Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	aaron_n	bell_n	golden_a	37	3	8.2371	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85854	Hieraspistes a defence by way of apology for the ministry and ministers of the Church of England : humbly presented to the consciences of all those that excell in virtue. / By John Gauden, D. D. and minister of that Church at Bocking in Essex.	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.	1653 (1653)	Wing G357; Thomason E214_1; ESTC R7254	690,773	630

strength of any part in its place and proportion doth not make it usurp the place or execute the Office of any other nobler part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist The measure of every part is the beauty and safety of the whole which cannot in naturall and ought not in Religious Bodies which are Churches be fitly disposed but only in such a way as God hath appointed for the daily forming building and well-ordering of his Church by such wisdom and Authority as Christ established in it Of which the Apostles and the Churches after them give us most evident testimony But to avoid destructive delusions But we must not be deluded either with the devils fulgurations and flashes or his transfigurations and disguises We must not forsake or stop up Gods fountains of living waters by digging the devils ditches Luke 10.18 I saw Satan fall like l●ghtning from Heaven 2 Cor. 11.14 Satan himself is transformed into an Angel o● l ght I a. 1.13 Eccl. 5.1 and wells which hold no water nay we may not wash our hands at the Devils Cistern to fit them for Gods service Nor may we take water from his troubled muddy and poysonous streams to water the plants of Christs Church We may not take strange fire from Satans Altar to kindle the sacrifices of God What need we cut off Dogs necks and offer swins bloud when we have so many clean beasts which are appointed for acceptable services that we shall not need any such vain oblations which are but the sacrifices of fools who consider not that they do evill nor look to their feet when they go to the house of God being as ready to stumble and fall and discover their nakedness and shame as they are forward to ascend to the altar of the Lord upon the steps of pride and presumption Exod. 20.26 which were forbidden to be made The humble heart being alwaies most welcom to God while others in vain arrogate to themselves power to perform those things which are not required at their hands Lev. 10.3 God hath said he will be sanctified of all these who come nigh to him in his publike service which is done not only by that inward sanctification of the heart by faith fear and reverence toward God but also by that exact observation of such rules of order power and Authority which he hath set who alone could do it in the publike way of his worship and service before the Sons of men We must not be such Children in understanding as to allow all to be gold which glisters when it will not endure the Touch-stone of Gods word Cai●itae Judae ●r●di●or● Evangelium o●●entabant Ophitae angelum in omni imunditie assistentem dicebant invocabant Hanc esse perfectionē aiebant sine tremore in tales abire operationes quas ne nominare fas est Iren. l. 1. c. 35. Nulla enoris secta jam contra Christi veritatē nisi nomine cooperta Christia●● ad pugnandum p●●silire audet Aust Ep. 56. or the probation of the Churches judgment We may not easily think that Gods Spirit in any private men runs counter to that holy order and clear Institution which the undoubted Spirit of God hath clearly set forth in the Scriptures and which the Church in all ages hath observed in the way of an ordeined authoritative Ministry All other or later inventions may well be suspected to be but Satans stratagems and devices There may be so many vermine crawling in a dead body as may make it seem to live and move when yet there is no true Spirit of life or Soul in it So it is no wonder if the various impulses wherewith mens secret and corrupt lusts stir them make some shew as if diviner gifts and endowments agitated them When indeed they have no other ayms or interests than such as Judas Iscariot or Symon Magus might have or those after Hereticks the Gnosticks Maniches and Montanists c. Who almost that had any shew of gifts or parts ever did mischief in the Church without great prefacings of holy and good intentions and pretensious of gifts and the Spirit of God There may be gifted Hypocrites devout devils angelized Satans Be mens gifts never so commendable if they want humility in themselves Miserrimis instabilibus fabulis tantam elationem assumpseruat ut meliores scipsos reliquis prasumpserunt Irenae l. 1. c. 35. de Caynitis Ophitis Judaeitis and charity to others which are the beauties of all endowments if they are puffed up seek themselves walk disorderly run unexamined unappointed unordained in scandalous and undue wayes they are nothing either as to private comfort in themselves or publick benefit to the Church The presumption and disorder of their example doth more hurt as the influence of some malignant stars in a Constellation than the light of their gifts can do they corrupt more than they either direct or correct If any of these Prophets or gifted men be indeed so able for the work of the Ministry that religion may suffer no detriment by them and people may have just cause to esteem them highly for their work sake God forbid they should not have the right hand of fellowship all incouragement from my self and all that desire to walk as becomes the Gospell when they are found upon just tryall fit to be solemnly ordeined set apart and sent forth with due authority to that holy service in Gods name let them be sent forth with good speed If they disdain this method of Ministeriall office and power which hath been setled by Christ and continued to this day in his Church which no wise humble and truly able Christian can with reason modesty or with conscience justly do but they will needs obtrude themselves upon the Church and crowd in against the true Ministers they may indeed be as sounding Brass and tinckling Cimballs fit rattles for Children or for the labouring Moon or for a Country Morice-dance and May-pole Nec veritate seneri nec charitate frugi●eri Greg. but they will never be as Aarons Pomegranates and golden Bells usefull Ornaments to Gods Sanctuary in words or works or any way becomming the Church of Jesus Christ which is as the woman clothed with the Sun the light of Truth and the lustre of holy Order And hath the Moon under her feet Rev. 12. not only all wordly vanities and unjust interests but also all humane inventions and novelties which have their continuall variations wainings disorders darknesses and deformities whereas Divine Institutions are alwayes glorious by the clear beams of Scripture-precept and the constant course of the Churches example Both which have held their Truth and Authority in the blackest nights of persecution wherein no untried and unordeined intruder was ever owned for a true Minister of holy things in any setled and incorrupted Church of Christ No more than any man shall be accounted an Officer or Souldier in an Army who hath not

