Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	able_a	compel_v	great_a	17	3	2.0729	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02522	A common apologie of the Church of England against the vniust challenges of the ouer-iust sect, commonly called Brownists. Wherein the grounds and defences, of the separation are largely discussed: occasioned, by a late pamphlet published vnder the name, of an answer to a censorious epistle, which the reader shall finde in the margent. By I.H.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.; Robinson, John, 1575?-1625. Answer to a censorious epistle.	1610 (1610)	STC 12649; ESTC S103653	113,921	160

be iudge So doe we value your detestation as you his It were well for you if you eschued these enormities lesse and hell more Your sinfull subiection to these vnchristian humours will proue more fearefull then to our Antichristian enormities SECTION XXII The Church of England is the Spouse of Christ. SHE may be your Mother you say and not the Lords Wife It is a good Mother that hath Children and no husband Why did you not call her plaine whore Your old Embleme is As is the Mother so is the Daughter These are the modest circumlocutions of a good sonne who cares not to proue himselfe a bastard that his mother may bee mark't for an Harlot Be you a true Lo-ammi but England shall neuer I hope proue an Apostate Israel We haue no Calues in our Dan and Bethel none of Iero●oams Idolatry VVee haue still called God Ishi and neuer burnt incense to Baalim It is your sinagogue that hath fallen away from vs as Israel from Iuda But these children were bidden to plead Gods command shields them from the note of vngracious Abraham must sacrifice his sonne and this sonne must condemne his Mother shew vs either our equall desert or your equall warrant VVhere hath God proclamed our Church not his By whose hand hath he published her diuorce You haue shamed her wombe not she her bed not God her demeanure Your tongues are your owne who can forbid you VVe know you will plead and excuse and censure and defend till all the world be weary we may pray with Hierome to this sense that of the Psalmist Increpa Domine bestias calami yet wee see your pens tongues and presses busie and violent I will not apply to you that which Augustine of his Donatists Though truth compell you to be dumbe yet iniquitie will not suffer you to be silent But if you write whole Marts and worlds of volumes you shall neuer be able either to iustifie your innocence or excuse your fault In the meane time the noyse of your contentions is so great that your truth cannot bee heard Learned Iunius and our learnedst Diuines and neighbour Churches haue oft heard your clamors neuer your truth So little haue you of this and so much of the other that we are ready to wish as he of old either our selues deafe or you dumb SECTION XXIII How the Church of England hath separated from Babylon THe spirit of your Proto-Martyr would hardly haue digested this Title of Babylon Mother of Gods people a murdering Step-mother rather She cannot be a Mother of Chil●ren to God and no Church of God Notwithstanding Gods people would he say may be in her not of her So Babylon bore them not but Sion in Babylon But I feare not your excesse of charity You fly to your Doctors challenge and aske what we say against you for vs which Rome wil not say for her selfe against vs Will you iustifie this plea of Rome or not If you will why doe you reuile her If you will not why doe you obiect it Heare then what we say both to you and them our enemies both and yet the enemies of our enemies First we disclaime and defie your Pedigree and theirs The Church of Rome was neuer our Mothers Mother Our Christian faith came not from the seuen-hilles Neither was deriued either from Augustine the Monke or Pope Gregory Britanny had a worthy Church before either of them look't into the world It is true that the ancient Roman Church was Sister to ours here was neare kindred no dependance And not more consanguinitie then while she continued faithfull Christian loue Now she is gone a whoring her chast Sister iustly spitteth at her yet euen still if you distinguish as your learned Antagonist hath taught you betwixt the Church and Papacy Shee acknowledges her Sisterhood though she refraines her cōuersation as she hath many slauish and factious abettors of her knowne and grosse errors to whom we deny this title affirming them the body whereof Antichrist is the head the great whore and mother of abhominations so againe how many thousands hath shee which retayning the foundation according to their knowledge as our learned Whitakers had wont to say of Bernard follow Absolom with a simple heart all which to reiect from Gods Church were no better thē presumptuous cruelty It were well for you before God the world if you could as easiely wash your hands of vn-naturall impiety and trecherousnesse as we of bastardy vniust sequestration There can be no bastardy where was neuer any motherhood wee were nephews to that Church neuer sons vnlesse as Rome was the Mother citie of the world so by humane institution we suffered our selues to bee ranged vnder her Patriarchall authority as being the most famous Church of the West a matter of courtesie and pretended Order no necessity no spirituall obligation As for our sequestration your mouth and theirs may be stopt with this answer As all corrupted Churches so some things the Church of Rome still holds aright a true God in three persons true Scriptures though with addition a true Christ though mangled with foule and erroneous consequences true Baptisme though shamefully deformed with rotten traditions many other vndenyable truths of God some other things and too many her wicked Apostasie hath deuised and maintained abhominably amisse the body of her Antichristianisme grosse errours and by iust sequel heresies their Popes supremacy infallibility illimitation transubstantiation idolatrous and superstitious worshippe and a thousand other of this branne In regard of all these latter we professe to the world a iust and auncient separation from this false faith and deuotion of the Romish Church which neither you will say nor they shall euer proue faulty yea rather they haue in all these separated from vs who stil irrefragably professe to hold with the auncient from whom they are departed In regard of the other we are stil with them holding and embracing with them what they holde with Christ neither will you I thinke euer prooue that in these we should differ As for our communion they haue separated vs by their proude and foolish excommunications if they had not wee would iustly haue begunne from their Tyranny and Antichristianisme from their miserable Idolatrie but as for the bodie of their poore seduced Christians which remaine amongst them vpon the true foundation as doubtlesse there are thousands of them which laugh at their Pardons Miracles Superstitions and their trust in merites reposing only vpon Christ we adhere to them in loue and pitty and haue testified our affection by our blood ready vpon any iust call to doe it more neither would feare to ioyne with them in any true seruice of our common God But the full discourse of this point that honourable and learned plesses hath so forstalled that whatsoeuer 〈◊〉 say would seeme but borrowed Vnto his rich Treatise I referre my Reader for full satisfaction

