in what every man hath equal propriety he also should to it have equal accesse and most unfit that the means of eternal livelihood should be monopolized Doct. There is nothing more absurd to my understanding than that the thing contested which is the true meaning of the Scriptures should be Judge of the Contestation Nor to mine that any one should tell us what God meaneth better than he doth himself or that the Church a thing subordinate to Scripture and not to be known or discovered but by Scripture should tell us the minde of the Scripture better than it doth it self Doct. No way inferior to that absurdity which would follow would be this if we should leave the deciding of the sense of the words of the Law to the pre-occupated understanding of one of the Advocates Neither is this all the Absurdity that doth arise upon this supposition for if you grant this to one you must grant it to any one and to every one if there were but two how will you reconcile them both If you grant that this Judicature must be in many there are many manies which of those manies will you have Decide but this and you satisfie all Decide you it Doctor whence it concerns for your Church must be one of those manies and yet I believe you will not satisfie all not those I am perswaded whose suffrage is for the Scripture against all manies whatsoever If you make the Scripture the Judge of Controversies you make the Reader Judge of the Scripture Not so Doctor no Judge yet a more competent Judge to himself than any other or all the World can be seeing Knowledge and Understanding cannot be produced and perfected in any man any other way than by his own Reason If I make the dead Letter my Judge I am the greatest Idolater in the World A great Idolater you should then be I grant but not the greatest in the World for you worship then but what you see and something really existing but to worship such a thing as hath not yet been nor can be divin'd when it shall be as your Church is certainly must be the greater Idolatry of the two Doct. It will tell me no more than it told the Indian Emperor Powhaton who asking the Jesuit how he knew all that to be true which he had told him and the Jesuit answering him that God's Word did tell him so the Emperor asked him where it was He shewed him his Bible the Emperor after he had held it in his hands a pretty while answered it tells me nothing But you will say you can reade and so you will finde the meaning out of the significant Character and when you have done as you apprehend it so it must be and so the Scripture is nothing else but your meaning Not so Doctor but so it must be to me be it to the Doctor what he please nor perhaps shall it be always so to me as I now apprehend it for I am no infallible Judge to my self rectifie I may and will upon better reason what I formerly mis-apprehended upon worse Wherefore necessity requireth an external Judge for Determination of Differences besides the Scriptures If an external Judge besides Scriptures be necessary then necessary also it is that that Judge be first infallible for else better it were the Dissentions continued than the Error be stated and put into possession as may well be feared in an erring Judge Secondly that that Judges authority be allow'd of for infallible by general consent for else all will not abide her arrest and doom Lastly that that Judge be always ready and forth coming upon all emergent Differences to still them never out of the way never to seek for else the Differences will the more increase and fructifie by staying the longer for judicial sentence and decision Now because for these fifteen hundred years controversies have been and no such Judge as yet discovered in rerum natura to quiet them we may safely conclude from the no Judge a no necessity or accuse God for improvidence and neglect in leaving us destitute all this time of so necessary a Requisite Doct. And we can have no better recourses to any than to such as the Scripture it self calls upon us to hear which is the Church which Church would be found out The Scripture calls upon us to hear the Church but is this to hear to obey her Glosse and Interpretation of the Scripture to give up and resign our judgements to her sense Calvin Beza Grotius all Expositors the Context it self will tell you no it is to submit to her censure in point of satisfaction for mutual offence whereby she is scandalized so that Doctor you must before you finde the Church you so look for finde some other Text to warrant her Authority or she is like to be no external Judge whom all must obey in matters of Faith Here the Doctor takes breath and gives his most Excellent Majesty leave to speak who like himself most judiciously catechiseth the Doctor in the

weak finite and erring men still their Canons are no Articles of Faith their Decrees no infallible Rules Not so in the primitive Church I am assured by the confession of both sides Augustine being to dispute with Maximinus his first demand was Dic mihi fidem Rehearse to me thy faith the subtle Heretique supposing Augustine would urge the Nicene Creed against him reply'd I believe as the Councel of Ariminum believes but finding after that Augustine would not take this for an Answer says further I did not plead the Councel of Ariminum to excuse my opinion but to shew the Authority of the Fathers who according to Scripture delivered to us a Confession of Faith which they had out of the Scripture Augustine perceiving Maximinus let go the Councel of Ariminum was resolved to stand as little upon the Councel of Nice but closed with him thus Neither ought I to