Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	hour_n	spirit_n	worship_v	4,747	5	10.0865	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33380	An historical defence of the Reformation in answer to a book intituled, Just-prejudices against the Calvinists / written in French by the reverend and learned Monsieur Claude ... ; and now faithfully translated into English by T.B., M.A.; Défense de la Réformation. English	Claude, Jean, 1619-1687.; T. B., M.A.	1683 (1683)	Wing C4593; ESTC R11147	475,014	686

in that of other Bishops Since the Popes were raised to that high Dignity wherein we behold them at this day each Nation has thought that it ought in some manner to participate in their Nomination because the business was about one common interest they would have the Protectors of their Interests in the Colledge of Cardinals and Princes themselves have interpos'd but they can see nothing like that in the Primitive Church Rome alone made her Bishops without the participation of other Churches 2. Victor Bishop of Rome having excommunicated the Churches of Asia who celebrated the Feast of Easter after the manner of the Jews S. Irenaeus with the Bishops of France opposed themselves to that Excommunication and wrote as well to Victor as to the other Bishops and in effect those Churches of Asia did not cease to remain in the Communion of the Catholick Church notwithstanding that action of Victor as it appears from the Testimony of Socrates who formally sayes that those who contended about the business of Easter did not nevertheless refuse communion with one another So that their Bishops were called and received in the Council of Nice without any difficulty for Eusebius notes expresly among those who were called by Constantine the Syrians the Cilicians and the Mesopotamians who were Quartodecumani he sayes that Constantine would conferr pleasantly and familiarly with the Bishops about matters that were in question and that he would bring them all by that means to the same opinion even about the matter of Easter and S. Athanasius testifies that it was to accord that difference that all the World was assembled at the Council of Nice and that the Syrians came to the same opinion with the rest and that they earnestly contended against the Heresie of Arius which shews us that they assisted at the Council without any notice being taken of Victor's Excommunication From whence it is no very hard matter to conclude what Aeneas Sylvius Cardinal of Sienna and afterwards Pope has acknowledged in one of his Letters That before the Council of Nice every one lived according to his own wayes and that men had but a very small regard to the Church of Rome 3. In the sixth Century a great trouble being raised in the Church upon the occasion of three Writings the one of Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus the other of Ibas Bishop of Edessa and the third of Theodoret of Mopsuesta which had been read and approved in the Council of Chalcedon but whom the most judged to be Heretical Pope Vigilius openly took up the desence of those three Writings and vigorously oppos'd himself to the condemnation that the Emperour Justinian and the Eastern Patriarchs had made of them But in the end being drawn to Constantinople he changed his opinion and consented to that condemnation whither he was carried out to it by the complaisance which he had for the Emperour who had a great affection for that business or whether out of some other principle Howsoever it were that action appear'd so criminal in the eyes of a great number of Orthodox Bishops that they separated themselves and their Churches from the Communion of Vigilius and his Party and even the Church of Africa assembled in Council as Victor of Tunis an African Bishop witnesses who lived in those times Synodically excommunicated that Pope leaving him notwithstanding means to re-establish himself by repentance These Actions prove in my judgement very sufficiently that the faithful then did not look upon the Church of Rome as the Mistress of all others nor on the communion or dependance on its See as a thing absolutely necessary to the salvation of Christians There can nothing be said in effect more opposite to the Spirit of the Christian Religion than that Imagination God had heretofore fixed his Communion with that of the Israelites and established in Jerusalem and in its High Priests the center of Ecclesiastical Unity But when Jesus Christ brought his Gospel into the world he changed that order not by transporting the rights of Jerusalem to Rome nor those of the High Priests to the Popes but by abolishing wholly that necessity of Communion to a certain place and that particular dependance on a certain See This is what S. Paul clearly enough teaches in his third Chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians In the new man sayes he there is neither Greek nor Jew neither Circumcision nor Vncircumcision neither Barbarian or Scythian bond or free but Jesus Christ is all and in all He had had no reason to express himself after that manner if that new man whereof he spoke had necessarily been a Roman and depending on the Communion of the Bishop of Rome So also the same Apostle setting that Evangelical Church that Jesus Christ had assembled in opposition to the ancient and earthly Jerusalem makes not that opposition to consist in this that the one is Jerusalem and the other Rome the one the head City of Judaea and the other that of the Empire but he makes it to consist in this that one is earthly and the other heavenly the one below and the other on high the one ty'd to a certain place from whence it cannot go and the other independent on all manner of particular places in the world and having no necessary dependence on any but Heaven For it is to this purpose that he calls the Jerusalem that is above the heavenly Jerusalem the City of the living God the Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven It is in the view of that that Jesus Christ said to the Samaritan Woman believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth The Samaritans would establish the center of Religion on the Mountain where Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs had built an Altar to God the Jews on the contrary established it in the City of Jerusalem To all that Jesus Christ opposes not the Capital City as the new Mountain which he had chosen nor Rome as another Jerusalem but the Spirit and the Truth that is to say Faith and Piety alone abstracted from all those relations to particular places and independent on all Cities and Mountains The same thing is justified by the censure that S. Paul passed on the Corinthians in that one said I am of Paul another I am of Apollos and another I am of Cephas that is to say of Peter For we ought not to imagine that those men meant that they were so of Paul or of Apollos or of Peter as to be no more of Jesus Christ or that they would take Paul or Apollos or Cephas for heads equal to Jesus Christ They were Christians and they were not ignorant of the difference they were to make between Jesus Christ and his Apostles No without doubt they were not ignorant

