Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	know_v	let_v	word_n	4,119	5	3.9916	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59576	The things that make for peace delivered in a sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, and the Court of Aldermen, at Guild-Hall Chappel, upon the 23 of August, 1674 / by John Sharpe ...	Sharp, John, 1645-1714.	1674 (1674)	Wing S3003; ESTC R9975	18,272	41

necessary would not rigorously tie up others to their measures but would allow every man to abound in his own sense so long as the Churches Peace is not thereby injured we should not have so manny bitter Quarrels and Heart-burnings among us But alass whilst every one will frame a Systeme of Divinity of his own head and every puny Notion of that Systeme must be Christen'd by the name of an Article of Faith and every man that doth not believe just as he doth must straight be a Heretick for doing so How can it be expected but we must wrangle eternally It were heartily to be wished that Christians would consider that the Articles of Faith those things that God hath made necessary by every one to be believed in order to his Salvation are but very few and they are all of them so plainly and clearly set down in the Scripture that it is impossible for any sincere honest-minded man to miss of the true sense of them And they have further this Badg to distinguish them from all other Truths that they have an immediate influence upon mens Lives a direct Tendency to make men Better whereas most of those things that make the matter of our Controversies and about which we make such a noise and clamour and for which we so bitterly censure and anathematize one another are quite of another nature They are neither so clearly revealed or propounded in the Scripture but that even good men through the great difference of their Parts Learning and Education may after their best endeavours vary in their sentiments about them Nor do they at all concern a Christian Life but are matters of pure notion and speculation So that it cannot with any reason be pretended that they are points upon which Mens Salvation doth depend It cannot be thought that God will be offended with any man for his Ignorance or Mistakes concerning them And if not if a man may be a Good Christian and go to Heaven whether he holds the right or the wrong side in these matters for Gods sake why should we be angry with any one for having other opinions about them than we have Why should we not rather permit men to use their Understandings as well as they can and where they fail of the Truth to bear with them as God himself without question will then by stickling for every impertinent unnecessary Truth destroy that Peace and Love and Amity that ought to be among Christians The second thing I would recommend is a great simplicity and purity of Intention in the pursuit of Truth and at no hand to let passion or interest or any self-end be ingredient into our Religion The practice of this would not more conduce to the discovery of Truth than it would to the promoting of Peace For it is easie to observe that it is not always a pure concernment for the Truth in the points in Controversie that makes us so zealous so fierce and so obstinate in our Disputes for or against them but something of which that is onely the Mask and Pretence some By-ends that must be served some Secular Interest that we have espoused which must be carried on We have either engaged our selves to some Party and so its Interests right or wrong must be promoted or we have taken up an opinion inconsiderately at the first and appeared in the favour of it and afterward our own credit doth oblige us to defend it or we have received some slight or disappointment from the Men of one way and so in pure pet and revenge we pass over to their Adversaries Or it is for our gain and advantage that the Differences among us be still kept afoot or we desire to get our selves a name by some great Atchievments in the Noble Science of Controversies or we are possessed with a spirit of Contradiction or we delight in Novelties or we love to be singular These are the things that too often both give birth to our Controversies and also nourish and foment them If we would but cast these Beams out of our eyes we should both see more clearly and certainly live more peaceably But whilest we pursue base and sordid ends under the pretence of maintaining Truth we shall always be in error and always in contention Let us therefore quit our selves of all our prepossessions let us mortify all our Pride and Vain-glory our Passion and Emulation our Covetousness and Revenge and bring nothing in the world to our Debates about Religion but onely the pure love of Truth and then our Controversies will not be so long and they will be more calmly and peaceably managed and they will redound to the greater good of all Parties And this I dare say further to encourage you to labour after this temper of mind That he that comes thus qualified to the study of Religion though he may not have the luck always to light on the Truth yet with all his errors be they what they will he is more acceptable to God than the Man that hath Truth on his side yet takes it up or maintains it to serve a turn He that believes a Falsehood after he hath used his sincere endeavours to find the Truth is not half so much a Heritick as he that professeth a Truth out of Evil Principles and prostituteth it to unworthy ends The third Rule is Never to quarrel about Words and Phrases but so long as other men mean much what the same that we do let us be content though they have not the luck to express themselves so well I do not know how it comes to pass whether through too much heat and eagerness of disputing that we do not mind one anothers Sense or whether through too much love to our own manner of Thinking or Speaking that we will not endure any thing but what is conveyed to us in our own Methods But really it often happens that most bitter Quarrels do commence not so much from the different Sense of the contending Parties concerning the things they contend about as from their different Terms expressing the same Sense and the different Grounds they proceed upon or Arguments they make use of for the proof of it For my part I verily believe that this is the Case of several of those Disputes in which we Protestants do often engage at this day I do not think in many points our Differences are near so wide as they are sometimes represented but that they might easily be made up with a little allowance to mens Words and Phrases and the different Methods of deducing their Notions It would be perhaps no hard matter to make this appear in those Controversies that are so much agitated among us concerning Faith and Justification and the necessity of good works to Salvation and Imputed Righteousness and the difference between Virtue and Grace with some others if this were a fit place for it The difference that is among us as to these Points is possibly not much