Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	according_a	believe_v	scripture_n	1,612	5	5.8214	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56305	The church of Christ in Bristol recovering her vail out of the hands of them that have smitten and wounded her, and taken it away. Being, a just and necessary vindication, from a false and scandalous imputation cast upon her by Dennis Hollister, formerly a member of her, but now an apostate from, and an opposer of those waies, truths, and people, which once he seemed zealous for. As appears by a late pamphlet put forth by him, called, The skirts of the whore discovered. With some particular words, from some particular persons whom he hath by name abused and reproached. Likewise a word by Thomas Ewen, unto what concerns him in the said pamphlet, and also to the later part of another book, called, Satan enthroned in his chair of pestilence.	Purnell, Robert, d. 1666. aut	1657 (1657)	Wing P4232; ESTC R213966	65,602	90

nor false accusers but we must turn that back again upon your self professing to all the World that you have wronged us in what you have written against us As for the other part of your Letter wherein you sometimes flatter your self and commend your self about your righteousness faithfulness diligence and deserving as likewise how freely you had served us and been a keeper of our Vineyard and that now it is time to look to your own Vineyard and to mind your eternal habitation c. We answer first as Prov. 27. 2. Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth a stranger and not thine own lips But we never did blame you nor admonish you for any good you did among us but for your departing from that which was good Jehu was not blamed for the good he did but because he took no heed to walk in the Law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart neither was Amaziah blamed for any good he did but because he did it not with a perfect or upright heart and as for your gift of discerning c. most of us know it was a thing you did much pretend to and boast of c. though we could observe your gross mistake therein c. And for your now looking to your own Vineyard and minding your eternal habitation c. truly we hoped you had done that when you were among us and that your care and diligence which now you speak of had been as well about your own soul as others but if it were not we wish you may make better use of your present time than you have done of that which is past As for any manifestations of truth breaking forth in you as you say page 20. at which some of our hearts burned and others were offended c. We know not any one Truth that ever you spake in the Church but it was readily assented to and seconded by those that sate by whether you did press to believing or holy walking but for other things which were not according to Scripture nor did not tend to faith or holiness c. some of us did sometimes manifest our dissent from you yet with all tenderness as knowing your spirit and the spirits of some others now with you we were not willing to offend you or them And as for that which you so often asserted in the Church and now mention page 20 21. That you did not know Christ and that that knowledge we had of him should profit us nothing and that our habitation is in deceit and through it we refuse to know the Lord c. First we did not violently oppose you in that thing as thinking that it arose from a sight and sense of the want of the Spirit of Christ to open and reveal the glory of his person virtues Offices and Mysteries more clearly unto you according to what is written Ephes 1. 17 18. Col. 2. 2. John 16. 14 15. and herein we could and did joyn with you in complaining of the littleness or smalness of our knowledg of Christ yet some of us did often tell you that our comfort stood not so much in a speculative knowing as in a believing acknowledgment of Christ to be that which he is said to be in the Scriptures and so to own him believe on him love him and obey him and therefore we did then and have since and do now declare that we owned no other Christ but that one annointed glorious person who was born of the Virgin and who is made both Lord and Christ who died rose and ascended and is now sitting at the right hand of God and is the Mediator between God and man who shall one day come again according to the Scriptures Secondly we do own no other knowing of Christ but that which is according to the Scripture namely understandingly to know him in his person without us and experimentally to know him in his Virtues or by his Spirit within us and so through grace we do know him in our measure and are waiting and praying daily for a further and clearer knowledge of him in his Virtues and powers by the revelation of his glorious Spirit according to the Scripture in the mean time we desire to acknowledge him believe on him love and reverence him as our Lord and King and do submit to his Laws and Commands lest in his Word but we did little think that your meaning had been as now you declare both in your Book and by your practice that you and we should take up that kind of notion of Christ as to call that light that is in every man both Heathens and others Christ and so to slight and nullifie that glorious person now in heaven from being the object of Faith c. as many of your way do and have done to some of our faces scoffing and jeering at us for speaking of the person of Christ and for thinking to be saved by the blood of him that died at Jerusalem and as you your self did jeeringly ask one of this Congregation to this effect whether we did believe Christ to be an old man sitting in a chair in heaven c. You further tell us page 21. That many who desired to see Christs first Appearance in the flesh became his betrayers and murderers so now in his second Appearances in life power and spirit would be found the greatest enemies to him and that some of us would betray him and then appeal to all that have any discerning to judge how sadly this is already fulfilled in us c. We grant that many did stumble at Christ when he came in the flesh and that many in all ages have stumbled at the truth and waies of Christ as likewise many do now at his person his Gospel his waies and his Ordinances c. which might put you to consider two things First whether you be not one that do so and secondly whether you be not one that have caused many to do so c. But you seem to beg the question and take it for granted that Christ is now come in life power and spirit in you and your party but truly you must give better demonstrations of it before we or any other judicious Christians will believe you for we have read much and know something by experience through grace what the sweet gentle dove-like spirit of Christ is we have seen and known by sad experience how unlike your spirit is to that Secondly how can you call this a murdering and betraying of Christ namely our sending brethren three times in love and pitie to enquire after and admonish you and the rest that departed from us we shall leave this to the Lord to determine c. As for those strange and unchristian expressions page 21. of our sporting our selves and making a wide mouth and drawing out the tongue and the hand against you c. and then calling us children of transgression a seed of falshood