negatiues outward force takes away both sinne and blame and alters them from the patient to the actor so that now you see your straight bonds if they were such loosed by obedience and ouer-ruling power SECTION XIX The bonds of Gods word vniustly pleaded by the Separ BVT what bonds were these straight ones Gods word and your owne necessity Both strong and indissoluble where God hath bidden God forbid that we should care for the forbiddance of men I reuerence from my soule so doth our Church their deare Sister those worthy forraine Churches which haue chosen and followed those formes of outward gouernment that are euery way fittest for their owne condition It is enough for your Sect to censure them I touch nothing common to them with you While the world standeth where will it euer be shewed out of the sacred booke of God that hee hath charged Let there be perpetuall Lay-Elders in euery Congregation Let euery Assembly haue a Pastor and Doctor distinct in their charge and offices Let all decisions excommunications ordinations be performed by the whole multitude Let priuate Christians aboue the first turne in extremity agree to set ouer themselues a Pastor chosen from amongst them and receiue him with prayer and vnlesse that ceremony be turned to pompe and superstition by imposition of hands Let there be Widdowers which you call relieuers appointed euery where to the Church-seruice Let certaine discreete and able men which are not Ministers be appointed to preach the Gospell and whole truth of God to the people All the learned Diuines of other Churches are in these left yea in the most of them censured by you Hath God spoken these things to you alone Pleade not Reuelations and wee feare you not Pardon so homely an example As soone and by the same illumination shal G. Iohns proue to your Consistory the lace of the Pastors wiues sleeue or rings or Whale-bones or other amongst you as your Pastor confesseth knit stockings or Cork-shooes forbidden flatly by Scriptures as these commanded We see the letter of the Scriptures with you you shall fetch blood of them with strayning ere you shal wring out this sēse No no M. R. neuer make God your stale Many of your ordinances came from no ●ier then your own braine Others of them though God acknowledges yet he imposed not Pretend what you will These are but the cords of your owne conceit not bonds of Christian obedience SECTION XX. The necessity of their pretended Ordinances THE first of these then is easily vntwisted your second is necessity Then which what can bee stronger what law or what remedy is against necessity What we must haue we cannot want Oppose but the publique necessitie to yours your necessity of hauing to the publique necessity of withholding and let one of these necessities like two nailes driue out another So they haue done and your owne necessity as the stronger hath preuailed for that other necessity might bee eluded by flight you haue sought and found else-where what the necessity of our lawes denied and the necessity of your conscience required Beware lest vniustly Sinne is as strong bond to a good heart as impossibility Christians can not doe what they ought not Contrary to the lawes of your Prince and Countrie you haue fledde not onely from vs but from our Communion Either is disobedience no sinne or might you do this euil that good may come of it But what necessity is this simple and absolute or conditional Is there no remedy but you must needes haue such Elders Pastors Doctors Relieuers such Offices such executions Can there be no Church no Christians without them What shall we say of the families of the Patriarkes of the Iewish Congregations vnder the law yea of Christ and his Apostles Either denie them to haue beene visible Churches or shew vs your distinct Offices amongst them But as yet you say they were not Therefore God hath had a true Church thousands of yeares without them Therefore they are not of the essence of the Church You call me to the times since Christ I demand then was there not a worthy Church of God in Hierusalem from the time of Christs Ascension till the election of the seauen Deacons Those hundred and twentie Disciples Act. 1. 15. and three thousand Conuerts Act. 2. 41. Those continuall Troupes that flocked to the Apostles were they no true Church Let the Apostles and Euangelists bee Pastors and Doctors where were their Elders Deacons Relieuers Afterwards when Deacons were ordained yet what news is there of Elders till Act. 11 yet that of Hierusalem was more forward then the rest We will not as you are wont argue from scriptures negatiuely no proofe yet much probability is in Saint Paules silence Hee writes to Rome Corinth and other Churches those his Diuine letters in a sweet Christian ciuility salute euen Ordinary Christians And would hee haue vtterly passed by all mention of these Church-Officers amongst his so precise acknowledgment of lesser titles in others if they had beene ere this ordained yet all these more then true Churches famous some of them rich forward and exemplary Onely the Philippian Church is stiled with Bishops and Deacons but no Elders besides them The Churches of Christ since these if at least you will graunt that Christ had any Church till now haue continued in a recorded succession through many hundreds of yeares Search the Monuments of her Histories Shew vs where euer in particular Congregations all these your necessary Offices as you describe them were either found or required It was therefore a new-no-Necessity that bound you to this course or if you had rather a Necessity of Fallibility If with these God may be well serued he may be well serued without them This is not that Vnum necessarium that Christ commends in Mary you might haue sate still with lesse trouble and more thanks SECTION XXI The enormities of the Church in common BVt besides that we ought to haue had somewhat which we want we haue some what which wee should haue wanted Some yea many Antichristian enormities To say we are absolute and neither want nor abound were the voice of Laodicea or Tyrus in the Prophet Our Church as shee is true so humble and is as farre from arrogating perfection as acknowledging falshood If she haue enormities yet not so many or if many not Antichristian Your Cham hath espied ninety one nakednesses in this his Mother and glories to shewe them All his malice cannot shew one Fundamentall errour and when the foule mouth of your false Martyr hath said all they are but some spottes and blemishes not the old running issues and incurable botches of Egypt The particulars shall plead for themselues These you eschue as hell While you goe on thus vncharitably both alike Doe you hate these more then Master Smith and his faction hates yours His Character shall