Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	church_n	true_a	visible_a	19,269	5	9.3685	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88157	An answer to nine arguments. Written by T. B. Wherein is plainly from the scriptures shewed, the weaknesse of his arguments, whereby he undertakes to prove both the Church and Ministry of England true; as likewise describing the nature and properties of a true Church and Ministry. Written long since by that faithfull servant of God and his countrey, John Lilburne Lieftenant [sic] Collonell: and now published for further good, by a well-willer to him and the truth.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1645 (1645)	Wing L2081; Thomason E25_7; ESTC R212845	46,842	48

my Sorrow for you to see you who are so mighty a Champian as you boast your selfe to be to reason so shallowly and ungroundedly for if your Argument be true then all the Nations under Heaven are true visible Churches of Christ for it is not possible that the Heathenest Nation in the World should runne out of Gods Voyce and Call Psal 139.7.8.9 For saith Dauid If I ascend up into Heaven thou art there if I make my Bed in Hell behold thou art there if I take the Wings of the Morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the Sea even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me if I say surely the darknes shall cover me even the night shall be light about me yea the darknes hideth not from thee but the night shineth as the day the darknes and the light are both alike to thee And also see Amos. 9.1.2.3 Where you may also read that no place can hide a people from Gods presence or call so that I say no place can exempt a people from Gods voyce but wheresoever they are he can find them out and by his Judgements laid upon a Nation or Peeple whether they be Pagans Heathens and Infidels that professedly serve and worship Idols and nothing else or whether they be a Nation of seeming Christians as England is no more like the Samaritanes that professe the Worship of the true God and yet serve their Idols 2. King 17.32.33 yet take them in which sence you will I say they are within the Voyce and call of God and by his Judgements and Plagues laid upon them for their sinnes he calls them to Repentance that so they might not perish but be saved as the Apostle Paull in the first of the Romans doth largly prove Vers 18.19 and so forward So that by your Argment all the Nations under Heaven are visible Churches of Christ for I thus frame my Argument according to your owne grounds All the Nations of the Earth that are within the Voyce and call of God calling them to Faith and Repentance that so they may be saved are true Churches But all the Pagan and Heathen Notions in the World are within the Voyce and call of God as I have already proved Ergo. They are true visible Churches Deny any part of the Argument if you can and prove against it But for the proofe of your Argument you cite Math. 20.16 where it is said Many are called but few chosen the first part of the words Many are called you say but doe not prove that we are to understand them of the visible Church which are called to the outward preaching of the word to which I answere and say you are not an Oracle of God that we must beleeve your sayings without ground for you bring no proofe for what you say but your owne bare Affirmations but if you will be an Oraclo it is but a lying Oracle and not of Gods you say they are called to the outward preaching of the Word it seemes to me that you will have all the people in a Nation that are within Gods call to be Preachers and then what shall become of all your Preists for if this be not your meaning I know not what you drive at but for that place of Scripture many are called but few are chosen I understand it thus many there was that heard the Word of God and seemingly professed it as they that came to Johns Baptisme and Herod that reformed many things and those many great multitudes that Christ preached unto many of which made an outward profession of him for a time but it was but for the loaves as he himselfe doth witnesse John 6.26.27 so here are many called to the outward profession of the Gospell but saith the Text few are chosen that is to say ehough there be many that make a formall profession of Christ and have the ouiside of Christianity yet few are they that are chosen either to Christs glorious kingdome with his father or are chosen and admitted as visible members and Subjects in his visible Church or Kingdome which in Scripture hath many and divers names as Syon Jerusalem his holy Mountaine the Lords holy place the kingdome of Heaven Psal 54.7.147.12 Fsa 62.6.65.9.11 Psal 68.17.33.46.4 Mat. 20.1 Rev. 21.1.10 this exposition of the place I plainly prove from Christs preaching to so many as he did the most of which for a time did outwardly prosesse him yet all those great multitudes that he preached unto and wrought Miracles amongst at his death there was but an hundred and twenty that entered into communion to worship him in a visible Church Acts 1.15 and in the second of