Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A39063
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An Expedient for peace perswading an agreement amongst Christians &c.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing E3872; ESTC R25075
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27,763
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15
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Paul told the Romans This is the Word of Faith which we Preach That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe with thine Heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved as also St. John For every Spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God God dwelleth in him and he in God So that such a belief with sincere and hearty endeavours to please God according to the best Notices a man can get will secure a man his Salvation if it will not there is no Salvation to be had at all Now the best Notices we can get and only Rule to direct our Lives and Actions are the Books of the Old and New Testament wherein are transmitted the Transactions of Heaven with the Sons of Men and are of an inestimable value teaching all things fully that relate to God or Men as to the Nature and Worship of the one or the Duty and Salvation of the other Now that men can understand these Books is a thing without all controversie and only disputed by them whose interest it is they should not I mean men of ordinary and mean Capacities for if not to what end were they wrote Or why to them directed And why are all commanded to read and search them if they were not capable to understand them And how can such men who deny it be able to vindicate the Wisdom Goodness or Justice of Almighty God in delivering his Creatures a Rule to walk by and exact a due conformity thereto if they were not capable to understand it No certainly the Good God as he has condescended to give his Creatures a Rule so he has calculated this Rule to all their Capacities and so adapted the one for the other that they have the greatest reason in the World to Adore and Admire his Wisdom and Goodness for the same I will allow that some can better understand them than others and that they are not equally understood of all because of the difference of men's Capacities and Acquirements and because they should have a dependance and be beholding to one another which ministers to Charity but then nothing is more certain than that all men of the meanest Capacities may understand them sufficient and enough for Salvation if they come with a sincere affection of being instructed and of finding out Truth otherwise they would not answer the end for which they were designed Some things indeed the deepest Heads cannot reach and others the weakest Understandings can hardly possibly mistake and those too are all of the greatest importance If only one sort of men were able to understand them as some would have it we should have had notice from Heaven who those should be and how qualified and that in such plain Characters that it should not be possible we should mistake but there is no such thing And if any sort of men claim this Arcanum above others 't is an affront to the Understandings of all the rest and their Words ought not to be taken in their own Case And indeed 't is a thing too great to be trusted with any one sort of men Some indeed will only have Learned Men capable of understanding them but then if this should be what alamentable case the World would be in Truth would then 〈◊〉 a precarious thing and we should have no more of it than these Learned Men please and if they should be byassed corrupted or be dishonest what must the other three parts of the World do Must they lie at their Mercy and their Salvation depend on their Honesty No God forbid And blessed be his Name he has taken care men shall not lie liable to any such Impostures But if these men will needs be in the right above the rest and understand for them let them do their duty for them too for 't is not reasonable they should be charged with a duty that do not understand it But having found their own failings herein and that they are but men like others during not to be so confident as usual they betake themselves to shifts and to countenance their fallibility supply the defects of honesty and salve their imposition of their sence they set up a strange sort of Infallibility which indeed would put an end to all the Disputes and Differences in Chistondom were there any such thing But that which they have invented to put out the Flame serves only to increase it for where the Power of Infallibility is lodged Heaven has given us no notice which it would certainly have done had there been any such thing And 't is certain that those who pretend most to this Infallibility have been most deceived of all Indeed the Romanists for the most part have drove furiously and forced all their People to do the same thing and worship God the same way but this cannot be called an Agreement no more than Sheep are said to agree when they are drove up and Pounded all together by the Shepherd And there is greater Agreement amongst those though the foolish World think to the contrary who worship their Maker under the Administration of several Disciplines and Conduction of several Guides For Force and Violence may make a Congregation of Bodies but no Unity of Minds 'T is only a Hearty Intention Sincerity of Mind and Affections Simpleness and Identity of Address to the same Object which can be called Unity and Agreement and nothing else for other things though they may seem differences and disagreements to men yet really they are none at all for the Circumstances of Time and Place Publick or Private Day or Night the several Instances of Respects Methods and Way of Worship are all one and the same thing to God Almighty He only looks at the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace Differences with men are not so with him if they agree in sincerity of Affections and integrity of Spirit that 's the Agreement he looks after 'T is true again That men understand the Scriptures differently and to different Senses but why this difference of Understanding should be Objected as a Crime I know not For 't is impossible it should be otherwise so long as there be such great variety of Humane Understandings and as long as they understand not differently and amiss on a bad end and design they cannot possibly be Criminal for no man is Obliged to understand better than he can Then again Many men may be totally Ignorant of many things in Scripture and yet be very Innocent and certainly if their Total Ignorance be no fault their understanding differently those things which they might have been Innocently ignorant of cannot make them guilty of a Crime if it should it would highly advance Ignorance and very much depress Understanding and Knowledge But further if they understand them differently which I contend for the most part they do in order to promote a Virtue encourage a Grace or
