Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A56280
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A full and clear exposition of the Protestant rule of faith with an excellent dialogue laying forth the large extent of true Protestant charity against the uncharitable papists.
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Pulton, A. (Andrew), 1654-1710.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing P4205; ESTC R7815
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18,771
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21
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will all not only say but swear also that they have omitted no endeavours of Diligence or Pious means They are all in their own conceits sure they are in the right and that those who differ from them are deluded blinded with Passion byas'd by Interest or the like Give me Sir an Infallible Rule whereby I may know which of them have the Spirit of Truth which the contrary Phil. I tell you once again let GOD Judge them I meddle with none of them 't is not my Affair I am certain I am in the right Eu. Under favour Sir I think this a Demonstration that every Protestant Church is at the same time according to your own Principles both in the true Church and out of the true Church and consequently neither in nor out which is a meer Chimera I thus prove my Assertion Every Protestant Church is a true Church because her Members of sound judgment are fit Judges in Controversies of Faith by Scripture which alone they follow and which is clear in all things necessary to Salvation Every Protestant Church is also a false Church because those Churches which are by Members of sound judgement governing themselves by Scripture judg'd Heretical Blasphemers Anti-christian and Diabolical must needs be false Churches But as I have shewn above there is no particular Protestant Church which has not by some other particular Protestant Church been so call'd represented and believ'd therefore every Protestant Church is false Thus is every Protestant Church both true and false and consequently Church and no Church which as I said before is a meer Chimera Phil. Hold Sir not so fast I have let you ramble long enough 't is now time to take you up You have Sir I perceive forgot what I told you in the beginning of our Discourse that the Point concerning which the difference is may perhaps be of such a Nature that there is no necessity of believing it with Divine Faith that is it may perhaps be none of the Essentials or Fundamentals of Faith. Eu. There may therefore be Heretical Blasphemous Anti-christian and Diabolical Doctrines taught by sound Christians remaining in the Communion of the H. Catholick Church because all these Characters are consistent with the Fundamentals of Christianity oblige me therefore so far as to give me aList of these all-saving Fundamentals Phil. That Sir is not so easy as you imagin for by reason of Mens different Capacities and Apprehension that may be necessary to one Person which is not so to another so that to require such a List of me is to bid me shape a Coat for the Moon which she being never at a stay but always either increasing or decreasing is utterly impossible This only you may rely on as a certain truth that nothing can be a Fundamental or Essential Point of Faith which is not clearly deliver'd in Holy Writ Nor can there be any greater Evidence of a Points being clearly taught in Scripture than that Learned and Pious Men after a diligent search and the use of due means differ not about it Eu. I see then Sir by this your Doctrine that a Man may without endangering his Salvation deny all these Articles I have hitherto been taught to be the principal Points of Christianity Phil. Sir what you may have been taught I know not but since you press me so close give me leave to tell you with the Learned Mr. Chillingworth that if you mean by Fundamental what is necessary to be explicitly believed by every one for the obtaining of Eternal Life there is perhaps nothing so but that there is a GOD and that JESUS CHRIST came to save finners and that whoever holding this Foundation shall be ready to submit his Belief to all that he shall find reveal'd in Scripture taken in such sense as he himself shall after the use of due means Judge to be true can never err damnably nor consequently cease to be a Member of that Church out of which there is no Salvation Eu. I must confess Sir that your Charity is of a very vast extent For by this your Doctrine all those who were by the Fathers in the Primitive Church and the first General Councils condemned as notorious Hereticks ought not to be excluded the Pale of the Church But pray Sir what would you say to one who having read the Holy Scripture with all possible Diligence and consider'd not only the many Contradictory Opinions held by Men pretending to no other Rule but also the possitive Assertion of Protestants that all visible Churches for a thousand years have been Erroneous and False and that all the Signs Prodigies and Miracles wrought by pretended Catholicks as you are pleas'd to call us were nothing but Imposters and Cheats that there was no true Holiness in all our Saints nor any Faith to be given to our Fathers How far Sir I say would your Charity extend to one who after a thorow Consideration of all this should with the Turks remain perswaded that as Moses's Law was abolisht by the coming of our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST so the Christian Law was to have an end at the coming of Mahomet who was according to their Doctrine a Prophet sent by God to that purpose and as far exceeded CHRIST as CHRIST did Moses and being thus perswaded should follow the Example of Adam Neuserus a most Learned Protestant and chief Pastor of Heidelberg Osiand Cant. p. 16. who became a Mahometan and was Circumcis'd at Constantinople with many of his Flock Phil. Since I am Sir as I have already told you to judge of my Neighbour with Charity I find no reason why I may not allow Salvation to such a Man acting sincerely especially seeing he holds the Foundation that there is a GOD and that IESVS CHRIST came to save sinners Eu. I see then Sir that he was not altogether mistaken who affirm'd Protestancy and Turcism to be very near of kin What would you think of another who believing the Alcoran to be as indeed it is nothing but the Dreams of a Blasphemous Impostor and hearing your Opinion of the Miracles wrought during the last ten Ages should from thence and from the many seeming Contradictions not easily reconcil'd between the Old Testament and the New between Gospel and Gospel really in his Conscience believe all Christianity to be a Cheat and the Four Evangelists Four Impostors and should therefore as befel the Learned Protestant Allemannus judge it his safest course to embrace Judaism This Man is of a sound Judgment reads Scripture examins diligently and Schlusselberg de Theol. Cal. fol. 9. sincerely according to his Judgment of Scripture believes all Christians either Cheats or Fools animated by your example who believe the same of the last Ten Ages Phil. If this case be possible I see not how I can in Charity pronounce such a Man condemn'd to Eternal Torments Eu Once more Sir what would you say of another that should after all private diligence