the Acts Peter preached to a great multitude of people yet that multitude were not members of a true visible Church neither before he preached to them nor after but only so many of them as declared and manifested faith which were to the Number of three Thowsand and they were added or joyned to the Church and the Apostle commands them to save or seperate themselves from the rest of the multitude which he preached unto seing they did not peleeve nor were never the better for his preaching saying Save your selves from thes untoward Generatron Vers 40.41 For the Lord would not have them to joyne Riffe Raffe and all sorts of people to the Church to whom the Word was preached but only those that declared the worke of Grace to be wrought in their hearts therefore the Spirit of God saith The Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved Now though I grant the Kingdome of England is within the Voyce and call of God calling the people thereof to Repentance that so they may be saved yet I grant no more then what all the Nations under Heaven are therefore you cannot conclude from this Ground that the Church of England is a true Church of Christ seing the Whol Nation good or bad wicked or righteous godly or ungodly have all one and the same Priviledge by virtue of their being professed Membees of your Ch. therefore from that which hath been said I frame this Argument That the true visible Church of Christ under the Gospell doeth not consist of all sorts and kinds of people to whom the word of God is preached but only to such persons who by their outward Conversation may be judged to be true Beleevers Esay 4.3.35.8.9.10.51.11 Rom. 1.7 1. Cor. 1.7 Rev. 22.14 But the Church of England is not made up nor doeth not consist of true Beleevers that is to say Saints by calling and practice but of all sorts and kinds of wicked persons as Witches Sorcerers Whoremungers Drunkards Idolaters Swearers Blasphemers all sorts of Prophane Lewd Wicked livers Ergo It is no true Church of Christ but a false and Antichristian Church of Antichrists 2. Cor. 6.9.10 Rev. 9.20.21 and 13.8.16.17 and 21.27 and 22.15 Both the Proposition and Assumption I have already strongly proved

by the Authority of the Scripture and deny either of them and prove against them if you be able Againe your second Argument to prove the Church of England a true Church is this That Ministry which doeth accomplish the same and which the Ministry of the Apostles did must needs be a true Ministry But the Ministry of the Church of England doeth accomplish the same ends that the Apostles Ministry did namely conversion and confirmation Therefore the Ministry of the Church of England must needes be true But to prove your Argument you bring not one Place of Scripture but take that for granted which I confidently thinke neither you nor none in the Ch. of Engl. are ever able to prove therefore I absolutely in every respect deny your Arg. two manner of waies prove against it 1. I will prove that if the Ministry in the Ch. of Engl. did accomplish the same ends that the Ministry of the Apostles did yet for all that that is not sufficient to prove it a true Ministry for to judge the cause by the effect is a Leaden and false Rule 2. I will prove that the Ministry in Engl. doth not accomplish the same ends that the Ministry of the Apostls did therfore by your own Arg. is no true Ministry Now for the first of these which answers the Major of your Arg. I say it hath beene and still may be possible for a man to accomplish the same ends that you here speake of namely to be an Instrument to bring Gods people to the manifestation of Faith also to build them up yet be no true Officer or Minister in the Ch. of God I prove it out of the Acts of the Apostles in which we read that when the Ch. began to encrease Saul raised a great persecution against it upon which all the brethren viz. the members of the Ch. were scattered abroad they went up down preaching the word Act 8.3 but the Apostles themselves they stayed still at Jerusalem Vers 1. Now all those that were scatterd abroad were not true Officiall Ministers for they were but Lay-men according to your distinction in the Church of England yet divers of them who were no true Officers but Bretheren Disciples or private men as you call them yet they preached the Word to the Gentiles there begot by their preaching maany of them to the Faith for the Text saith The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number of them beleeved and then came Barnabas from Jeausalem who was yet no true Officer in the Church of God being as yet uncalled to his Apostleship and he confirmed and strengthened and more fully built them up in the Faith of Christ and in the Knowledge of the wayes of God Also Aquilah and his wife Priscilla did further instruct and build up that Eloquent man Apollos Act. 18.26 Also there were certaine women that laboured with Paull in the Gospell Phil. 4.3 So that here you see and I have proved it that people may be called to the manifesttaion of Eaith and further built up by those that are no true Officers or Ministers