Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	ghost_n	holy_a	son_n	6,613	5	5.5143	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52316	The project of peace, or, Unity of faith and government, the only expedient to procure peace, both foreign and domestique and to preserve these nations from the danger of popery and arbitrary tyranny by the author of the countermine.	Nalson, John, 1638?-1686.	1678 (1678)	Wing N113; ESTC R3879	154,518	354

be such a Condition in Order to this End Psal 51.4 as All may have That so God may be Justified when he speaks and clear when he Judges and if men be not saved it may appear it was through their own Folly and not from the difficulty of the Condition which God offers For it would be infinitely derogatory to the Wisdom and Goodness of the Divine Nature to the God of Love the only Wise God to give such a Condition of Salvation as All were not capable of attaining For Salvation is not confined to the Wise and Learned 1 Cor. 1.26 nay St. Paul seems to intimate the Contrary Not many Wise men are called Jude 3. but it is the Common Salvation in which all Rich and Poor High and Low Young and Old the Learned and Unlearned the Wise and the Simple have a share The Foundation of this Assent to the Conditional Propositions of Salvation is not therefore our Understanding of them to be true by the Power of Reason our comprehending or apprehending the manner of them but it springs from the Confidence that we have of the Veracity of him who propounds them to our Belief and that we are assured that he will not because he cannot deceive us because he is Truth it self as whoever believes a Supreme Being must of Necessity believe Truth to be of his Essence THUS I believe the Glorious Mystery of the Trinity Three Persons but one God the Incarnation of the Son of God the proceeding of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son the Resurrection of the Body and the rest of the Articles of the Christian Faith not because I dare pretend to understand them or to give a Satisfactory Reason to my self how this can be Or why it should be but I rest my self satisfied upon the assurance that he who requires me to believe it cannot deceive me nor require me to believe what is not most certainly true But God being in Heaven in that inaccessable Light of Glory and I upon Earth there must be therefore some Internuncius between us that so I may receive these Conditions of Salvation to be believed This Office was in former times committed to the Prophets Rom. 3.4 2 Tim. 3.16 2 Pet. 1.21 and God spake by them For God is only true and all Men may be Lyars and therefore all Scripture was given by Inspiration and came not at any time by the Will of Men but Holy Men of God spoak being moved by the Holy Ghost Heb. 1.1 But the great Prerogative of Christian Religion is That God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the Fathers hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son whom he hath appointed Heir of all things by whom also he made the Worlds Now these Holy Instruments whom God employed to declare his Will to Men that they might obtain Credit to their Message were assisted with power of working Miracles which were the Letters Testimonial the Credentials of Heaven in their behalf to assure the incredulous World that they were Messengers and Ambassadors from God for it is a Natural Inference which Nicodemus made even whilest he was so Unregenerate that he thought Regeneration an Impossibility Jo. 3.2 Rabbi we know that thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do these Miracles that thou doest except God be with him This Revelation of Gods Will Confirmed to be so by Miracles Signs and Wonders when it comes to be considered and attended to will gain the Assent of the Mind and that these must needs be Truths of a Divine Extract and Original Since All their Precepts are free from any Design but the Advantage of those to whom they are proposed and to make them partakers of the Divine Nature by the practice of that Truth Innocence Justice Temperance and Purity which they do so Universally require as the Way to Happiness both in this Life and that of Celestial Glory and Immortality And these Commands Collected into a Body we call the Holy Canon of Sacred Scriptures I think I need not produce Arguments to prove those Writings to be the Word and Will of God that being a Principle so confessed that without it no Man can be called a Christian I am not now to deal with Heathens or Infidels FROM this Postulatum granted these Conclusions will Naturally follow First That Faith does not depend upon Humane Authority but upon Divine Revelation For it came not by the Will of Man but by the Will of God And therefore no Humane Authority has any power to Impose upon the Belief any thing either contrary or more than God has plainly revealed to be his Will as the Condition of our Salvation for to Command what God has not commanded as such a Condition is insufferable Pride and Insolence an Usurpation upon the Incommunicable Prerogative of him Heb. 12.2 who is the Author and the Finisher of our Faith How great then is the Impiety of those who contrary to the practice of the Universal Church for 1500 years have added the Books of Apocrypha meer Humane Writings to the Holy Canon and under pain of Damnation Impose them upon us as matters of Faith and Conditions of Salvation How Unreasonable is it to make Tradition the Foundation of Faith and of Equal value with the Holy Writings Of which Traditions there being so great Uncertainty it is very Improbable our Faith should receive any Confirmation from them For what is liable to a doubt it self is very unlikely to take away all cause of Doubting Yet this is the Faith of the Roman Church in their Vnwritten Verities SECONDLY it follows That nothing ought to be Imposed as De Fide and the Necessary Condition of Salvation but what is clearly Demonstrable to be the Will of God revealed and which all Men because all are capacitated for Salvation may easily Understand to be so And since all men have an Equal Title to Salvation upon their performance of the Conditions by God required to be believed and done therefore what Faith will Save the Unlearned will also save the Learned For God proposeth no different Methods more for the one than the other for he is no respecter of Persons Act. 10.35 but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him So that he who is Baptized Repents Lives Righteously Godly and Soberly in this present World believing the Gospel of our Lord and obeying it according to that Belief shall certainly receive the end of his Faith and hope the Salvation of his Soul For these are Truths so clearly contained in the Scripture that the meanest Capacity may understand them and perform the Conditions required Now what is necessary and sufficient for all and whatever is proposed more is Superfluous since he that believes this and no more shall certainly be saved and he that believes more shall but be saved It is

