Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	wont_a	word_n	year_n	13	3	4.5950	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27015	The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholike religion against popery proving that popery is against the Holy Scriptures, the unity of the catholike church, the consent of the antient doctors, the plainest reason, and common judgment of sense it self / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1657 (1657)	Wing B1381; ESTC R16189	289,769	704

But the Church of Rome is a true Church Therefore c. The Antecedent is granted by most Protestants ●he consequence is good for it is the true Religion that maketh a true Church and Popery is their Religion If their Religion be not true their Church is not true If their Religion be true then their Church is true and if Church and Religion be true then they are in a safe way to salvation Answ 1. The word Church doth usually signifie among Christians a Christian society or a company of Christians associated for Gods worship and mutual edification sometime any company of Christians whether so associated or not sometime those are called Christians as distinct from Infidels who profess most of the substance of Christianity but deny some part or who profess the whole substance or the fundamentals though they contradict it again by plain consequence in other superadded points Though these as compared with the Orthodox are wont to be called Hereticks We deny not but that the greatest Papists are such Christians and that as the word Church is applicable to combinations or companies consisting of such materials so far the Roma●●sts are a true Church supposing that we onely speak of Metaphysical Truth But as the word Christian is taken for one that so holdeth the fundamentals of Christian Faith as not to subvert them by plain consequence after he hath professed them so it is yet under dispute whether the Romanists be a true Church and therefore not to be taken as granted However those Protestant Divines that grant them to be a true Church do say that it is but by a Metaphysical verity convertible with the essence but that Morally it is a false Church and not a true as a thief is a True man that is truely a man but he is not a true man that is not an honest faithfull man 2. The thing called The Church of Rome consisteth not of Homogeneal parts or at least that word signifieth several sorts of persons There are some that with the Pope and his Cardinals entertain the full body of Popery and enslave the rest There are multitudes of the people that silently live under them and let them alone and are defiled by them in many things but receive not the great and most dangerous part of their corruption These are not equally to be called the Church nor are they equally in danger of damnation 3. I deny the consequence of the Major Proposition For if the Church of Rome be a true Church it is because they are true Christians and not because they are Papists so that to argue The Church of Rome is a true Church therefore Popery is a safe way to Salvation is as unsound as to argue Gebezi the Leper is a living man Therefore the Leprosie is a thing safe or profitable to mans life Popery is the disease of their Church and Christianity is it that makes them a Church You may well therefore co●clude that Christianity is a safe way to heaven but not that Popery is so To the confirmation I answer That the Religion of Papists hath two parts The Christian Religion as they are Christians and that maketh them a true Church if they be one And the Popish corruptions which denominate them Papists and that makes them not a true Church nor is a safe way to salvation Obj. 3. If Papists may be saved then Popery is a safe way to salvation But Papists may be saved Therefore c. Ans To the Antecedent or Minor I answer that Papists be not all of a sort some may be saved and some cannot if they so live and dye If you aske who may and who may not I answer that all those of them that hold the substance of the Christian faith and that practically notwithstanding their errors or that hold no errors but what consist with the Practical holding of the Christian faith these shall be saved But all those that finally hold any error which for matter or manner is inconsistent with the Practical holding of the Christian faith shall be condemned 2. To the consequence of the Major I answer by denying it and that on the aforesaid account If a Papist be saved it is not by Popery but from Popery It is therefore no better reasoning than to say If a Leper may live then the Leprosie is wholsome or a safe to preserve life I have already spoke more to this If such do live it is with more trouble and less ●omfort and it s fewer that live long with it then of other sounder men Men should not cast themselves into a course of great doubt and difficulty as to their salvation and when they have done encourage themselves in it because other men of moderate and charitable mindes are afraid to conclude that they shall certainly be damned Is it not a great probability or danger of damnation very terrible though you were not certain to be damned Obj. 4. There is but one true Church and consequently but one safe way to Heaven That one Church is the Romane Church And therefore they and onely they are in the safe way to Heaven Answ If you speak of the Universal Church which is Christs body there is but one and that is all true Christians But if you speak of particular associations of Christians called particular Churches there are many thousands And so we say that the Church of Rome is at best but one particular Church or one combination of some particular Churches under the Bishop of that City But that Rome or the Romane party are the whole of the Catholike Church of Christ we do with abhorrency deny 2. If the Church of Rome be any part of that Universal Church and so in a state of Salvation or way to it it is not as Papists but as Christians as was said before And therefore though there be but one safe way to Heaven yet that one being not Popery but Christianity why may not other Christians be in a safe way to He●ven as well as the Papists especially who are free from those dangerous diseases wherewith the Papists Christianity is corrupted Obj. 5. That Church which hath Vnity Vniversality Antiquity and unintterupted succession of Pastors and Apostles is the onely true Church and consequently onely in the safe way to Salvation But such is the Church of Rome therefore Answ 1. This concludeth not the point in Question That Popery is a safe way to Salvation 2. We deny the Major and blame them that they still thrust it on us without proof To the particulars 1. If Mahometans have unity or if Satan be not divided against Satan it doth not follow that they have the true Church men may agree in evil 2. where was your universality also when there were scarce seven Bishops left that were free from the plague of Arrianisme Universality absolute so that all errors or other parties should be excluded the Church hath never had the happiness to enjoy since the begining of

