Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	see_v	true_a	word_n	4,833	5	4.0372	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39260	A letter to a friend reflecting on some passages in A letter to the D. of P., in answer to the arguing part of his first letter to Mr. G.	Ellis, Clement, 1630-1700.	1687 (1687)	Wing E565; ESTC R18718	18,279	34

Imprimatur GVIL NEEDHAM Iuly 18. 1687. A LETTER TO A FRIEND Reflecting on some Passages in A LETTER to the D. of P. IN ANSWER TO THE Arguing Part OF HIS FIRST LETTER To Mr. G. LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1687. A LETTER TO A Friend c. SIR HAVING by your favour had a sight of the late Letter in Answer to the Arguing part of the D. of P ' s. first Letter to Mr. G. I now return you it with my thanks and some Reflections on so much of it as attempts to demonstrate the Infallibility of the Romish Faith and denies the certainty of ours For whatever becomes of the Conference which gave occasion to this Letter the Contents of it thus far are of as much Concernment to You and Me and indeed to all Protestants as to that worthy Person to whom he writes it The man is you see a great pretender to Logick but you find him making much more use of his Rhetorick and indeed it is to this if to any thing that he is beholding for so much as a pretence to the other and if we feel no harm from this we need not fear that the other can hurt us You may be sure he wants no Wit whom Mr. G. intrusts to hold his Cards and play his Game too with so well known a Gamester Pardon me for using his own Language in a matter so serious I say not as his Letter but as the Subject of it His Stile is pleasant and taking enough his way of Arguing meerly popular and his Art accommodate to the design he is upon of deluding the less thinking Lastly his C●nfidence is such as we ought to expect in men that talk of nothing lower than Self-evidence absolute Certainty and Infallibility I wish with all my heart that his value for Souls so precious to God be really as great as he would have us think theirs is little who as he deridingly speaks set up for Ministers of the Gospel If he find any of them so regardless of their Duty as he faith they are let him freely for me spend all his Rhetorick in Exclamations against them as he has begun to do Page 5. But when he talks of every Bodies speaking for himself one day and bringing in his own account and asks if the Happiness or Misery of their Souls will not depend on that account And then expostulates with our Ministers in this manner Can you suffer them to run that terrible Hazard without making them able to justifie their accounts themselves and furnishing them with Assurance that they can and with no more to say but that they hoped Dr. St. would make his party good with Mr. G. Ibid. I am apt to think him some Convert who knows not what to say either for the Church he hath chosen or against that he hath forsaken He has heard it may be something to this purpose said against the Priests of that Church whereof he now is and not knowing what else to say nor yet how to be silent he saith the same against the Ministers of ours Because our Ministers know that every one of us must give account of himself to God therefore they not only give us leave but earnestly exhort us to read and study the Gospel of Christ whereby we must be judged which is a Liberty very rarely granted in the Church of Rome And because they know also our Happiness or Misery depends on this account we shall be able to give of our selves therefore they will not have us depend upon their Word only who are not able to acquit us in the day of Judgment as the Romanists must do upon the word of their Priests or upon nothing at all that I know of but in preaching they explain the Scripture to us are importunate with us to search it they Catechize us exhort us to confer often with them commend good Books of Instruction to us use all ways they can to make us grow in Grace and Knowledg and to enable us to give our account with joyfulness But how comes this man if he be a Roman Catholick to talk of furnishing them with assurance that they can If they may be assured that they can give up a good account may they not be assured that they have the Grace of God and of their Iustitisfication and Salvation And if so then what 's become of that Decree of the Council of Trent We must not affirm that they who are truly justified ought to conclude with themselves without any doubting at all that they are justified seeing no man can know by a certainty of Faith under which there can be no falshood that he hath obtain'd the Grace of God If no man ought or can be assured that he hath the Grace of God how are our Ministers bound to furnish us with Assurance that we can justifie our Accounts our selves Can a man justifie his accounts that is not sure he hath the Grace of God Possibly his meaning may be no more but that our Ministers give us not sufficient Assurance of the Truth of our Faith and for want of that we cannot justifie our accounts But if this be his meaning it is very untowardly expressed and after all it will be a little hard to conceive how the bare Assurance of the Truth of what is taught should enable a man to justifie his account without an Assurance of Grace too which the Council denies that any man can have He tells us next That Truth is Truth because 't is built on intrinsecal grounds and not on private mens Abilities or their saying this or that And hence infers that Till those grounds be produced it cannot be with reason held Truth Ibid. He might as well have said more plainly What any thing is that it is whatever be the Reasons why it is so or whoever saith it is or it is not Yet can no man with Reason believe it till he have a Reason to believe it All this is true and I think every body knew it before he told us it nor is it the truer because he hath said it and therefore we have no more Reason to believe it than we had before But seeing Truth is Truth whatever private men say we think it can depend no more upon the saying of a Romish Priest than of an English Minister and therefore we think also that the Vulgar Papist at best hath less certainty of the Truth they hold than the Vulgar Protestant of the Truth we hold whilst besides the word of the Priest the former hath no grounds at all to build his Faith upon but the later hath besides the word of the Minister the Word of God in the Scripture which he may consult when he will. Moreover if we cannot with Reason hold a Truth till the intrinsecal grounds of it be produced then two things more must be true which I fear this Roman Catholick will not grant us First

