Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	faith_n	ground_n	pillar_n	2,365	5	9.9071	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59903	A vindication of the Brief discourse concerning the notes of the church in answer to a late pamphlet entituled, The use and great moment of the notes of the church, as delivered by Cardinal Bellarmin, De notis ecclesiae, justified ...; De notis ecclesiae	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1687 (1687)	Wing S3374; ESTC R18869	41,299	72

like it They I confess will be in danger of a very fatal Stumble if they stumble either upon Scripture or Antiquity but we dare venture both Let them but grant that true Faith is the Note of a true Church and we will refer the Trial of our Faith to Scripture and Antiquity when they please Tho Cardinal Bellarmin had so much Wit as not to refer the Trial of the Churches Faith to Scripture I added That when we give Notes which belong to a whole Species as we must do when we give the Notes of a true Christian Church we must give such Notes as belong to the whole kind that is to all true Christian Churches And though these Notes are common indeed to all true Christian Churches yet they are proper and peculiar to a true Christian Church As the essential Properties of a Man are common to all Men but proper to Mankind and this is necessary to make them true Notes for such Notes of a Church as do not fit all true Churches cannot be true Notes But this which is the true Answer to Bellarmine's Argument he wisely drops As for what the Cardinal urges that all Sorts of Christians think themselves to have the True Faith and True Sacraments I answered I am apt to think they do but what then If they have not the True Faith and True Sacraments they are not True Churches whatever they think of it and yet the True Faith and True Sacraments are certain Notes of the True Church A Purchase upon a bad Title which a Man thinks a good one is not a good Estate but yet a Purchase upon a Title which is not only thought to be but is a good one is a good Estate To this he answers This is the same Error again for a good Title I hope is essential 't is no Note of a good Estate Oh the Wit of some Disputers What other Note is there of a good Estate but a good Title But he says there are other Notes which lead to the Discovery of a good Title what then they are the Notes of the Title not of the Estate they prove a good Title and a good Title makes a good Estate And yet that the Land be not praeengaged be free from all Incumbrances that there be no flaw in the Demise I take to be essential to a good Title and therefore according to our Authors Logick cannot be Notes neither But what is all this to the purpose Bellarmin proves That the true Faith cannot be the Note of a true Church because all Sects of Christians pretend to it I answer that though those who pretend to the true Faith and have it not are not true Churches yet those who have the true Faith are true Churches As a Purchase upon a bad Title which a Man thinks a good one is not a good Estate but yet a Purchase upon a good Title is a good Estate To this the Justifier of Bellarmin answers That a good Title is essential and therefore is no Note of a good Estate Whereas the Dispute here is not about essential or extra-essential Notes but whether the true Faith cannot be a Note of the true Church because some Men pretend to the true Faith who have it not But want of Understanding is necessary to make some Men Answerers of Books which Men of Understanding know they cannot answer The Cardinal 's second Objection against the Protestant Notes of a Church is That the Notes of any thing must be more known than the thing it self this I granted Now says he which is the true Church is more knowable than which is the true Faith and this I denied for this plain reason because the true Church cannot be known without knowing the true Faith For no Church is a true Church which does not profess the true Faith. Now says our Answerer This being denied we prove it thus c. Pag. 15. But methinks he should first have answered the Argument before he had gone to proving but that it seems is not his Talent Well but how does he prove that the true Church may be known before we know the true Faith Admirably I assure you If the Church be the Pillar of Truth raised up aloft that it may be conspicuous to all Men it must be more manifest than the Truth This Pillar raised aloft is a new Notion which I suppose he learnt from the Monument at London-Bridg which indeed is very visible but other wiser Writers by the Pillar and Ground of Truth prove that the Church is the Foundation whereon Truth is built but that would not serve his purpose to make the Church more visible than the Truth for he knows that the Foundation is not so visible as that which is built on it And in the next Page he honestly confesses that the true Faith is the Foundation of the Church and therefore proves that the true Church cannot be known by the true Faith for that is as if I should say I cannot know the House unless I see the Foundation the next way to overturn it So dangerous a thing are Metaphors which prove backward and forward as a Man fancies But let the Church be a Pillar raised aloft or a Foundation-Pillar or what Pillar he pleases must not we know the Church before we know it to be a Pillar of Truth Or can we know which Church is the Pillar of Truth before we know what Truth is Well! But let us now look to our selves for he undertakes to demonstrate it The Fruits of the Spirit the Graces are more known than the Spirit it self Ergo the true Church must be known before the true Faith. The outward profession of Faith more than the inward profession Ergo The true Church must be known before the outward profession of the true Faith which makes a true Church The Concrete more than the Abstract the Believer than the Belief I can know the Men before I know their Faith Ergo the true Church must be known before the true Faith. He is a very hard-hearted Man who will not allow this for Demonstration but he is a very good-natured Man who will allow it to be Sense Well! But he has a Distinction that will do the Business Aliud notius nobis aliud natura i. e. Some things are more knowable in themselves and some things are more knowable to us But we are enquiring which is most knowable to us the true Faith or the true Church He grants then that True Faith being a Constituent of or essential to the Church may be said to be Naturâ notior first known in the Order of Nature But we would not have these Methods confounded For if Faith be essential 't is the less known to us for that very reason because the first Constituents of a Compound are last known except to the Maker 'T is more manifest to us that we are Flesh and Blood though God knows that we are Dust and Ashes How happy is the