Indiscreet Zeal their Weakness or Interest hath made them so obstinate and resolute and put them on such Shifts and Artifices that have made them come off worse Men I am sure worse Christians Since then it must be allowed me that 't is impossible the World should agree or be all of one Mind in matters of Religion and no means found competent to make them so to what end then do Men Dispute Do they think to Unite the Poles or reconcile Contradictions Indeed their Endeavours may be pitied because they mean well but not at all to be commended But to speak Truth they have seen the impossibility of their Attempt long ago and therefore laid their Heads together for an Expedient to salve all Hence came the concern of Infallibility a poor shift indeed which hath made all things worse than they were before and has been so often baffled and is such a ridiculous thing so much against the Experience of all Mankind that Laughing at it is the best way of Arguing And to my Apprehension the more Certain and Infallible Truth of the Impossibility of Agreement is a much better Expedient to charm the mad World into an Agreement than that of Infallibility For when after so much Experience and so many Attempts made Men find the impossibility of Agreement methinks they should at last agree that is they should yield themselves Vanquished see their Faults and Vanity of Contention be induced to be at Peace one with another cease their mutual Violence and Severity and Amicably turn all into mutual Love Compliance and Charity And when the Romanists boast of their Agreement and Infallibility and object it to the Protestants that they cannot agree I would have them tell them again that 't is impossible to agree nor is it necessary and that it is no Crime to disagree in their Sense Also that their Agreement however they may boast is no Agreement that the Fagots may as well be said to agree when they are bound up together or Sheep when drove up together and pounded in their Folds and that it is rather a Combination or any thing in the World more proper than an Agreement And let me ask the World the Question Where the Harm would be if Men Worship their Maker in their own way and have various and different Apprehensions of Things if all their respective Opinions and Sentiments be secured from having ill Effects on the Publick and from disturbing one another What is that to me if a Man think a Tree to be a Man or a Man to be a Beast if a Man so mis-thought and apprehended be secured from being baited or worried We are all to answer to one common Lord and Master He is to be our Judge if we have served him not right Indeed I look on it as my Duty to inform my Neighbour and instruct him if he be out of the way if I think my way the better and more pleasing to my Maker But then since I may be mistaken and out of the way and he in the right way my method with him ought to be no other than Reason and Discourse and that in the most moderate and discreet way I can For if I should do otherwise I may bring a greater Inconvenience on him than that I pretend to Regulate But again As to the innocency of Differences why should my Man be esteemed a Criminal or punished as such whose Desires and Intentions are to please his Maker as well as mine We see all Rivers little and great at last discharge themselves into the Ocean and all Divisions and Sects of Christians have the same End and Tendency and Terminate in the same Center viz. in endeavouring to Please to Glorifie and Honour their Maker Why therefore should the distinct Ways and Methods in Spirituals be more a Reproach than those in Temporals and Men not to be allowed to choose for themselves their Method in obtaining a Mansion in another World as well as securing a Possession in this Their own Souls lies at stake which if they have any apprehensions of must needs oblige them to be sincere But this interposing in other Mens Matters and being over-Officious I like not and they that force their own Inventions and Models of Worship on other Men under the specious pretences of Right and Truth do I am afraid force a Trade rather than Truth which stands in need of no Coercion And indeed there is such a mysterious Trade driven in the Concerns of Religion and so much Gain gotten by some particular Methods that 't is no wonder Men contended so earnestly for them And amongst other hindrances of true Hollness and Christian Affection and of the Establishment of Truth and Peace among us are the Dignities Honours and large Revenues of Spiritual Men And I beg some Gentlemens Pardon if I think amiss when I say I believe the Flames of Contention that are afoot and so much disturb Christendom would cease and abate were the Oily Substance of their fat Benefices a little diminished or taken away And that a great many Men would not think it worth their while to contend so about the invisible things of another World were there not a great deal to be gotten in this But in order to a Conclusion We may hope and wish Truth and Peace to flourish in the World but we never shall see it as long as Temporals are so mixt with Spirituals There will never be a prosperous or blessed Issue of such an unhallowed and unsanctified mixture But when there is a Divorce put to these and all Power of the Church be devolved on the State and the Men be chosen in another manner and their Allowances setled on them by the State and when Learning is better managed and reformed For the Poet saith but too true Whatsoever ill the State invades The Pulpit either forces or perswades Others may bring the Fewel to the Fire But they the Breath which makes the Flame aspire And that was but an unlucky sort of Comment which one made of those Words wrote over the Head of ouâ— Saviour by Pilate in Hebrew Greek and Latin That he should be perseeuted most by men skilfull in those Languages For 't is the Learned men are the Warriers and manage all our Contentions they would in a manner naturally Disband had they not such Leaders who have little else to do but to raise unnecessary Quarrels and set the World together by the Ears The other three parts of the World have little leasure and less will and abilities to maintain them I say when Learning is better managed and when a perfect and unalterable Toleration of all Perswasions in Religion is established then the Eternal God will bless the World with Truth and Peace but 't is only the last I mean Toleration which we at present may expect and that for the Reasons aforementioned as also for the unvaluable Benefits hereafter we shall certainly reap thereby For in particular What can