far as it is the same with ours as indeed it is in all our necessary Articles ours being no other but those in the Creeds which are as well theirs as ours Thus far then we have often proved the certainty of our Faith and if he require it will be ready to do it again But this he knows well enough and therefore would set us a harder task but it is by all Laws of Disputation in our choice whether we will accept of it or no. Two things more he will have us prove First That we are Absolutely certain of all this And Secondly Not only this but of all that more which our Saviour taught his Apostles But that we are not obliged to prove either of these things we are at least as sure as he is that we cannot and that I will confess to him is sure enough taking his words in his own sense For first he tells us Pag. 23. The profession of Absolute certainty makes a fair approach towards the Doctrine of Infallibility or rather 't is the self same with it And again in the same Page he makes Absolutely certain and Infallible all one thing When therefore he can meet with Protestants that Profess themselves absolutely certain in his sense that is Infallible 't is fit he should call upon them as we do on Roman Catholicks to prove all is their due which they as absurdly as presumptuously arrogate to themselves But whilst he has to do with Protestants of the Church of England who are of a modester disposition let him not put them to the Blush for him by telling them 't is their duty to prove themselves to be as much wiser than they know themselves to be as the Church of Rome thinks her self wiser than all other Churches And truly the next part of his demand is as unreasonable as this to bid us prove that we are absolutely certain of All that Christ taught his Apostles We are certain as was said of that which Christ and his Apostles have taught us in the Holy Scripture writ on purpose to inform us of what they taught and this we have reason to think enough and all that we are bound to be certain of because we cannot imagine if they writ not all that we are bound to know and believe why they were at the pains to write so much for if it be as these men tell us that to believe but a part is as damnable as to believe nothing they had as good have writ nothing as not the whole that we must believe A few lines more might have instructed us in that all more which 't is said we should certainly believe or a few words might have directed us to the Infallible Church to learn it Were those good men so scanted of time or sparing of pains that they could not afford us this all more especially whilst they spend so much of both in writing largely things supposed by all not Absolutely necessary And did the Primitive Church also grudge her Children the full knowledge of this all that Christ and his Apostles taught as the necessary Faith of Christians We do not find in any of the ancient Creeds one branch of this all more which the Trent Council so lately taught and commanded by vertue of Tradition To say no more we have certainty of all that is taught us in Scripture and we know of no more that Christ and his Apostles taught us The Papists say there is more and we are bound to believe it cannot now this Gentleman see by his own Rules of Disputation that he and his Brethren ought to bear their own burden the proof of all this more that he would have us say we are certain of You see I hope by this time that we decline no proof that is incumbent upon us We prove the Scripture to be the Word of God we prove every Article of our Faith by the Scripture and thus we prove we have sufficient certainty of our whole Faith. Our Rule being certain the Faith which agrees with it is certain too If there be any thing more that it is supposed Christ taught and Christians must believe he that affirms it is obliged to prove it or no longer to quarrel with those who know nothing of it Well I perceive this Author has a mind to shew what he can do to prove we have no certainty of our Faith in kindness to us I suppose that he may ease us of the mpossible task as he accunts it of proving that we have And he has done it unanswerably it we will believe him I declare openly saith he that you cannot answer this Discourse However we will try and we have some reason for it seeing he tells us it nearly toucheth our Copyhold which he may well believe we have no mind to part with We have it thus Pag. 30 31. I. God hath left us some Way to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught This is a certain truth what is then the inference from it II. Therefore this Way must be such that they who take it shall arrive by it at the end it was intended for that is to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught Alas what dallying is here Who is the wiser for this inference Or who knows one jot the more by it than he did by the Antecedent If God hath left us a Way to know then by that Way we may know If such be his Inferences that he here engageth to make good he needs not fear to make good his engagement tho' his Inference be good for nothing But his next may be better Let us hear it III. Scripture's Letter interpretable by Private Iudgments is not that Way Who doth the man here dispute against Our Doctrine is that The Scripture only is the Rule of Faith or The Scripture contains all things necessary to Salvati●n I suppose it is against us that he would be thought to dispute in this unanswerable Discourse and why doth he not in terms contradict our Doctrine saying The Scripture only is not the Rule of Faith or the Scripture contains not all things necessary to Salvation If because he had in his Proposition used Way for Rule which is very indifferent to us he ought in his Assumption also to use the same word yet why saith he not Scripture only but Scripture's Letter And why more yet Scripture's Letter interpreted by private Iudgments All this packing of the Cards is not for nothing However let us deal fairly and above-board If then by Scripture's Letter he mean as some of his Friends do unsensed Characters I confess Scripture's Letter cannot be the Rule or Way to know But such insignificant things we are unacquainted with in the Holy Scripture which we own if there be any such in his it will lose nothing by throwing them out Yet if he can think it reasonable to allow as much to the Scripture which is a Letter from the infallible God to Men as he expects