Magus Your money perish with you No I rather wish your Salvation if possible though it be without the restitution of what you have already and intend further to rob Christ of and his Church and his Ministers and his poor too for they had a good share in the Churches revenues Only I wish withall that all the learned and godly Ministers of the Gospell in England were in such a condition as to worldly competency that they could preach the Gospell freely that so these repiners might hear them gratis as most of them doe when they vouchsafe to hear them and so without prejudice or grudging at the maintenance of Ministers in point of Tithes That so if it be possible they may repent and be converted from that gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity in which they are It were happy if as St. Austin offered to doe all Ministers could release Ne invidia Clericis obveniat de p ss●ssionibus Ecclesiae obtulit pl●bi Augustinus malle se ex cellationibus vivere ut antiqui Sed Laici ill●d accipere noluerunt Possid vita Aug. c. 23. that equitable and Evangelicall power which they have by Scripture and that legall right which the law of the land hath given them to demand and receive Tithes and other emoluments That their necessities might not force them having neglected all other wayes of getting or improving estates that they might fit themselves by their studies for this great work of the Ministry either to take Tithes or which of all things is most detestable to men of any ingenuous spirits and learning to depend upon vulgar contributions which are so stuffed with pride in the givers and contempt toward the receivers so full of uncertainty and so certain high wayes to basenesse and beggery as the genius of most men now is that there are few Mechaniques who would not disdain to be such Ministers as must when they have done their work beg for their wages and shall be sure to want them unlesse they always abound in sordid complyances and flatteries with the vilest men and their vilest humours For however people have now and then a warm fit of giving to their Teachers yet it seldome lasts longer than the heat of some factious design or new fancy melts and thaws them After that they soon returne to that frozennesse which is hardly dissolved by any mans warmest breathings to some few drops of incompetent yet insolent and supercilious contributions But I am afraid our distemper is deeper and more subtilly dangerous to our reformed Religion than we are aware of in this point of Ministers maintenance The burthen is not That Tithes are paid for that these projectors doe not intend to quit so either to Landlords or poor Tenants but that they are paid to the true and ordained Ministers that thereby they are still continued and incouraged in their Ministry The grief is that as they receive them so every where they deserve them The vexation of that is that Ministers are not yet driven out of their hives as Bees after all their labours by the smoak of some such sulphurous projects that so these hungry Reformers and new stamped Preachers with their Jesuitick arts and insinuations may possesse their honey The displeasure of some men is that any Ministers worthy of that name and calling or that any thing of good learning of studious abilities of reall gifts and due authority of the true reformed Religion and piety should still remain in this Church of England which might hinder its return to the Romish subjection of which those wiser agents despair not when there shall be no better Ministers than such as either the vulgar charity maintaines or the vulgar choice ordaines As for Ministers superfluities and excesses 9. Answer to the cavill of Ministers excesses which some men rather talk of with envy than prove with truth God knowes few fishermen take fish now with money in their mouths there are not many golden cups found in any of their sacks mouths such as may tempt them to any splendor or prodigality Alas the most of them have scarce for bonest necessities Look to their poor widows and fatherlesse children commonly their greatest portion is Gods mercy and mans charity And to the shame of this Nation so blest of God and Nature with abundance many of them are by the tenuity of their Benefices kept far enough from exercising that hospitable largenesse which many of them have in the Theory and speculation but cannot practise it which is so commended by the Apostle Paul 1 Tim. 3.2 Tit. 1.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iam. 1.5.17 and required in a Bishops and Ministers way of living among men as having not more a face of humanity with it than of Divinity it being the glory of God to be of a bountifull munificence and liberall goodnesse as carrying a sweet savour with it making the Ministry of the Gospell as a fragrant ointment poured out much recommending the Gospell to men when they can hear Christs Word and tast of his loaves too Besides it gives a great advantage and usefull authority to Ministers in the places where they live renders their counsels more considerable their examples more venerable their doctrine more acceptable and more credible for nothing more justifies what we preach of Gods bounty and great gifts in Christ to poor men than when they see religious men and chiefly Ministers most liberall of this worlds goods as believing they have treasures laid up in heaven which * Manus pauperis gaz●phylacium Christi Chrysol Tranfinittas incoelum th●sauros bajulato●e pau● pere Id. the poor hand mans which is Gods box carries thither And indeed considering the great numbers of poore in many or most places of England now abounding and the retrenching of most mens estates both in trade and house keeping it were no more than needed if Ministers who are constantly resident among the poore were able also to be some way relievers of them beyond bare and barren words of godlinesse which signifie little to those whose bellies have no eares when they are pinched with urgent and extream necessities Plus nostrareligio vicatim insumit quam v●stra templatim Ter. de Christianis Apol Nothing should be lesse illiberall than true Christian Religion which sets forth the highest bounty of God to mankinde in giving Jesus Christ Nor ever was any thing lesse sordid than Christians in former times the many monuments here in England of their religious prodigalities and devout excesses to the Church and to pious uses doe sufficiently testifie how far those Christians were from the niggardize and Nabalism of some men in these times Quantiscunque sumptibus c●nst●t lacrum est pietatis nomine sumptus facere Tertul. Apol. 38. Then they thought nothing too much for Church men now nothing is too little And truly it is a very foul shame that superstition which is but the * Quale affectatio in civilibus tale