Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	speak_v	think_v	word_n	4,073	5	4.0677	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65268	A sermon touching schisme, lately preached at St. Maries in Cambridge by R. I. Watson ...	Watson, Richard, 1612-1685.	1642 (1642)	Wing W1095; ESTC R22989	20,193	38

the maintainers of what truth soever if either mistaken by them or not taken at all as being too profound and out of their reach may chance to be dashed out of all their preferment by the seeming force of some old decrepit statute if not blown away by the violent breath of some zealous Patriot and Lay ill-affected Arbiter And thus much shall serve to have been spoken of the persons whom I conceive the fittest to handle zeal and to reform any exorbitancie of the Church As touching the three attendants thereof which I had out of Gerson the first of them was Benevolentia which I 'll interpret good will or Christian charity towards our brethren And this should be shewed either in preserving their credits or bearing with their perverse manners Supportantes invicem supporting one another ut alter alterius mores fer at licet rusticos licèt asperos licèt petulantes c. saith one on the place Or lastly in admitting a charitable judgement of their errours though untrue as much more pleasing to Almighty God then a true judgement if it be uncharitable Whereof how farre short come the writing and preaching zelots of these our dayes whom I have often observed as in their pamphlets so likewise in their pulpit invectives to gain ground on popular minds and to give a little life to those deformed pictures they make of such men as to whose doctrines they will not conform themselves that they obliquely draw a dark shadow of their impure conversations and no diversity of opinion but must be attended by some notable irregularity in manners I confesse those men upon whom this is justly charged if any such there are as they cannot expect to be anywhere excused so much lesse to have an advocate in this sacred place But I pray God themselves be blamelesse that blame others Indeed those men at whom they glance have not got the trick to do it in the dark but too ingenuously think the world will be as charitably affected to them as they are to the world This I 'll say which I confidently presume That were they not so bated and worried for their opinions which they think in their conscience they may well justifie and thereby driven as to a desperate neglect of their studies so likewise to a lesse strict guard of their lives they would be somewhat more regular in their actions which upon serious recollection and pious meditation it is likely in their reasons they condemne and vilifie Nor doth this their uncharitable zeal extend it self onely to some few particular persons but encircleth no lesse then the whole Church themselves exempted upon which instead of praising God for the first happy conversion of this nation to Christian Religion for that wherein they think themselves have the onely interest an after-Reformation from blind superstition they daily cast the foul-mouth'd calumny and undeserved aspersion of Pelagianisme and whatsoever other wretched heresie they find condemned by the Catholick Church in her sacred Records and venerable Antiquity which they neither search nor care for but when it may furnish them with a few bare names such as they may cast like dirt in the face of those worthy men who drop better Divinity in their daily discourse with every crumb that falls from their tables then these men do in their large distributions of the bread of the Word as they too often emphatically causlesly term it So that what Palemon proudly professed of learning they arrogantly conceit of Religion Qui secum natas secúmque interituras affirmare audebat literas They think it all shipped in one bottome and that 's the rotten one of their own framing The ground of which is a strange assurance they challenge to themselves of a more then ordinary peculiar assistance of the Spirit outstripping S. Paul though an Apostle and none of the meanest neither who went no farther then his Puto autem I think also I have the Spirit of God For howsoever A Lapide out of S. Austines 37. Tractate upon S. John will have this {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} non dubitantis esse sed asseverantis increPantis I rather think under correction it argues S. Pauls modestie who would not Magisterially professe it and ring nothing but reprobation in the ears of them that would not readily acknowledge it I judge none yet I suspect some instead of having that Holy Spirit {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that leading and true Spirit have {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a deceitfull spirit seducing the people as S. Ignatlus said of the false prophets and Apostles of old But whatsoever spirit they have this their confidence inflames their zeal and puts them upon those violent but most impotent expressions of Let us Preach down Pray down nay sometimes they 'll venture at Dispute down too whatsoever is got above their intellectuals when indeed they do nothing but talk down all when alas they are not so forward in the two former but they are twice as backward in the last in all having a self-deniall as they call it that is indeed a deniall of all what themselves should be I mean discursive and rationall as men learned as scholars and which is worth all truly devout as Christians Whereas in their prayers they have oftentimes most uncharible if not schismaticall Devotion bold ignorance in their Sermons and instead of solid reasons a few new-invented canting distinctions in all their disputations calculated for the climate of their exotike Divinity and endeavoured to be obtruded upon our Church in the place of better such as might safely be selected out of the School or de medio montium as Peter Lombard speaketh meaning the ancient Fathers and reverend Antiquity So that what Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French into Naples That they came with chaulk in their hands to mark out their lodgings and not with weapons to fight for them may be said of these men in their great undertaking and zealous promoting a new reformation They mark out their conclusions whereon they may rest without producing any rationall premises which may force an assent If I have digressed a little too farre from my text I may the rather presume of a pardon having been in the pursuit of such men as usually runne a great deal farther from theirs and of whom for all my hast I have much ado to get perfect sight I was moved thereto by the equity of the cause heretofore as I thought injur'd by the silence of some worthy men whose eminent abilities might have better encouraged them to have been as well speaking abettours of truth as their abundant charity made them silent affectours of unseasonable peace I passe now to the second attendant of zeal and that 's Discretion Which if we look at the propriety of the word according to those different significations that it frequently admits of implies a distinct