we have seen in you and in some of those that are gone away with you and we are perswaded there is no judicious Christian this day in Bristol that hath known and observed you and us but will say the same thing so that there being so many such persons with your self gone from us we hope there is some Reformation in the Church but if there should still remain any such among us as we hope there doth not surely we shall be ready to deal with them as we have done with you and others onely we must know they are such for we must not take the railing accusations of our imbittered enemies for a sufficient proof Thirdly you say notwithstanding there is that in some of us after which your soul doth greatly long that the salvation of God were come out of Sion c. We do believe there is many a soul in this Congregation that doth long and groan day and night after more of the blessed Spirit of Jesus Christ that so they might know him better believe on him more love him more and live more to him and yet we trust there is never a soul in this Congregation but seeth sufficient ground to stand at a distance from your Principles and waies so that you may cease hoping for any of them to come unto you the Lord preserving them by his grace We come now to the five things in your Admonishing a Copy of which we having by us do here insert verbatiam First your leaving the Church which hath three sad consequences in it as we judge First the drawing of many away from the faith and waies of the Gospel Secondly the offending grieving and stumbling of many weak souls Thirdly the opening of the mouths of many to speak evil of the waies of Truth as 2 Pet. 2. 2. Secondly your contemning of some and neglecting of others of the Ordinances of Jesus Christ Thirdly your extream sensoriousness and rash judging not only of persons abroad but also of the Church contrary to Matt. 7. 1. Rom. 14. 3. also your calling the Church an Harlot Fourthly your asserting in the Church Doctrins contrary to Truth As first that we did not know what Faith was and that Faith was an eternal thing Secondly that Christ and Faith is all one Thirdly that Christ is not the object of Faith Fourthly your speaking reproachfully of the blessed Scriptures affirming they were blind and a plague to souls and further saying they are not the Word of God nor the Rule of Life Now because you say these are studied Accusations and from the Father of lies c. we shall therefore prove every title of these things to be true First that you have left the Church is true and that your so doing hath drawn away some grieved others and opened the mouthes of many to speak evil of the waies of Christ this is clear and plain and not a studied accusation but a real thing and that which hath been matter of grief and sadness to the Church and therefore we did send to admonish you of the evil of it Now in that you reply all judgment is given to the Son whom you say we are ignorant of and enemies to c. and therefore what is our judgment worth c. and then you go on to heap up fourteen dreadful Sentences against us such as the Spirit of God doth in Scripture give to Reprobates and cast-awaies and so conclude with that 2 Thes 2. 8. Now we desire any sober Christian to consider of this your Answer which you call your defence to our charge of which you complain you had much wrong because your Letter of defence was not read whether this be a Christian-like answer to the Admonition of a Church you not giving us herein one word or reason of your departing from us but onely heaping up 16. or 18. dreadful Sentences against us The second thing you were admonished of was your contemning of some and neglecting of others of the Ordinances of Christ First that Ordinance which you contemn is Baptism in Water which you utterly reject and cast away neither using it to your Children nor allowing it to Believers but calling it as you have often done that ugly thing of Baptism with other bitter and violent expressions against it to the grief of some of us Now we did not send to admonish you for not practising of it for we knew your judgment was against it but to admonish you of your great sin in speaking so contemptuously against it calling some of them that practised it ugly Anabaptists as you have done in some of our hearing Now whereas you call us hypocrites c. because as you say we sent to admonish you for not practising Baptism by Water you speak falsly and do us wrong for we did not so but onely for your contemning of it which we shall leave to the Lord of Ordinances to judge The second Ordinance which you neglect is the Lords Supper and such other Ordinances as are practised and to be practised in the Churches of Christ which that you do neglect is clear by your practise c. And whereas you demand whether we had medled in any such thing for some years past and then fall a threatning of us again as hypocrites with deceit and hypocrisie c. To which we answer you speak false again for the Church never neglected that Ordinance of the Lords Supper any years it is true that through your means and some others the Church did forbear the practise of it about a year together but it is one thing for a Church upon occasion to forbear an Ordinance and another thing totally to neglect it or deny it as you do but for your flying out as you do in the first part of your Reply to this particular against Inventions Traditions Imaginations of mens carnal wisdom c. We answer we use no Ordinance but the Institutions of our Lord Jesus Christ which he hath commanded to be observed in his Churches till his coming again in the mean while all men may see we had ground to admonish you for the contempt of some and neglect of other of the Ordinances of Christ so that this is no lie nor studied accusation as you call it and whereas you say in the close of this Reply that Baptism and the Lords Supper you own Oh! how durst you to publish such equivocation to the World when in your conscience you know you own neither of those two Ordinances neither Baptism by Water nor Breaking of Bread why then do you use such mental reservations deal plainly that men may know what you are did you not say in the words preceding that God requires truth in the inward parts and then presently write an abominable untruth is there any fear of God before your eyes c. The third branch of your Admonition is for your extream sensoriousness and rash judging not onlie of persons abroad but also of the Church calling it a