Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	know_v	scripture_n	tradition_n	2,389	5	9.3614	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A10650	An explication of the hundreth and tenth Psalme wherein the severall heads of Christian religion therein contained; touching the exaltation of Christ, the scepter of his kingdome, the character of his subjects, his priesthood, victories, sufferings, and resurrection, are largely explained and applied. Being the substance of severall sermons preached at Lincolns Inne; by Edward Reynoldes sometimes fellow of Merton Colledge in Oxford, late preacher to the foresaid honorable society, and rector of the church of Braunston in Northhampton-shire.	Reynolds, Edward, 1599-1676.	1632 (1632)	STC 20927; ESTC S115794	405,543	546

In opinion by adulterating it with humane mixtures and superinducements teaching for Doctrines the traditions of men In affection by wishing many divine truths were razed out of the Scriptures as being manifestly contrary to those pleasures which they love rather than God In conversation by keeping downe the truth in unrighteousnesse and in those things which they know as brute beasts corrupting themselves Enmity against his Teaching by quenching the motions and resisting the evidence of his Spirit in the word refusing to heare his voyce and rejecting the counsell of God against themselves There is Enmitie against him as a Priest by undervaluing his Person Sufferings Righteousnesse or Merits And as a King Enmity to his Worship by profanesse neglecting it by idolatry communicating it by superstition corrupting it Enmity to his wayes and service by ungrounded prejudices mis-judging them as grievous unprofitable or unequall wayes and by wilfull disobedience forsaking them to walke in the wayes of our owne heart And this is a point which men should labour to trie themselves in for the enemies of Christ are not onely out of the Church but in the midst where his kingdome is set up v. 2. Esay 8.14 And indeed by how much the more dangerous it is by so much the more subtil wil Satan and a sinfull heart be to deceive it selfe therein for this is a certaine truth that men may professe and falsly beleeve that they love the Lord Iesus and yet be as reall enemies unto his Person and Kingdome as the Iewes that accused and the Heathen that crucified him Hee was set up for a signe to be spoken against for a rocke of offence and a stone of stumbling which the very builders themselves would reject False brethren amongst the Philippians there were who professed the name of Christians and yet by their sensuall walking and worldly mindednesse declared themselves to bee enemies to the crosse of Christ Phil. 3.18 19. To honour the bodies of the Saints departed with beautifull sepulchres is in it selfe a testimoniall of sincere love and inward estimation of their persons and graces and therefore the Holy Ghost hath recorded it for the perpetuall honour of Ioseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus that they embalmed the body of Iesus and laid it in a new sepulcher Ioh. 19 38-41 yet our Saviour pronounceth a woe against the Scribes and Pharisees because they built the tombe● of the Prophets and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous Matth. 23.29 The fault was not in the fact it selfe but in the hypocrisie of the heart in the incongruitie of their other practices and in that damned protection which by this plausible pretext of honour to the Prophets they laboured to gaine to their persons and approbation to their attempts against Christ in the mindes of the people who yet ordinarily esteemed Christ whom they persecuted a Prophet sent from God They professe If we had beene in the dayes of our Fathers wee would not have done as they did But our Saviour reproves this hypocriticall perswasion by shewing first that it was no strange thing with them to persecute Prophets but a nationall and hereditary sinne and therefore they had no reason to boast of their descent as their manner was Luke 3.8 Ioh. 8.39 or to thinke that Gods mercies were entail'd unto them since by their owne confession they were the posteritie of those that had killed the Prophets and secondly that they did fulfill the measure of their Fathers that is that which their Fathers had beene long and leasurely a doing they now did altogether in one blow for it was the same Christ whom they persecuted in his person and their fathers in his Prophets and therefore though they seemed to honour and revive the memory of those holy martyrs yet upon them should light the guilt of all the righteous bloud which had ever beene shed in the Land inasmuch as their malice was directed against that fulnesse of which all the Prophets had but a measure If by severall enemies a man be severally mangled one cuts off a foot another an hand another an arme and after all this there come one who cuts off the head and yet bestows some honourable ceremonies upon those members which the rest had abused he shall justly suffer as if he had slaine a whole man inasmuch as his malice did eminently containe in it the degrees of all the rest and that pretended honour shall be so far from compensating the injury that it shall adde