produce the Councel of Nice against thee nor thou that of Ariminum against me I am not bound to the authority of this nor thou of that let us in our conflict urge the authority of scripture witness indifferent to both and not peculiar to either See here the Orthodox and Heretique both compromise to abide the order of Scripture and both wave the Authority and Judgement of two General Councels which certainly they would not have done had they reputed them infallible and a Judge not infallible shall rule no Faith of mine But the Doctor tells us page 79. His Society of Men must be such as can say It seemed good unto us and to the holy Ghost Now Doctor you speak to the point indeed that Society of Men that Church would I fain see but are you well advised what you say If yea then it must seem good to the holy Ghost because so to us whereas the first form if he ever promised to be there with infallible assistance I dare take his word for it but had it to the holy Ghost first and then to us But assign the holy Ghost what place ye please if he be there 't is all I look for and I will not take yours unless you shew me that promise which hitherto you have not done But we will not part so neither admit for once you finde the Church you so hunt for and a spirit of infallibility directing her in that Councel must and will all Controversies presently cease Certainly no such matter for may not perverse spirits wrest to their own destruction what the holy Ghost shall declare in a General Councel as well as what he hath delivered in the sacred Scripture Did not the Nestorians vouch for their Heresie the Authority of the Councel of Nice as General a Councel and as much endowed with the holy Ghost as ever any since that of Hierusalem was or I believe shall be Nor do I speak onely of what the malice of Satan sowing Tares and man's crooked untoward will a soil proper for them may produce for the holy Ghost speaks in a manner signanter and expresly there must be notwithstanding such assistance Controversies still For if there must be Heresies there will be without controversie Controversies still and that Heresies must be the holy Ghost tells us 1 Cor. 11. 19. So that the revenue and product of all I have said is this That the true Church hath not the supreme Judicature over Questions of Faith and if she had yet Controversies would and must still continue and all this I hope I have not onely said but proved I confesse ingeniously sure he meant ingenuously for there was no great wit in his confession that there is not a thing that I ever understood lesse than that Assertion of the Scriptures being Judge of Controversies though in some sort I must and will acknowledge it The Doctor was here going a step beyond the Papists themselves who all hold the Scriptures to be an infallible Rule but resum'd himself and modifieth his speech with an acknowledgement of it to be so in some sense but in what he thought us not worthy to know Nor since he is so reserved will we much inquire because when known it can extend little to our satisfaction But though we must not know in what sense it is sole Judge yet in what it is not he tells us and that is Not as it is a Book consisting of papers words and letters for as we commonly say in matters of civil Differences The Law shall be Judge between us we do not meane that every man shall run unto the Law-books or that any Lawyer himself shall search his Law-cases and thereupon possesse himself of the thing in question without a legal Triall by lawfull Judges constituted to that same purpose How the Doctor thinks he hath nickt it and yet I fear he is so far from hitting the White as he hath mist the But For first the Comparison is extremely wide Things ad extra and what are without us may be stated and determined by civil Judicatories but Faith is a thing mixt of the understanding and the will over which none can claim Jurisdiction Man may adjudge away my Land my Faith he cannot and therefore I must say with the Poet Hane animam concede mihi tua eaetera sunto Secondly in civil Differences will the Doctor say that the Judges decide the Question or the Law For if the Judgement be given according to the Law then the Law is the Judge I take it and if contrary to Law or not according to it he who so determineth is not a Judge but an Arbitrator Our Law judgeth no man c. saith Nicodemus there the Law was the Judge And though with us in England the Law is a kinde of Craft or Mystery full of Quirks and Intricacies yet in other places as in Denmark Onely the Parties at variance plead their own Cause and then a Man stands up and reades the Law and there 's an end for the very Law-book is the onely Judge saith my royal Author and adds Happy were all Kingdoms if they could be so Lastly where the Doctor saith It is not our meaning that every man shall run unto the Law-books We will though not yield it yet suppose it so in other Differences but in Divinity it is clearly otherwise for there is an expresse Command given by Christ himself not to the Pharisees onely but generally to all Search the Scriptures and it were a meer mockery in our Saviour to bid us Reade the Scriptures if they were like Caligula's Laws written in so smal an hand that we cannot reade them or in so obscure words as we cannot without the help of the Church in matters of Salvation understand them In like manner saving knowledge and divine Truths are the Portion that all God's Children lay fast claim to yet they must not be their own Carvers though it be their own meat that is before them whilest they have a Mother at the Table It is no Argument of ill