scientiam not according to knowledge I will take a step into S. Austines path and adde a third possible defect and that 's in the qualification or condition of the persons according to which he observeth zeal to admit of a directly opposite specification in bonitate malitia and therefore he commends it as good in David the King who saith of himself The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up but on the other side condemnes it as bad and misbeseeming the Commons an ignorant multitude the arm of whose discretion and judgement was not able to wield a weapon of that size when it is said of them Zelus occupavit plebem ineruditam Zeal hath possessed an unlearned people But to take it a while in its pure naturals without those severall circumstances and different limitations I reade it defin'd as abstracted in it self Desideriū vehemens quo quis incitatur ea tollere quae rei sibi dilectae videntur adversa An earnest desire to take away such things as seem opposite to that which he loveth Now as there is nothing which should so swell up our souls with joy and delight nor lodge in any corner of our hearts as the love of God so can our zeal be imployed about nothing so well as the utter abolishing of that which either gives him a direct affront and that 's Idolatry or stops the free current of our service and due devotion by intermixing the muddy inventions of weak brains and vain curiosities and that 's Superstition But this zeal as good as it is must be attended by three handmaids to bear up his train which according to Gerson are Benevolentia Discretio Constantia else saith he it is like a two-edged sword in the hand of a mad-man aut fulmini sine obice pervaganti or like that kind of lightning which makes way through all and will admit of no opposition Upon the first of the three our Apostle seemeth chiefly to reflect the absence thereof being that which chiefly causeth the breach of union the disturbance of the peace and quiet of the Church I should begin with this but I must first give you a brief character of such persons as are fittest to be imployed in this businesse S. Austine grants them whosoever they are a large commission Fac quicquid potes Do what thou canst. But what presently set fire on the Church No Frigidum fundit he casts cold water to allay this heat Do it but still pro persona quam portas onely according to that person which thou bearest No mechanick put his profane hand to the pulling down of that most sacred and ever venerable Episcopall function Tractet fabrilia No women vent their impiety and ignorance in slandering it as an Antichristian Prelacie Let them be silent as in so of or concerning the Church too It was S. Pauls advice Discant in silentio not that they should teach but learn in silence Nay non patiar saith he I suffer not a woman to teach 1. Tim. 2. 12. And this argues the irrationall licentious practice of our times wherein either sex and any profession crowds in a finger to the moulding of the design'd Reformation and this if not with publick toleration if not without some contradiction I am sure not with a due peremptory penall prohibition Nay they must be Leaders in the case and teach the very Captains themselves of the Church militant their severall postures prescribe them a form to muster their men I have read of the Ambassadours of the Sarmatae That attending Valentinian the Emperour of the West and telling him being basely clad that they were prime men of that nation he fell into such a passion for warring with so base a people that he dyed suddenly In like manner I think if Religion in these dayes did but view the Grandees of Schisme in their mechanick habits and seriously consider with what a ragged Regiment of ignorance and impudence she hath had so long a continued encounter she would out of indignation desert us and leave her golden crown to be at all adventure usurped either by insolent profanenesse or blind Atheisme But to leave these Bedlams at length to be well lashed by their own too impetuous spirits and to be as good as my word I think we are bound by the doctrine of our Church to surrender the first place of composing differences and zealous reforming what abuses soever are crept into it to him whom we acknowledge her head and that 's the King And good reason too For that is true as well in Church as State which Salust in Tacitus suggested to Livia Eam conditionem esse imperandi ut non aliter ratio constet quàm si uni reddatur Or more properly that which followes soon after Non aliud discordantis patri●e We 'll make it Ecclesiae remedium esse quàm ut ab uno regeretur Whom as the Anointed of the Lord howsoever we acknowledge to have a more then ordinary influence and speciall assistance of the Spirit of God yet being not bound so farre as we know to take away infallibility from the Chair and chain it to the Throne nor to give it a Crown instead of a Mitre we find it most consonant to reason and correspondent to the perpetuall practice of the Primitive times as also to that of all such Christian Churches as still retein the true ancient doctrine and discipline that he assume to him the counsel of his Bishops and Clergie who if so qualified as their places require may be presumed the fittest men to moderate zeal to compose all different opinions and to pick truth out of partiality Not to trouble you with various quotations out of severall Fathers I will onely fetch you one from the head and that 's Blessed Ignatius who speaks to our purpose in asserting That whosoever doth any thing without the Bishop and his Presbyterie {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} such an one hath his conscience defiled and is worse then an infidel But lest you should think the Prince in this case a priviledg'd person he otherwhere inverts our order and hath his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Let Caesar himself be ruled by the perswasion of his Bishop Now the former of these seems to be grounded upon S. Pauls rule who would have zeal to be regulated according to knowledge For to speak the truth if the Clergie be once excluded this businesse and Lay-men who by reason of their severall avocations are for the most part forced to take up their Theologicall principles I wish I could say but at the second or third hand must have the perpetuall patent of this concurrent judiciall imployment if ignorance chance to incorporate with authority and both grow up strong and stout in time it may well be feared in the future age Divinity must be fetched within the sphere of their apprehensions conjur'd within the circle of some politick law and