thereunto an aggravation of base hypocrisie Thus as the Iewes when they thought they did honour and admire the Prophets did yet harbour in their brests that very root of fury and had that selfe-same constitution of soule which was in their fore-fathers who shed their bloud so in our dayes men may say and thinke that they love Christ and court him with much out-side and emptie service may boast that if they had lived in the dayes of those unthankfull Iewes they would not have partaked with them in so execrable a murther and yet interpretatively and at second hand shew the very same root of bitternesse and rancorous constitution of heart against him in his Spirit and ordinances which was in those men when they cried Away with him crucifie him crucifie him Many grounds there are of this grand misperswasion of the heart in its love to Christ which I will but touch upon The first is the generall acceptation and continuance which the Gospell of Christ receiveth amongst the Princes of this world who in Christian Common-wealths doe both by their owne voluntary and professed subjection and by the vigour of their publike lawes establish the same Now this is most certain that as in all other sciences there cannot be transitus à genere in genus the principles of one will not serve to beget the conclusions of another so here especially if a spirituall assent and affection be grounded upon no other than humane inducements it is most undoubtedly spurious and illegitimate That reason which the Pharisees used to disswade men from beleeving in Christ Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees beleeved on him Ioh. 7.48 is one of the principall arguments which many men have now why they doe beleeve him because the Rulers whose examples and lawes they observe more upon trust than triall doe lead them thereunto and therefore wee finde amongst the Iewes that those very men who when the Government of the whole twelve Tribes was one did all consent in an unity of religion upon the distraction of the kingdome under Ieroboam were presently likewise divided in their observance of Gods worship and they who before were zealous for the Temple at Ierusalem were after as superstitious for Dan and Bethel the Prophet giveth the reason of it They willingly walked after the commandement namely of Ieroboam Hos. 5.11 no sooner did the Prince interpose his authoritie but the people were willing to pin their opinions and practices upon his word If Omri make

statutes and Ahab confirme idolatrous counsels by his owne practices the Prophet shewes how forward the people are to walke in them Mich. 6.16 Therefore it is that our Saviour saith of the best sort of wicked men Those who with gladnesse and that is ever a symptome of love received the Gospell that yet in time of persecution they were offended and fell away Matth. 13.21 To note unto us that when Christ is forsaken because of persecution the imaginary love which was bestowed upon him before was certainly supported by no other ground than that was is contrary to persecution namely the countenance and protection of publike power Secondly a great part of men professe faith and love to Christ meerely upon the rules of their Education The maine reason into which their religion is resolv'd is not any evidence of excellencie in it selfe but onely the customes and traditions of their fore-fathers which is to build a divine faith upon an humane authoritie and to set man in the place of God certaine it is that contrary religions can never be originally grounded upon the same reason that which is a true and adequate principle of faith or love to Christ can never be sutable to the conclusions of Mahumetisme or idolatry now then when a professed Christian can give no other account of his love to Christ than a Turke of his love to Mahumet when that which moveth an Idolater to hate Christ is all that one of us hath to say why he beleeveth in him certainly that love and faith is but an empty presumption which dishonoureth the Spirit of Christ and deludeth our own soules There is a naturall instinct in the minde of man to reverence and vindicate the traditions of their progenitours and at first view to detest any novell opinions which seeme to thwart the received doctrine wherein they had beene bred and this affection is ever so much the stronger by how much the tradition received is about the nobler and more necessary things And therefore it discovereth it selfe with most violence and impatiency in matters of Religion wherin the eternall welfare of the soule is made the issue of the contention We finde with what hea●e of zeale the Iewes contended for the Temple at Ierusalem and with how equall and confident emulation the Samaritans ventured their lives for the precedencie of their Temple on mount Gerazim and took an oath to produce proofs for the authority therof and yet all the ground of this will-worship was the tradition of their Fathers For our Savior assures us that they worshipped they knew not what and onely tooke things upon trust from their predecessors The Satyrist hath made himselfe merry with describing the combate of two neighbor townes amongst the Egyptians in the opposite defence of those ridiculous idoles the