Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	new_a	old_a	testament_n	6,607	5	8.4174	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64424	Tertullians apology, or, Defence of the Christians against the accusations of the gentiles now made English by H.B. Esq.; Apologeticum. English	Tertullian, ca. 160-ca. 230.; H. B. (Henry Brown)	1655 (1655)	Wing T785; ESTC R18180	106,345	228

given way to his thoughts changed and corrupted the truth to follow their owne motions but wee must not wonder if Philosophers have made this worke of the oracles of the old Testament seeing wee have amongst us people who shew themselves children worthy of such fathers infecting the purity of our new Gospell with the corruption of their owne opinions animated with the spirit of Philosophy and who by this onely way which brought to the knowledge of the truth have drawn many crooked paths wherein men cannot engage themselves without losing themselves whereof I would willingly advertise you that the diversity found betweene us makes you not imagine our profession is like that of the Philosophers and that you judge not ill of the truth because wee desend it by different meanes and are divided in our doctrine These people that are seperated from us have violated the faith of Jesus Christ and wee beat downe their crrours by this onely exception that the true rule of truth is that which hath beene taught by our Master and transmitted to us by these holy persons who had the happinesse to heare his word and receive his Divine instructions We shall shew in another place that all which is not conformable to this rule hath beene invented by new Doctors who came not till after the blessed companions of the son of God to destroy the truth men have made use of truth it selfe by the suggestions of the spirits of error who have inspired them to fight with it with its owne armes they are they who have excited them to corrupt so saving a d●ctrine they are they have invented fables wherewith its holinesse hath been prophaned that by their resemblance they take away the beliefe from truth or rather get it for themselves They would ruinate faith by this detestable tricke perswading men they must not believe Christians by the same reason not believe the Poets nor Philosophers or rather wee should believe the Poets and Philosophers because not believe the Christians It is this sacrilegious imitation that makes them laugh at us when wee preach the last judgement the Poets and Philosophers upon the ground of this truth set up a tribunall in Hell They mocke at us also when wee threaten them with eternall torments which are those hidden flames the earth shuts up in her bosome and are reserved by the justice of God as in a treasure for the punishment of the wicked for these prophaners have invented that there is is hel a River of burning fire if wee speake to them of Paradise a place fild with agreeable and Divine beauties ordained to be the residence of the soules of the blessed and seperated from the world by the interposition of this Zone of fire which God hath put before it presently the Elysian fields comes in their thoughts they imagine that there is that delicious place wee declare unto them Tell mee I pray you where the Poets and Philosophers have drawn these things so like to our doctrine if it bee not from our bookes and Discipline if they have drawne them from our Discipline they have without doubt the prerogative of antiquity upon them therefore it followes that what wee teach is truer and ought to have more beliefe then all these vaine opinions In effect these opinions are but the shaddowes of truth and seeing the world hath given faith to these vailes they ought rather to believe the truth that is the substance If the Poets and Philosophers are the first authors of these things which they have written it must bee then that our Discipline is but the figure of that which is come after it which nature permits not because the shadow is not before the body and the figure cannot have beene before the truth from whom it takes its originall CHAP. XLVIII IT must bee acknowledged that the usage wee receive from you and that you give the Philosophers are very different if a Philosopher sets out what Laberius left in writing according to the opinion of Pythagoras that a mule is changed into a man a woman into an adder if he displayes al the cunning of his eloquence if hee sets out with addresse all his arguments to settle this opinion is it not true that hee moves your minds that he drawes you to his partie that hee forceth you to believe you must abstaine from the flesh of beasts and that after there are some found with you that make some scruple to tast it because in eating a peece of beese they feare to devoure some of their auncestors contrarily if a Christian assures you a man that is dead shall live againe one day that hee that is in the grave shall come out and take againe the same forme he had hee is abused by the people not onely with blowes of the fist but also with stones cast at him Now mee thinkes there is much blindnesse in receiving the opinions of these Philosophers and in condemning the Doctrine wee propose to you upon the point of the resurrection for if there bee reason perswades that the soule of a dead man reenters into a body why may not wee believe it enters into the same body again and returnes into the same matter from whence it is seperated seeing the effect of a true Resurrection is to be that which it was before the soules after they have changed their bodies according to the opinion of Pythagoras and his Disciples are no more the same they were heretofore because they could not become what they are not unlesse they cease to be what they were wee might find wherewithall to jest on this subject if disposed to sport our minds and entertaine our leasure with mirth it wou'd bee a very pleasant thing to enquire in what beasts persons have beene changed that lived before us but it is better we resolve to determine the truth of this proposition We say then it is more convenient to the dignity of our nature to believe man shall become man againe that every one in particular shall rise againe to be the same he was and informed with the same soule that animated him with the same qualities wherewith he was endowed although the body receive some change in his exterior figure In sum the designe of the Universall judgement being the effectuall reason of our resurrection it is necessary the same man that is dead live againe that God may recompence or punish for his good or evill actions the same persons And the same bodies that are in the dust of the grave must appeare at this judgement because the soule cannot suffer alone and without a sensible matter that is to say without its flesh and as it hath not sinned but in its flesh it also hath not merited but with its flesh the punishments the justice of God hath ordained for its crimes But you say to mee how can it bee that a matter reduced to dust should represent it selfe consider with thy selfe O man that makest this objection to me