in the Church of Chirst but if your Argument were true then it would follow that all those men yea and the women too were true Officers and Ministers in the Church of Christ because they were Instruments of bringing Gods people to the manifestation of Faith and further built them up but your Argument is rotten and unsound and falls here flat to the ground and therefore if I should grant it which I doe not that your Ministers by their Ministry did accomplish the same ends that the Apostles by their Ministry did yet this would not be sufficient to prove them true Officers or Ministers for the excecution of an Office doeth not prove an Officer but only a true and lawfull call into the Office which all your Priests and Minnisters in England want and therefore are no true Officers nor no true Ministers of Jesus Christ For you know that a King hath many in his Kingdome besides himselfe that doe those actions administer those administrations that is peculiar to him alone to doe and administer unlesse they were Authorized by virtue of a power given and derived from him to do such actions without a lawfull Authority given and received from him they might loose their lives for the doing of them but now if your Argument were true that all those men that are meanes or Instrumensts to bring Gods People to the manifestation of Faith and obedience to the Law and will of Christ were true Officers and Ministers of Christ it would follow by the same Argument that all those men that doe the actions of a King or accomplish the same ends that Kings by their actions doe accomplish are true Kings but so to conclude in England is little better then High Treason Therefore your Argument is erroneous and false and hath not validity in it for if so be you will have their Administrations to prove the lawfulnesse of their Office then I pray you wherein doth the execution of their Office consist for an Office and the execution of it are two distinct things for a man by virtue of being instated into the Office of a Judge though he never live to execute any of those acttions or Administrations that belong to his place or Office but he must first receive power to sit in Court of Judicature before he dare take upon to fit there as Judge and when he hath receiced power from the King by virtue of which he is instated into his Office and doth become an Officer then doth he lawfully sit in Court of Judicature and condemneth fellons and guilty persons and acquit the innocent and doth there passe sentence according to the Lawes for the King under whom he is a Judge But now if this Judge should usurpe his place and come into it by virtue of a false Authority and then condemne the Kings Subjects to death though they be theives and malefactors yet he would be in danger of loosing his life for all that though he doe the act and actions that belong to a true Judge to doe because he had no lawfull Authority from the King so to doe for it is the Kings Authority placed upon a man that doth make that person to be an other kind of person then before he was for before he had received this power he was but a private man but now he is an other kind of man namely a a publike person in Office and Authority and may lawfully do those actions now which if he should have done before would have cost him his life Even so is it with the Ministers and Officers which Jesus Christ hath instituted in his New Testament and left personally to officiate in his Church they must be members of an incorporated or constituted City body or visible Church and then if the Church find any amongst themselves fitted or qualified according

instituted for it spirituall matter the particulars of which are to be Beleevers as I have already largely proved from them only and alone he will accept Service and homage Esay 43.21 51.7 for they alone no others have true right to take his name in their mouth to declare his Statutes to meddle with his Law Testimony Psal 50.16 Prov. 15 8.9 21.27 Esay 8.16 Mar. 4.34 also instituted for his Church a spirituall Worship spirituall Lawes spirituall Government spirituall Ordinances spirituall Administrations which none upon pain of Rebellion against Jesus Christ the sonne of God Wisedome of his father are to adde to or detract from Againe in the second place it is true that many of those Churches which Christ in his new Testament instituted as the Church of Corinth for one in processe of time became corrupt and had grosse Offenders in her yet though at the first Constitution of the Church of Corinth Rome and others did consist of Saints by calling and sanctified in Christ Jesus Rom. 1.7 Cor. 1.1.2 Gal. 1.22 that is to say such as by their outward conversation did declare that they were united by faith to Jesus Christ and what though afterward they had corruptions in them yet that makes nothing at all for you for first I put you to prove that ever your Ch. was true which if you cannot doe to plead that corruptions may be in a true Church will doe you no good nor serve nothing to your purpose nor be no way advantagious to your Ch. which alway even from