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	speak_v	word_n	9,131	5	4.2861	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70588	An apology against a pamphlet call'd A modest confutation of the animadversions upon the remonstrant against Smectymnuus	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1642 (1642)	Wing M2090; ESTC R12880	51,868	62

compendious recitall of what they there did was so tedious and unprofitable then surely to sit out the whole extent of their tattle in a dozen volumes would be a losse of time irrecoverable Besides that which I had read of S. Martin who for his last sixteene yeares could never be perswaded to be at any Councell of the Bishops And Gregory Nazianzen betook him to the same resolution affirming to Procopius that of any Councell or meeting of Bishops he never saw good end nor any remedy thereby of evill in the Church but rather an increase For saith he their contentions and desire of Lording no tongue is able to expresse I have not therefore I confesse read more of the Councels save here and there I should be sorry to have bin such a prodigall of my time but that which is better I can assure this Confuter I have read into them all And if I want any thing yet I shall reply something toward that which in the defence of Muraena was answer'd by Cicero to Sulpitius the Lawyer If ye provoke me for at no hand else will I undertake such a frivolous labour I will in three months be an expert councelist For be not deceav'd Readers by men that would overawe your eares with big names and huge Tomes that contradict and repeal one another because they can cramme a margent with citations Do but winnow their chaffe from their whe●t ye shall see their great heape shrink and wax thin past belief● From hence he passes to enqui●e wherefore I should blame the vices of the Prelats only seeing the inferiour Clergy is known to be as faulty To which let him heare in briefe that those Priests whose vices have been notorious are all Prelaticall which argues both the impiety of that opinion and the wicked remisnesse of that government We hear not of any which are call'd Nonconformists that have been accus'd for scandalous living but are known to be pious or at least sober men Which is a great good argument that they are in the truth and Prelats in the error He would be resolv'd next What the corruptions of the Vniversities concerne the Prelats and to that let him take this That the Remonstrant having spok'n as if learning would decay with the removall of Prelats I shew'd him that while books were extant and in print learning could not readily be at a worse passe in the Universities then it was now under their government Then he seeks to justifie the pernicious Sermons of the Clergy as if they upheld soveranty when as all Christian soveranty is by law and to no other end but to the maintenance of the common good But their doctrine was plainly the dissolution of law which only sets up sov'ranty and the erecting of an arbitrary sway according to privat will to which they would enjoyne a slavish obedience without law which is the known definition of a tyrant and a tyranniz'd people A little beneath he denies that great riches in the Church are the baits of pride ambition of which error to undeceave him I shall allege a reputed divine autority as ancient as Constantine which his love to antiquity must not except against and to adde the more waight he shall learne it rather in the words of our old Poet Gower then in mine that he may see it is no new opinion but a truth deliver'd of old by a voice from heav'n and ratify'd by long experience This Constantine which heal hath found Within Rome anon let found Two Churches which he did make For Peter and for Pauls sake Of whom he had a vision And yafe therto possession Of Lordship and of worlds good But how so that his will was good Toward the Pope and his Franchise Yet hath it proved otherwise To see the working of the deed For in Cronick thus I read Anon as he hath made the yeft A voice was heard on high the left Of which all Rome was adrad And said this day venim is shad In holy Church of temporall That medleth with the spirituall And how it stant in that degree Yet may a man the sooth see God amend it whan he will I can thereto none other skill But there were beasts of prey saith he before wealth was bestow'd on the Church What though because the Vulturs had then but small pickings shall we therefore go and fling them a full gorge if they for lucre use to creepe into the Church undiscernably the more wisdome will it be so to provide that no revennu there may exceed the golden mean For so good Pastors will be content as having need of no more and knowing withall the precept and example of Christ and his Apostles and also will be lesse tempted to ambition The bad will have but small matter whereon to set their mischiefe a work And the worst and sutlest heads will not come at all when they shall see the crop nothing answerable to their capacious greedinesse For small temptations allure but dribling offendors but a great purchase will call such as both are most able of themselves and will be most inabl'd hereby to compasse dangerous projects But saith he A widows house will t●mpt as well as a Bishops Palace Acutely spok'n Because neither we nor the Prelats can abolish widows houses which are but an occasion taken of evill without the Church therefore we shall set up within the Church a Lottery of such prizes as are the direct inviting causes of avarice and ambition both unnecessary and harmefull to be propos'd and most easie most convenient and needfull to be remov'd Yea but they are in a wise dispencers hand Let them be in whose hand they will they are most apt to blind to puffe up and pervert the most seeming good And how they have bin kept from Vultures what ever the dispencers care hath bin we have learnt by our miseries But this which comes next in view I know not what good vein or humor took him when he let drop into his paper I that was ere while the ignorant the loyterer on the sudden by his permission am now granted to know something And that such a volley of expression● he hath met withall as he would never desire to have them better cloth'd For me Readers although I cannot say that I am utterly untrain'd in those rules which best Rhetoricians have giv'n or unacquainted with those examples which the primeauthors of eloquence have written in any learned tongu yet true eloquence I find to be none but the serious and hearty love of truth And that whose mind so ever is fully possest with a fervent desire to know good things and with the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of them into others when such a man would speak his words by what I can expresse like so many nimble and airy servitors trip about him at command and in well order'd files as he would wish fall aptly into their own places But now to the remainder of our discours