present the far purest and renounce communion with them all and proclaim them Hereticks or Schismaticks and sentence them all to the flames of Hell Yea that dare do the like by all ages of Christians that have gone before them yea that dare unchurch and damne to Hell the whole Church of Christ for many hundred years For what do they less when they unchurch and damne all that acknowledge not their new made universal Bishop which the Primitive Church never did And when they make that to be essential to the Catholike Church which the first Catholike Church did never know I know there be some Enthusiasts and Anabaptists and such giddy persons that do as the Papists do condemn all the Churches of Christ except themselves But yet the Schisme that they have made hereby is nothing to that which was made by the Papists who have set the Christian world into a flame of dissention and make it their very business daily to b●ow ●t up and do nourish so many Colledges of Jesuites and other orders to that end What notorious impudency is it then in these men to tell us that we are schismaticks separate from them and aske us how we dare judge all our forefathers to damnation and why we will not be of our forefathers Religion and do not observe how they condemne themselves by all these questions What more evident then that the Papists have separated from all other Christians in the world How dare they condemne the far greatest part of Christians on earth to eternal torment yea and by plain consequence though they will not acknowledge it the whole Church of Christ for many hundred years were it but one soul that they should presume to censure they might well bethink them of an answer to Pauls Question Who art thou that judgest another mans servant to his own master doth he stand or fall When Paul wrote that to the Church at Rome he knew of none then that would justifie the judging of all the world and say They are my servants or subjects and therefore I must judge them Do the blind Papists think that any sober considerate impartial Christian can be of their mind and damne the most of Christs Church on earth meerly because they will not be subject to the Pope of Rome If this Article be so necessary to salvation Why do not we find it in any ancient Creed Why must we not say I believe in the Pope of Rome as well as I believe in God Or if indeed it be the Pope and Romanists that is meant by the holy Catholike Church why would not the composers of the Creed tell us so And why did none of the ancient Churches understand and expound it so And why did no age add the word Romane and call it the holy Romane Catholike Church 2. And then withal besides the present Schisme which they have made they have laid the ground of a perpetual schisme For they have made a new definition of the Catholicke Church and made it another thing then it was before and they have made a new head and center of its unity so that all the old sort of Christians to the end of the world that cannot change their Church and unite to the new head and center must needs be of a different body from the Romanists And if these men say that it is the rest of the Christian world that first withdraws from them 1. Let them prove that the Greek Abassins the rest of the Christian world that deny subjection to them except these in the West were ever under them 2. And as for the Reformed Churches if they were drawn in heretofore I mean their forefathers to countenance the Romish usurpation tyranny they withdraw only from that usurpation separate from Rome only as it is a faction not as from a Church If we be drawn into a schism separation from all the Christian world by the fraud of Rome is it unlawful for us to repent return to the unity of the Catholike Church and to renounce the Schism that we were guilty of This is our great sin we are schismaticks because we will not continue schismaticks we are Schismaticks by casting off the Schism of Rome because we will not be Schismaticks by continuing to separate from all the Churches else on earth 3. But let us come to the tryal with them who laid the first Schismatical Principle Was it not they that first defined the Catholike Church as equipollent with the Romane and first made the universal Headship of their Pope to be the center Did ever Peter or Paul or any Apostle do so Did they give us such a definition of the Catholike Church Or did the Church do so for many a hundred year after them Prove this well and take all and we promise to turn Papists without delay The plaine truth is this The Catholike Church for many hundred years after Christ was that Body of Christians who were united or centred only in Christ the head and held communion in the fundamentals or great and necessary points of faith and worship and had no mortal head or Center But the worldly greatness of the City of Rome occasioneth the inflation and proud usurpation of her Bishop and he will needs make himself the Center of union and universal head when there was no Center or head but Christ before And is not this the vilest Schisme that men can tell how to be guilty of suppose that the King of Spaine having his Dominions remote one part from another some in Europe and some in the Indies that for five or six hundred years the Indies should acknowledge no other head but the King of Spaine and the Governors of each Province should receive their several Commissions immediately from him and stand in no regimental subordination to one another but onely be bound by the King to have communion and hold correspondence for their mutual safety and the common good If now after so long time the Vice King of Mexico shall by Degrees make himself the sovereign of the rest first claiming onely the first place in their Assemblies because he is Governor of the greatest City and then requiring them to do nothing without him or his consent and at last proclaiming himself the head of the Indies under the King of Spaine and that none are subjects to the King but those that profess themselves also subjects to him but all the rest are rebels and traytors and to be used accordingly exhorting and commanding all to fall upon them and use them as such And all this upon pretence that Spain is so far off that the King there is invisible and inaccessible to them in the Indies and therefore the King hath given him a Commission to be his substitute as being more visible and accessible If now the rest of the Presidents Governors and Provinces shall refuse to acknowledge the Headship of this man and shall declare that they dare