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	scripture_n	tradition_n	2,203	5	9.2236	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50883	Areopagitica; a speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of vnlicens'd printing, to the Parlament of England.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1644 (1644)	Wing M2092; ESTC R210022	36,202	42

begun it was as little in my fear that what words of complaint I heard among lerned men of other parts utter'd against the Inquisition the same I shou'd hear by as lerned men at home utterd in time of Parlament against an order of licencing and that so generally that when I had disclos'd my self a companion of their discontent I might say if without envy that he whom an honest questorship had indear'd to the Sicilians was not more by them importun'd against Verres then the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye and are known and respected by ye loaded me with entreaties and perswasions that I would not despair to lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon lerning That this is not therefore the disburdning of a particular fancie but the common grievance of all those who had prepar'd their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch to advance truth in others and from others to entertain it thus much may satisfie And in their name I shall for neither friend nor foe conceal what the generall murmur is that if it come to inquisitioning again and licencing and that we are so timorous of our selvs and so suspicious of all men as to fear each book and the shaking of every leaf before we know what the contents are if some who but of late were little better then silenc't from preaching shall come now to silence us from reading except what they please it cannot be guest what is intended by som but a second tyranny over learning and will soon put it out of controversie that Bishops and Presbyters are the same to us both name and thing That those evills of Prelaty which before from five or six and twenty Sees were distributivly charg'd upon the whole people will now light wholly upon learning is not obscure to us whenas now the Pastor of a small unlearned Parish on the sudden shall be exalted Archbishop over a large dioces of books and yet not remove but keep his other cure too a mysticall pluralist He who but of late cry'd down the sole ordination of every novice Batchelor of Art and deny'd sole jurisdiction over the simplest Parishioner shall now at home in his privat chair assume both these over worthiest and excellentest books and ablest authors that write them This is not Yee Covnants and Protestations that we have made this is not to put down Prelaty this is but to chop an Episcopacy this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another this is but an old canonicall flight of commuting our penance To startle thus betimes at a meer unlicenc't pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle and a while after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting But I am certain that a State govern'd by the rules of justice and fortitude or a Church built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge cannot be so pusillanimous While things are yet not constituted in Religion that freedom of writing should be restrain'd by a discipline imitated from the Prelats and learnt by them from the Inquisition to shut us up all again into the brest of a licencer must needs give cause of doubt and discouragement to all learned and religious men Who cannot but discern the finenes of this politic drift and who are the contrivers that while Bishops were to be baited down then all Presses might be open it was the peoples birthright and priviledge in time of Parlament it was the breaking forth of light But now the Bishops abrogated and voided out of the Church as if our Reformation sought no more but to make room for others into their seats under another name the Episcopall arts begin to bud again the cruse of truth must run no more oyle liberty of Printing must be enthrall'd again under a Prelaticall commission of twenty the privilege of the people nullify'd and which is wors the freedom of learning must groan again and to her old fetters all this the Parlament yet sitting Although their own late arguments and defences against the Prelats might remember them that this obstructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly opposite to the end which it drives at instead of suppressing sects and schisms it raises them and invests them with a reputation The punishing of wits enhaunces their autority saith the Vicount St. Albans and a forbidd'n writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seeke to tread it out This order therefore may prove a nursing mother to sects but I shall easily shew how it will be a step-dame to Truth and first by disinabling us to the maintenance of what is known already Well knows he who uses to consider that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise as well as our limbs and complexion Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition A man may be a heretick in the truth and if he beleeve things only because his Pastor sayes so or the Assembly so determins without knowing other reason though his belief be true yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresie There is not any burden that som would gladlier post off to another then the charge and care of their Religion There be who knows not that there be of Protestants and professors who live and dye in as arrant an implicit faith as any lay Papist of Loretto A wealthy man addicted to his pleasure and to his profits finds Religion to be a traffick so entangl'd and of so many piddling accounts that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade What should he doe fain he would have the name to be religious fain he would bear up with his neighbours in that What does he therefore but resolvs to give over toyling and to find himself out som factor to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs som Divine of note and estimation that must be To him he adheres resigns the whole ware-house of his religion with all the locks and keyes into his custody and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself but is becom a dividuall movable and goes and comes neer him according as that good man frequents the house He entertains him gives him gifts feasts him lodges him his religion comes home at night praies is liberally supt and sumptuously laid to sleep rises is saluted and after the malmsey or some well spic't bruage and better breakfasted then he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and