whereas for many Ages past men have beaten their Brains Joel 3.10 To beat their Plough-shares into Swords and their Pruning Hooks into Spears have Employed those Parts and Abilities with which they ought to have broken up the fallow Ground Hos 10.12 to sow in righteousness what we might reap in Peace to wound one anothers sides Would they follow this Rule of Charity we might see the Glorious Prophecy of Micha fulfilled Mich. 4.1 2 3 4. For in the last Days it shall come to pass that the Mountain of the Lords house shall be Exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it and many Nations shall come and say Come and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us of his Ways and we will walk in his Paths and they shall beat their Swords into Plough-shears and their Spears into Pruning Hooks Nation shall not rise up against Nation neither shall they learn War any more but they shall sit every man under his Vine and under his Fig Tree and none shall make them affraid I know it will be objected That the Scriptures are full of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those things difficult to be understood To which I answer with the Apostle 2 Tim. 3.15 16 17. The holy Scriptures are able to make any man wise unto Salvation through Faith which is in Jesus Christ being given by Inspiration of God for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction in Righteotsness that the Man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good Works All this is contained in them in plain and easy Language and who can desire more what is necessary to be believed or done is to be found there without such Difficulty and that is all that either is or can properly be our Concern The Design of Religion is not to entertain the speculative or gratifie the Curious but to guide the Practical Christian in his Duty And if there be difficult places there is no necessity of our Understanding them For he that inspired the Holy Pens cannot without the greatest Impiety be argued of acting negligently insufficiently or without Design as other careless Writers may and that they are not more clear and perspicuous ought with a becoming reverence due to the only wise God to be believed that they are therefore wrapt up in Mysterious words either because they are not necessary or not fit for us to know Nor is there the least danger in such humble Ignorance but there is certainly in a presumptuous Curiosity and seeking after the Tree of Knowledge which God has prohibited by planting the Wall of Obscurity about it and if we will with the Bethshemites be Peeping into the Ark we may expect to be punished justly by wresting the Scriptures to our own Damnation and much more if being Unlearned and Private Men we undertake to give Publique Interpretations and Determinations different from both the Catholique Faith and Church 2 Pet. 1.20 For no Scripture is of Private Interpretation AND that this is the danger is as evident as the Punishment of it is certain for here is the Spring head of Errors and Heresies which always took their Original from the Transgression of this Caution For when men will leave the plain and beaten Path the easy Way to Happiness here and Heaven hereafter by Faith and Obedience to seek for it in their own Wisdom and Niceties it is no wonder if they wander out of the Way of Truth when they permit themselves to be lead by their Private Opinions and Interpretations it is the blind leading the blind in the Darkness of Midnight and no wonder then if at last they stumble and fall into the blackness of Eternal Darkness For self-love is a very blind Guide and self Conceit a worse and they must needs be in darkness to whom God denies the light of the Spirit which he does in all obscure places of Scripture and if as he told the Jews men therefore Err not knowing the Scripture they must needs Err who will know more than he will let them To confirm the truth of this Doctrine and that the Holy Canon is as the word Imports a Rule not only of our Actions but our Faith I would desire any Person to give me a reason why he Believes the three Famous Creeds which contain the sum and substance of our Christian Faith there can be but these three Reasons First Because he immediately by Divine Revelation is assured of his Faith or Secondly Because he is perswaded by some Person or Persons to believe or Thirdly Because he finds the Articles there mentioned either in plain Words or evident Consequences in Scripture which for good reason he believes to be the Dictates of divinely inspired Penmen THE First all sober Men reject as leading directly to Enthusiasm and under pretence of Heavenly Revelations to introduce Hellish Impieties and Doctrines of Devils who having a Power to transform themselves into Angels of Light may take that Advantage to Impose upon strong Fancies and weak Judgments FOR the Second a man will thus argue Why should I believe this or these Men since all men are Fallible and they who may be deceived may therefore deceive and if I believe this Man why not another why not Mahomet who pretended to the Holy Ghost as much as they AND therefore Thirdly Faith must be resolved into the first Principle of it which is Gods Truth and Infallibility and that Word which I believe to be his and therefore more Credible than the Word of any or all Men. Thus was Faith first propagated in the World and thus it must be increased for the Multitudes to whom the Apostles Preached throughout the World did not believe St. Peter or St. Paul that Preached Jesus and the Resurrection Righteousness Temperance and Judgment to come but seeing the Miracles which they did they believed that this was the Word of God and that Jesus was the Son of God agreable to the Doctrine of the Prophets in the Old Testament concerning the Messiah This Method our Lord made use of with his Disciples Luke 24.5.4 Then opened he their Vnderstanding that they might Vnderstand the Scriptures that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning him and he said unto them Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day from the Dead and that Repentance and Remission of Sins should be Preached in his Name among all Nations beginning at Jerusalem This Doctrine of Faith the Apostles believed this they Preached not as their own but the Faith of Christ this they committed to Writing and delivered to the Christians as the Rule of their Faith and Life Rom. 15.4 For as the Scriptures of the Old Testament and whatsoever was Writen aforetime was written for our Learning