and that he does not take away from them in that respect the certainty of their Judgments but that in the second he takes it from them over other particular matters but all that is but an Artifice whereby he would prevent and elude if he could those just and natural Consequences which he foresaw might be drawn from his Principle For the very same Reasons which he proposes to hinder us from the examining the particular points of Religion and the very same grounds upon which he builds his Conclusion have place also in the comparing the Christian Religion with other Religions So that one may say that the second part of his design destroys the first and that he himself overthrows that that he had establisht For tell me if the uncertainty of our Judgments founded upon this that we see that others deceive themselves by the darkness of our understanding by our Prejudices by our Passions and by those secret Attacks that we have of our thoughts tell me if that has not place as well in the Judgment that they make That there is a God and that the Christian Religion is alone from God and the only True one as in that that we make That their Purgatory is but an imaginary Fire that their Transubstantiation is but a human invention and that the Sacrifice of the Mass is no where to be found in the Scripture Are there no Profane or Atheistical persons in the World Are there no Jews nor Pagans nor Mahometans As we are persuaded that they deceive themselves so are they persuaded that we deceive our selves but may not they demand of us what assurance we have that the darkness of our Understandings our Prejudices our Passions or some other secret tye that lyes upon our thoughts have no part in our persuasion What will the Authour of the Prejudices answer to them Will he say That the advantage that the Christian Religion has over all other Religions is most clear and manifest I may say to him the same that the advantage that the Protestant Religion has above the Roman is most clear and manifest and in saying so I shall affirm nothing whereof I am not well convinced If he replies to me that I ought not to be so confident of my own Light that that which appears to me to be most clear and manifest does not appear so to others that the darkness of the Mind Prejudices Passions c. make men deceive themselves and that I have no assurance that I am not of that number The Jew the Mahometan the Pagan the Libertine the Atheist who shall come behind him will exclaim as often as they shall have occasion after the same manner This is justly what we have to say this Author pleads our cause admirably well After all That Principle of the Author of those Prejudices was so far from turning aside our Fathers from examining by themselves the matters of Religion that on the contrary it bound them to do it the more For being concerned for their own salvation there was no person more intrested than themselves and being so easily apt to deceive themselves in the choice of those Opinions that they were enjoyned to believe and of that Worship which they were to practise they ought not naturally to have trusted any but themselves They might it is true deceive themselves but their Prelates might deceive themselves as well as they and if in the Church the people must refer themselves to their Prelates and each of those Prelates in particular must refer themselves to the whole body of the Church they will find that neither the one nor the other will be cured and that that Church to which they should all refer themselves would be but an Ens Rationis as they speak in the Schools and a Platonic Idea Prudence then bound our Fathers to examine that which they should know both from the imperfections of the Minds or the Hearts of men and from the examples of those before them who fell into error together with the danger which men are in on the account of their Prejudices their Passions and their Interests all that could produce no other effect in them than to excite them to make an examination the most exactly and diligently that it was possible for them to do cleansing their Hearts from every evil thought and imploring the Grace and Blessing of God upon them For they were assured that if they did the Will of the Father they should know his true Doctrine and that if any did lack Wisdom begg'd it of God that he would give it them since he gives to all liberally and upbraideth not Those are the promises of the Gospel Those to whom God grants that Grace which inlightens the mind and opens the Heart do not only not deceive themselves in the choice of Saving Doctrines and in the rejecting of those that are Damnable but they have for that all the assurance that they can reasonably wish for for the Truth makes it self to be perceived by far other Characters than those of a disguised falshood The Invocation of Saints the Worshipping of Images the Adoration of the Host the Conceit of Purgatory have never produced in the souls of the Devout Persons of the Church of Rome that sweet joy that Peace and that Contentment of the Soul which the Protestant rejoyces in when he calls upon God alone when he Worships him without Images as he has commanded him when he Adores Jesus Christ sitting at the Right Hand of his Father and when he places his only Confidence in his Satisfaction and in his Merit a deceived Conscience may be sometimes in Security but that security is never enjoyed like a true Quiet It is the Rest of a Lethargy where a mans feels no pain because he has no feeling which is very different from that Rest that gives a perfect Health besides that the security of a deceived Conscience is not long continued inquietudes return from time to time chiefly in the Affections and at the time of Death where that Tranquillity that the True Religion gives is solid and well grounded and displays its vertue peculiarly in the most grievous Accidents of our Life and in the very Agonies of Death it self Such are those Divine impressions that David felt when he said The Law of the Lord is perfect Converting the soul the Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple The statutes of the Lord are right rejoycing the heart his judgments are more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey And elsewhere Thy word has been sweet unto my taste yea sweeter than honey to my mouth And yet further in another place The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will shew them his covenant The Disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ felt them when they said Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the