are impious and the wicked feare lesse to be seen then the good So you must confess you know nothing of our doings but by common bruit uncertain proofe of the weakeness whereof there is no man ignorant Is there any who knows not the nature of it One of your Authours said same is the swiftest of all evils why thinke you call they it an evill is it because of its swiftness or because its principall office is to discover hidden things or that it often declareth lies indeed it hath this evill quality even when reporting something of truth it cannot forbeare to mingle the same with leasing or falshood Truth never passeth purely through fames mouth either she adds something to or takes something from or makes some notable change in it besides she hath also this fault her credit lasts no longer then she lies she hath no life but so long as she certainly proves nothing so soon as make evident her proofe she ceaseth to be any longer Fame whose property is to make relation of nothing but what 's not certainly knowne so soone ●s delivered for certaine the assurance of the thing delivered succeeds immediatly into its place as being no longer a bruit but a knowne and profess'd truth At what time and when such a thing is known we say not it 's so reported or so the bruit goes but so or so it is without doubt For example we use to say such a man hath got such a government in such a Province when wee know certainly hee hath got the same and when not it is so famed or so reported After we are assured of a thing we make no more reekoning of Fame which is an expression of doubt and uncertainty So there are none but fools ground themselves upon reports wise men believe nothing but what is certain and what time also hath verified on her behalfe And certainly as generall and diffused as same may bee what beliefe soever she hath got with men and with what assurance soever they esteeme her wee must alwayes consider she had a beginning since she hath passed through divers tongues and eares which have given her the vogue shee hath in the world Her originall is ordinarily weake and vicious but together with all her faults she authoriseth and covers all that is added to her from her birth because no body mounts up to the sourse and troubles himselfe to know whether or no the first Author of the relation thereof began with a lie which falls out often either through hatred to them same teares in peeces or liberty usurped to make evill judgments upon simple suspitions or the pleasure some take in lying a pleasure not new among men and to which many are so naturally inclined But God be thanked time reveals the truth of all things it is a sentence wee have from you and whereof wee make use against you the established order of nature cannot suffer any thing long to remaine hid but in the end makes that appear which fame had not discovered Judge then if it be as reasonable you should still persecute us seeing after so long time ther 's nothing but bare report to informe you in the knowledge of the crimes we are supposed to commit nothing proved against us by you but her restimony which is so much the more evill because shee cannot yet prove what she bath heeretofore invented to make us appeare odious and which for so many yeares shee hath affirmed upon the opinion onely of certaine men CHAP. VIII IT is not enough to shew you the weakenesse of the proofes you imploy against us I will make knowne our innocence by your own judgement to overthrow the opinion you have conceived against our life I demand but the testimony of nature who is your mother as well as ours Suppose Christians promise Eternall life as a recompence for all these crimes so full of horrour You may believe it if you list but I would also know if after perswaded by such blacke actions a man might merit Heaven you would bee so barbarous as to desire it at such a rate Can it be imagined one should say these words or the like unto you come on hither die your sword in the bloud of a Child I say in a Childs bloud whose tender age ought to have no enemy who cannot be guilty of injuring any body and whom every one with a fatherly Love ought to cherish Or if the charge of shedding a Childs bloud bee committed to another can it be supposed we should use this discourse unto you Be present at the bloody death of an infant who meets with the end of his life in the beginning of his dayes see a soule depart out of a body so soone as it came in take this blood newly animated dip your bread in it and fill your selfe with the substance thereof Againe while at Table marke well where your Mother and Sister are seated that you may not faile to find them out after they are left in the darke by dogs overthrowing the Candles consequently extinguishing the lignt For you must know you cannot but be faulty if you commit not incest If profiting by these our instructions you square your Faith by the practise of such actions assure your selfe you shall receive everlasting life Answer me now would you to get this never fading selicity do things so contrary to all humanity If nature it selfe be of force sufficient to divert your owne minds from acting such irregular courses you cannot I perswade my selfe be induced to believe that other men would bee faulty therein Yea though yee certainly believe this the onely way to eternall happinesse I dare say you would not by such meanes so barberously difile your selves no neither if you had any such desire have the courage to performe the same Judge then of us by your selves and know wee can no more commit these crimes then you or if wee can your selves as liable thereunto as we But what do you thinke our judgements different form yours that Christians of another race of mankind then you are do you take us for the Cynocephales Sciapodes Monsters of India Lybia do you believe we are made otherwise then other men that the faculties of our bodies otherwise disposed and by a savagenesse more then the most brutish of all people us onely to feed on blood and violate the Lawes of nature in the use embracements which it forbids Certainly if believe these things of Christians ther 's som what in it that you should doe so we are men as well as you And therefore if your souls abhor such like actions you ought not imagine us in regard men as well as Christians to commit them You acknowledge these crimes contrary to nature but you say we deceive them who know us not as if the calumnies you invented against the Christians were not publicke or any could be ignorant thereof That which all the world knowes cannot be dissembled and those who have