the first day hath been false antichristian and what though Corinth had offenders in her did God winke at them or did Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles connive at their wickednes no for he commaunded them to cast out the incestious person or give him over to Satan Epist 1. chp. 5. as he himselfe did Hymeneus Alexander that so they may learne not to blaspheame 1 Tim. 1.20 which casting out into the world under the Gospell is as great a spirituall punishment as killing of the body was to the Jewes corporall Also he commaunds them that if any of their members were a fornicatur or coveteous or an Idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner that they should avoyde him and not keep companie with him no not so much as to eate with him ver 11. But now if this rule should be narrowly observed in your church as it ought to be in all true visible churches of Jesus Christ I wonder with whom a man should have any spirituall society or communion sure I am not with one amongst ten thousand in your Ch. no nor with one at all it being in every respect so grosly papisticall antichristian idolatrous Againe as for that place which in the 2 Cor. 12. last end you cite where he saith that he was afraid that he should be troubled among them not finding them such as he would and that he should be humbled among them in bewayling mamy which have sinned already and have not repented of their uncleanenes fornication and lasciviousnes which they had committed but if you read the next chap. you shall see how he threatneth them and tels them that at his comeing againe 〈◊〉 th●n though before he had vsed gentilenes and mildnes yet now he will not spare them but exercize warrantable sharpne●s and rigour towards them accoding to that power which the Lord had given unto him to edificati●n and not to destruction seing as he saith he can doe nothing against the truth but for the truth so that you se though there were corruptions amongst them and grosse sinners yet there is no conniving at it nor no tollerating of it but sharp and bitter reproving of it And as for the rest of those other Scriptures which you cite I answer to them as before and grant that there was grosse corruptions in many of the Churches recorded in the New Testament yet I say and affirme it was their sin to suffer for which God admonished and threatned them as you may read in the 2. 3 Chap. of the Rev. which became they continued constant in their sin and would not reforme and amend themselves as they ought and had power to have done God hath taken away his Candlesticke o● heavenly state from them Whose examples serve for all other Churches warning for God hath cast them all off and unchurched them taking the fo feture of their heavenly Charter as is to be seen at this day Yea also the Chur. in and at Rome it selfe though once the Faith thereof was spoken of to the praise of the Saints therein throughout the whole World Rom. 4.8 Yet they also are cast off and are now no Church of Christ but is become long and many years since the seat of Antichrist the man of sinne that sonne of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himselfe above all that is called God 2 Thess 2.3.4 that is to say above all Civill Magistrates yea Emperours kings and Princes which the Spirit of God in the Booke of the Psalmes calleth Gods And is become the Habitation of Divells and the hold of every fowll spirit and a Cage for every uncleane and hatefull Bird to rest in with whom all Nations have been made drunke and still are with the wine of the wrath of her spirituall Fornication with whom the Merchants of the Earth are growen rich through the ahoundance of her delicacy●s Rev. 18.2.3 that is to say her Officers which the Spirit of God calleth here Merchants by virtue of their Offices have got fat and rich benefices which they call Spirituall Promotions by which they are mightily swelled up with Pride Venerie and Luxury but their day is shortly a comming wherein they shall cry with weeping and wailing for the finall destruction of the great spirituall City of Babilon saying Alas Alas for in one hower she is made desolate naked Ver 15.16.17.18 For she doth been drunke with the Blood of the Saints and of the Martyrs of Jesus Christ which she hath spilt in great aboundance like water upon the ground but the day is almost come wherein the Justice of God will render her a full recompence with Vengence and Fury Wherefore to you all Gods people that yet is in her Come out of her depart from her for if you stay in her you will partake of her sinnes in dsobeying Gods commands and so will be lyable and open to his Plagues wrath and Fury for her sinnes have reached unto the Heavens God hath remembred her Iniquities Therefore let us call together the Archers valiant Spear-men of the Lord and according to our duty Let us set our selves in Array against her campe rownd about her shoot at her without mercy and let none that belong unto her escape your spirituall Darts but let us reward her even as she hath rewarded us double unto her double according to her workes in the