best of Governments left by Christ in his Church wherein every sound man should have Power to cancel the Decisions of the highest Courts and a full liberty of disobeying and opposing the Sentence of the Supream Judges in Law unless it should agree with his own private sense of the same Law. For if in matters of Faith the object whereof is remote from our senses and Essentially obscure to us in this Life every sound Sheep is left Judge over his Pastor and the whole Church what more reasonable than in a Question of meum tuum which we feel with our hands and see with our eyes and which is the ground of all Law and Government every sound man should be his own Judge and Arraign Judge and Condemn his Ruler Governour Prince King or Emperour if in his private Opinion he Judges they proceed not according to Law as he understands it This sequel is so natural and inevitable in our Protestant Principles that it has effectually in all Countreys where-ever Protestancy has spread it self Armed the Subjects against their Temporal Lords as it first had done against the Spiritual and nothing was so ordinary as to see them March to the Field with a Bible under their arms and a Text of Sripture in their Banner to fight the Battle of the Lord against the Princes of the Earth and hence perhaps it was that wise Prince King Iames the First presaging as it were the Fate of his Royal Son said of the Members of Parliament then sitting That they were an Assembly of 300 Kings That all the late Wars of Germany against the Emperour and Lawful Soveraigns happen'd upon their change of Religion is witness beside many others Dretserus A Protestant writer in part 2. Nullenarii 6. pag. 661. Of Basil Geneva Zuitzerland Sweedland Holland see Crispin Chitreus Flor. Rai c. 4 Paradox A true Protestant must grant that our Saviour was much over-seen in the method he took of Converting the World by Teachers and Preachers and laying a reiterated Command upon all men of believing them since really no man is bound to pin his Faith upon anothers sleeve Now the Efficacious way would have been to Command his Life and Actions to be writ in all Languages and compil'd with the Old Testament to be sent into every part of the World for all things necessary to Salvation being clear and evident in Holy Scripture and no body being oblig'd to believe more than the comprehends and as it were sees to be true out of the said Holy Scripture all by this means would or at least might have presently discover'd the nullity of their own false Religions and consequently imbrace common Christianity that is believe so much of Christ and his Doctrine as each one should draw under the Scheme of his own Reason nothing else being necessary to Salvation in our Protestant Principles 5 Paradox Should a Gentleman make the delivery of his Estate saying Sir I deliver unto you a full and free Possession of this Inheritance to dispose of at Discretion in quality of true Owner and Lord but if you touch it against my will or dispose of it in whole or in part otherwise than I shall judge expedient expect to be treated with all the Violence Severity can invent Would not this be a most impertinent and self-destroying Settlement questionless it would Yet this is the procedure of the Church of England Here take says she to all sound Members of the whole Christian Church this Holy Bible Read and Interpret it freely you can't but find out the Truth therein contain'd nor are you oblig'd to submit to any Authority under Heaven against your own Dictamen But if you presume to judge of matters therein contain'd contrary to my Sentiment thereof though you are as able and as free to judge as my self know that no Severity of the Law shall be spar'd in Chastizing you Is not this an admirable Liberty An unparallel'd Charity Millions who never were in themselves or their Ancestors Members of her Communion must be oblig'd against Conscience to come over to her and no body must presume to question her Authority because ipsa dicit and she shall inveigh against Roman Catholicks most violently for requiring that she return to the Union of the Church whose Member she had own'd her self for upwards of a thousand years Is not this a Paradox of Paradox's I must believe she had just reason to separate from the Church of Rome though if I read Scripture till Dooms-day I can find no ground for it I must blindfoldly believe no Subject in the Kingdom has just reason to remain out of her Communion That is I must believe no body but an English Protestant can be a sound Member of the Christian Church or a fit Judge in Controversy And that the Scripture has not for these thousand years been clear to any at all and at present is only so to an English Protestant Which if granted as granted it must be it evidently follows that our English Protestant is the most Uncharitable and Unconscionable Christian in the World. 6. Paradox The true Protestant believes that a Roman Catholick Prays to a Crucifix as well as to Christ himself and attributes as See Advice to the Pulpits the Repres Misrepres much satisfaction to it as to the Blood of his Redeemer That the Roman Catholick Saints were Canonized for Treasons detestable Villanies as a reward of strife and every evil Work That to be false and deceitful is meritorious and worthy of Eternal Life That with Money one may compound with Heaven for unforsaken sins and be absolved without being at all sorry for them That Indulgences serve instead of sanctification and good life Confession to carry on the Plots and projects of the Priests with a hundred such detestable Abominations True Protestant Ministers have laid out the Catholick Tenets under these foul colours for above these hundred years while the whole Body of Roman Catholicks and every Member of them disown condemn and execrate every point thereof in particular Now is it not a mysterious Paradox that a Minister of the Church of England should better understand our Catholick Tenets than the Council of Trent and the whole Body of the Catholick Clergy I do most solemnly protest See the Catechism of the Coun. of Trent in the presence of Almighty God that were these Doctrines and the like taught in the Roman Catholick Church as Protestants say they are I would not remain one hour in her Communion yet the Vulgar must believe it so and why Because it is for the Interest of the Protestant Clergy that the People should live in Apprehension and Horrour of Popery whether by false or true Reports it was always alike to the Protestant Teachers 7 Paradox Although it be evident that King Henry the Eighth never thought of laying the first stone of the Reformation pretended till he was refused by his Holiness the liberty of putting away his