severall worship of which they had been differently bred up unto And surely if a prophane Christian and a zealous Mahumetan should joyne in the like contention notwithstanding the subject it selfe on the one side defended were a sacred and pretious truth yet I doubt not but the selfe same reasons might be the sole motive of the Christian to vindicate the honor of Christ and of the other to maintaine the worship of Mahomet I meane a blinde and pertinacions adhering to that Religion in which they had been bred a naturall inclination to favor domesticall opinions a high estimation of the persons of men from whom by succession they have thus been instructed without any Spirituall conviction of the truth or experience of the good which the true members of Christ resolve their love unto him into And this we finde was ever the reasons of the Iewes obstinacy against the Prophets they answered all their arguments with the practice and traditions they had received from their Fathers Ier. 9.14.11.10.44.17 Act. 7.51 Thirdly the heart may be misperswaded of its love to Christ by judging that an affection unto him which is indeed nothing but a selfe love and a desire o● advancing private ends The rule whereby Christ at the last day will measure the love or hatred of men unto him is their love or hatred of his brethren and members here Mat. 25.40 45 for in all their afflictions Christ himselfe is afflicted Peter lovest thou me feed my sheepe make proofe of thy love to me by thy service and compassion to my people And how many are there every-where to be found whose love unto themselves hath devoured all brotherly love who take no pitty either upon the soules or temporall necessities of those with whom they yet pretend a fellowship in Christs owne body who spend more upon their owne pride and luxury upon their backs and bellies their pleasures and excesses yea bury more of their substance in the mawes of hawkes and dogs than they can ever perswade themselves to put into the bowels of the poore Saints surely at the day of judgment how-ever such men here professe to love Christ and would spit in the face of him who with Iustin Martyr should say they were not Christians it will appeare that such men did as formally and ●●properly denie Christ as if with Peter they had publikely sworne I know not the man The Apostle plainly intimates thus much when he sheweth that the experiment of the Corinthians ministration to the necessity of the Saints was an inducement unto the Churches to praise God for their professed subjection to the Gospell of Christ 2 Cor. 9.13 Againe as Christ is present with us in his poore members so likewise in the power of his ordinances and in the light and evidence of his Spirit shining forth in the lives of holy men If then we are as impatient of the edge of his word when it divides betweene the bone and the marrow when it discerneth and discovereth our secret thoughts our bosome sinnes our ambitions uncleane and hypocriticall intents if the lives and Communion of the Saints be in like manner an eye-sore unto us in shaming and reproving our formall and fruitlesse profession of the same truth as Christs was unto the Iewes certainly the same affections of hatred reproach and disestimation which we shew unto them we would with so much the more bitternesse have expressed unto Christ himselfe if we had lived in his dayes by how much that Spirit of grace against which the Spirit which is in us envieth was above measure more abundantly in him than in the holiest of his members If you were of the world saith our Savior the world would love their owne but now I have called you out of the world I have given to you a Spirit which is contrary to the Spirit of the World therefore the world hateth you And this is evident when men hate another meerly for that distinction which differenceth him from them they much more hate him from whom the difference it selfe originally proceedeth We see then that they who openly professe Christ may yet inwardly hate him because the ground

separate from sinners Heb. 7.26 Hee came not into the world but for us and therefore hee neither suffered nor did any thing but for us As the colour of the glasse is by the favor of the Sunne-beame shining through it made the color of the wall not inherent in it but relucent upon it by an extrinsecall affection so the righteousnesse of Christ by the favor of God is so imputed unto us as that wee are quoad gratiosum Dei conspectum righteous too In which sense I understand those words Hee hath not beheld iniquitie in Iacob neither hath he seen perversenesse in Israel Num. 23.21 Though it is indeed in him yet the Lord looketh on him as cloathed with the righteousnesse of Christ and so is said not to see it as the eye seeth the color of the glasse in the wall and therefore cannot behold that other inherent color of its owne which yet it knoweth to bee in it Now of this Doctrine of Iustification by Christs righteousnesse imputed wee may make a double use First it may teach us that great dutie of selfe-deniall wee see no righteousnesse will justifie us but Christs and his will not consist but with the deniall of our owne And surely what-ever the professions of men in word may bee there is not any one dutie in all Christian Religion of more difficultie than this to trust Christ onely with our salvation To doe holy duties of hearing reading praying meditating almesgiving or any other actions of charity or devotion and yet still to abhorre our selves and our workes to esteeme our selves after wee have done all unprofitable servants and worthy of many st●ipes to doe good things and not to rest in them to owne the shame and dung of our solemne services when we have done all the good workes wee can to say with Nehemiah Remember mee ô my God concerning this and spare me according to the greatnesse of thy mercie Nehem. 