Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	age_n	church_n	tradition_n	3,033	5	9.4226	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82313	The building and glory of the truely Christian and spiritual church. Represented in an exposition on Isai. 54, from vers. 11. to the 17. Preached to His Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax and the general officers of the army, with divers other officers, and souldiers, and people, at Marston, being the head-quarter at the leaguer before Oxford, June. 7. 1646. / By William Dell, minister of the Gospel, attending on His Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax in the Army. Together with a faithful testimony touching that valiant and victorious army, in the epistle to the reader. Published by authority.	Dell, William, d. 1664.	1646 (1646)	Wing D918; Thomason E343_5; ESTC R200942	30,138	43

of the Church in the days of the New Testament that whereas before the Church was to be found but in one kinred and tongue and people and nation now it should be gathered out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation And this is so desireable and comfortable a thing that in the beginning of the Chapter he calls upon all to rejoyce at this vers. 1. Sing O barren thou that didst not bear break forth into singing and shout aloud thou that didst not travel with childe for more are the children of the desolate then of the married wife saith the Lord Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations Spare not lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left and thy seed shall inherite the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited So that there shall certainly be a most wonderful and numerous increase of the faithful in the Christian Church till they become as the stars of heaven and as the drops of the morning dew that cannot be told all of them assembled in the beauties of holinesse And therefore let us not be over-much troubled though at present we see in a numerous nation but few true children of the spiritual Church for God shall blesse these few and bid them increase and multiply and replenish the earth so that though the Assemblies of the Saints be now but thin and one comes from this place and another from that to these Assemblies and in many and most places of the Kingdom these few are fain to come together secretly for fear of the Jews that is the people of the letter yet through the pouring forth of the Spirit it shall come to passe at last that they shall come in flocks as doves to their windows And it shall be said to the Church by the Lord Lift up thine eyes round about and behold all these gather fellows together and come to thee At I live saith the Lord thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a bride doth c. till at last the Church shall say in her heart Who hath begotten me these seeing I have lost my children and am desolate a captive and removing to and fro and who hath brought up these Behold I was left alone these where had they been Yea these very promises are now in the very act of accomplishing among us for the spiritual Church hath received a very great increase within these few yeers and God hath many faithful people in many places of this Kingdom and of this my self and many more in this Army are witnesses for having marched up and down the Kingdom to do the work of God and the State we have met with many Christians who have much Gospel light and which makes it the more strange in such places where there hath been no Gospel-Ministery which hath put me in minde of that prophecie Isai. 66. 8. Who hath heard such a thing who hath seen such things Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day or shall a nations be born at once For as soon as Sion travelled nay before she travelled she brought forth her children There was no outward Ministery of the Gospel to travel or take pains with them and yet Sion brings forth her children And one thing that is remarkable touching the increase of the Church at this day is this That where Christ sends the Ministration of the Spirit there many young people are brought in to Christ as being most free from the forms of the former age and from the Doctrines and Traditions of men taught and received instead of the pure and unmixed Word of God whereas many old professors who are wholly in the form prove the greatest enemies to the power of godlinesse and thus the first are the last and the last first Now this great and sudden increase of the faithful is that which doth so exceedingly trouble the world and makes them angry at the very heart For if they were but a few mean contemptible and inconsiderable persons whom they might easily suppresse and destroy they would be pretty quiet but when they begin to increase in the land as Israel did in Egypt and notwithstanding all the burdens of their taskmasters wherewith they are afflicted and grieved do yet increase abundantly and multiply and wax exceeding mighty till they begin to fill the land and when they consult to deal wisely with them lest they multiply too much do yet see them grow and multiply the more that they know not at what Countrey or City or Town or Village or family to begin to suppresse them this is that doth so exceedingly vex and inrage the world and makes them even mad again as we see this day For the increase of the faithful as it is the glory of the Church so it is the grief and madnesse of the world But these men in vain attempt against this increase of the faithful as the Egyptians against the increase of the Israelites for none can hinder the increase of the Church but they that hinder God from pouring out his Spirit and according to the measure of Gods pouring forth the Spirit is and must be the increase of the Church in despite of all the opposition of the world And thus much touching the first promise of the Churches Increase Now in the words I read to you the Lord comes to another promise so that the Lord because of the Churches weaknesse addes one promise to another and these promises are nothing but the outgoings and manifestations of his love through the Word Christ But to look more neerly upon the words Oh thou afflicted Affliction in the world doth so inseparably attend the Church that the Church even takes its denomination from it Oh thou afflicted The condition of the Church is an afflicted condition For the Church being born of God and born of the Spirit is put into a direct contrariety to the world which is born of the flesh and is also of its father the devil And so the whole world is malignant against the faithful and spiritual Church and all that are not regenerate set their faces yea their hearts and their hands against the Saints and the unregenerate world is against the regenerate and the carnal world against the spiritual and the sinful world against the righteous and all the people and nations in the world are against that people and nation which the Apostle calls a holy nation and a peculiar people As the world cannot endure God in himself so neither can it endure God in the Saints and so the more God dwells in the Saints the more doth the world afflict the Saints for they oppose not the faithful for any thing of flesh and blood in them but because that flesh and blood of theirs is the habitation of God and