to such a place in the firmament where they may be seen evning or morning The light which we have gain'd was giv'n us not to be ever staring on but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge It is not the unfrocking of a Priest the unmitring of a Bishop and the removing him from off the Presbyterian shoulders that will make us a happy Nation no if other things as great in the Church and in the rule of life both economicall and politicall be not lookt into and reform'd we have lookt so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius and Calvin hath beacon'd up to us that we are stark blind There be who perpetually complain of schisms and sects and make it such a calamity that any man dissents from their maxims 'T is their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing who neither will hear with meeknes nor can convince yet all must be supprest which is not found in their Syntagma They are the troublers they are the dividers of unity who neglect and permit not others to unite those dissever'd peeces which are yet wanting to the body of Truth To be still searching what we know not by what we know still closing up truth to truth as we find it for all her body is homogeneal and proportionall this is the golden rule in Theology as well as in Arithmetick and makes up the best harmony in a Church not the forc't and outward union of cold and neutrall and inwardly divided minds Lords and Commons of England consider what Nation it is wherof ye are and wherof ye are the governours a Nation not slow and dull but of a quick ingenious and piercing spirit acute to invent suttle and sinewy to discours not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest Sciences have bin so ancient and so eminent among us that Writers of good antiquity and ablest judgement have bin perswaded that ev'n the school of Pythagoras and the Persian wisdom took beginning from the old Philosophy of this Iland And that wise and civill Roman Julius Agricola who govern'd once here for Caesar preferr'd the naturall wits of Britain before the labour'd studies of the French Nor is it for nothing that the grave and frugal Transilvanian sends out yearly from as farre as the mountanous borders of Russia and beyond the Hercynian wildernes not their youth but their stay'd men to learn our language and our theologic arts Yet that which is above all this the favour and the love of heav'n we have great argument to think in a peculiar manner propitious and propending towards us Why else was this Nation chos'n before any other that out of her as out of Sion should be proclam'd and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to all Europ And had it not bin the obstinat perversnes of our Prelats against the divine and admirable spirit of Wicklef to suppresse him as a schismatic and innovator perhaps neither the Bohemian Husse and Jerom no nor the name of Luther or of Calvin had bin ever known the glory of reforming all our neighbours had bin compleatly ours But now as our obdurat Clergy have with violence demean'd the matter we are become hitherto the latest and the backwardest Schollers of whom God offer'd to have made us the teachers Now once again by all concurrence of signs and by the generall instinct of holy and devout men as they daily and solemnly expresse their thoughts God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in his Church ev'n to the reforming of Reformation it self what does he then but reveal Himself to his servants and as his manner is first to his English-men I say as his manner is first to us though we mark not the method of his counsels and are unworthy Behold now this vast City a City of refuge the mansion house of liberty encompast and surrounded with his protection the shop of warre hath not there more anvils and hammers waking to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in defence of beleaguer'd Truth then there be pens and heads there sitting by their studious lamps musing searching revolving new nations and idea's wherewith to present as with their homage and their fealty the approaching Reformation others as fast reading trying all things assenting to the force of reason and convincement What could a man require more from a Nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soile but wise and faithfull labourers to make a knowing people a Nation of Prophets of Sages and of Worthies We reck'n more then five months yet to harvest there need not be five weeks had we but eyes to lift up the fields are white already Where there is much desire to learn there of necessity will be much arguing much writing many opinions for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which God hath stirr'd up in this City What some lament of we rather should rejoyce at should rather praise this pious forwardnes among men to reassume the ill deputed care of their Religion into their own hands again A little generous prudence a little forbearance of one another and som grain of charity might win all these diligences to joyn and unite into one generall and brotherly search after Truth could we but forgoe this Prelaticall tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men I doubt not if some great and worthy stranger should come among us wise to discern the mould and temper of a people and how to govern it observing the high hopes and aims the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth and freedom but that he would cry out as Pirrhus did admiring the Roman docility and courage if such were my Epirots I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to make a Church or Kingdom happy Yet these are the men cry'd out against for schismaticks and sectaries as if while the Temple of the Lord was building some cutting some squaring the marble others hewing the cedars there should be a sort of irrationall men who could not consider there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be built And when every stone is laid artfully together it cannot be united into a continuity it can but be contiguous in this world neither can every peece of the building be of one form nay rather the perfection consists in this that out of many moderat varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportionall arises the goodly and the gracefull symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure Let us therefore be more