13.22 and with David To thee ô Lord belongeth mercie for thou renderest to every man according to his worke Psal. 62.12 It is thy mercy to reward us according to the uprightnesse of our workes who mightest in judgement confound us for the imperfection of our workes To give God the praise of our working and to take to ourselves the shame of polluting his workes in us There is no Doctrine so diametrally contrary to the merits of Christ and the redemption of the world thereby as justification by workes No Papist in the world is or can bee more contentious for good workes than wee both in our Doctrine and in our prayers and in our exhortations to the people We say no faith justifieth us before God but a working faith no man is righteous in the sight of men nor to bee so esteemed but by workes of holinesse without holinesse no man shall see God hee that is Christs is zealous of good workes purifieth himselfe even as hee is pure and walketh as hee did in this world Here onely is the difference we doe them because they are our Dutie and testifications of our love and thankfulnesse to Christ and of the workings of his Spirit in our hearts but wee dare not trust in them as that by which wee hope to stand or fall before the tribunall of Gods Iustice because they are at best mingled with our corruptions and therefore doe themselves stand in need of a high Priest to take off their iniquity Wee know enough in Christ to depend on we never can finde enough in our selves And this confidence wee have if God would ever have had us justified by workes hee would have given us grace enough to fulfill the whole Law and not have left a Prayer upon publike record for us every day to repeat and to regulate all our owne Prayers by forgive us our trespasses For how dares that man say I shall be justified by my workes who must every day say Lord forgive mee my sinnes and bee mercifull unto mee a sinner Nay though wee could fulfill the whole Law perfectly yet from the guilt of sinnes formerly contracted wee could no other way bee justified than by laying hold by faith on the satisfaction and sufferings of Christ. Secondly it may teach us confidence against all sinnes corruptions and temptations Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died c. Satan is the blackest enemie and sinne is the worst thing hee can alleage against mee or my soule is or can bee subject unto for Hell is not so evill as sinne In as much as Hell is of Gods making but sinne onely of mine Hell is made against mee but sinne is committed against God Now I know Christ came to destroy the workes and to answer the arguments and reasonings of the Devill Thou canst not stand before God saith Satan for thou art a grievous sinner and he is a devouring fire But faith can answere Christ is able both to cover and to cure my sinne to make it vanish as a miste and to put it as farre out of mine owne sight as the East is from the West But thou hast nothing to doe with Christ thy sinnes are so many and so foule surely the bloud of Christ is more acceptable to my soule and much more honourable and pretious in it selfe when it covereth a multitude of sinnes Paul was a persecutor a Blasphemer and injurious the greatest of all sinners and yet hee obtained mercy that hee might be for a patterne of all long-suffering to those that should after beleeve in Christ. If I had as much sinne upon my soule as thou hast yet faith could unlade them all upon Christ Christ could swallow them all up in his mercy But thou hast still nothing to doe with him because thou continuest in thy sinne But doth hee not call mee invite me beseech mee command me to come unto him If then I have a heart to answer his call hee hath a hand to draw me to himselfe though all the gates of Hell and powers of darknesse or sinnes of the world stood betweene But thou obeyest not this call True indeed and pittifull it is that I am dull of hearing and slow of following the voice of Christ I want much faith but yet Lord thou dost not use to quench the smoaking flax or to breake the bruized reed I beleeve and thou art able to helpe mine unbeleefe I am resolved to venture my soule upon thy mercy to throw away all mine owne loading and to cleave onely to this planck of salvation But faith purifieth the heart whereas thou art uncleane still True indeed and miserable man I am therefore that the motions of sinne doe worke in my members But yet Lord I hate every false heart I delight in thy Law with mine innerman I doe that which I would not but I consent to thy Law that it is good I desire to know thy will to feare thy name to