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	word_n	1,745	5	4.0513	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44810	The true rule, judge, and guide of the true church of God discovered, and borne testimony unto what it is, and wherein it consisteth in opposition to the pretended Catholick Church of Rome her rule, foundation, guide, and judge, being returned in answer to Captain Robert Everrand his book, titled An epistle to all the nonconformists ... / by ... Francis Howgil.	Howgill, Francis, 1618-1669.	1665 (1665)	Wing H3185; ESTC R9586	60,220	70

from the Spirit of Christ as some Churches did which were as truly Christian and might lay claim unto Christs promise of preservation out of error as ever Rome could do and yet fix of the Seven Churches of Asia were reproved by the Spirit of Christ some of them for holding gross error and some for suffering it but where was the fault did not Christ perform his promise to his Church or to these and other particular Churches as Corinth and Galatia yes but there was an erring from the spirit but all that R. E. goes about is to prove which he will never be able to do that Christ is bound by promise to make it good to them that he hath once promised unto though they perform nothing of their part in taking heed to his direction and thus would limit the Lord and let men go free without obedience to his commands and he cites Mat. 28. 2● how the promise of Christ was and lo I am always with you even to the end of the World but he hath done as the Devil did when he brought it is written to Christ left out half the words so R. E. hath left out the Conditions on the Disciples part and that which was their duty teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command you then loe I am with you c. But R. E. likes not obedience it seems unto Christs commands and yet he will needs be a sharer in the promise and of the Power that was given and bind God unto that and he and his Church to be loose to do and to teach what they will but as to all the Scriptures he hath brought and minced them and cut them in peece meale and all the Inferences he makes this we acknowledge without multiplicity of words that whatsoever was promised to the Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ As the Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ the same promise of Christ doth belong to the Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ in every age and stands upon the same condition viz. obedience unto his will and that they still do teach and no other thing but what he commands them then he is with them according to his promise but let not R. E. nor his Roman Catholicks look if they teach things repugnant to his mind and contrary to his will and press upon others to believe that which Christ hath never taught that then the promise of God will be so intailed to them as that they cannot err and here the deceit of thine and your hearts hath led you aside and this is one of the cuning sleights of men and craftiness whereby you lay in wait to deceive and by this you have deceived many because God hath made such large promises unto his Church how that they should be led into all truth and preserved out of error and you are their successors and must needs inherit this promise by way of intail and you cannot err you cannot be deceived because the Apostles was infallible therefore you must needs be infallible though you err and go aside never so much from the infallible spirit the true guide and judge of and in the Church of God as though you had been born to infallibility and the spirit of truth had comed by succession but the inward Light which thou scoffes at and the spirit of truth which thou calls a private spirit often hath discovered you and your spirit though thou boast of fifteen ages that your Doctrine hath been held by the Pastours and Teachers in your visible Church as in the 57. page of thy Epistle suppose I should grant the fifteen hundred years which I neither can nor will but I will lead thee to the sixteen hundred years and try thee and your Doctrine that you have held this fifteen hundred year if it be so as thou saith but this thou likes not but seeing thou pleads antiquity let us come on and joyne issue prove us Transubstantiation in the first hundred year nay I will give thee five hundred more and if I gave thee five more thou would hardly prove it before the Council of Trent prove us the Doctrine of Purgatory in the first hundred year and if thou take two it shall not offend me prove us the forbiding of Ministers to marry in the first hundred year and abstenance from Meats as though they were unclean which are created by God for the use of Believers prove us that Man hath a twofold right to the Kingdom of Heaven as your great Bellarmine saith the one by Christ the other by a Man 's own works prove us Invocation of Angels and prayer and Sacrifice for the Dead the first hundred year after Christ prove us their selling of Pardons in Christs and the Apostles days for Money prove us seting up of Images as to put Men in mind of the Saints deceased and of their Works prove us Baptism of Infants with Cream and Spittle and signing with the Cross and Godfathers and Godmothers and let us have some example beyond bare report for we dare not relie upon your infallible spirit in these things therefore convince us for we are gain-sayers and upon good ground and we do look upon all these Doctrines and many more not to be of such a great age as thou tells on neither to have any affinity or congruaty with the Church of Christ in his or the Apostles time nor sundry years after but rather look upon them as Doctrines of Devils and a very novelty a further Scripture R. E. urges 1 Tim. 3. 15. the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of truth and may we not relie of that pillar that God hath erected for us saith he and he that hears you hears me and go teach all Nations and lo I am with you always and yet if after all these promises if the Church may not be believed except she teacheth according to the Scriptures and be only infallible but when she doth her duty then the Church hath no more privilege then the Devil hath for so long as he teaches conformable to the Scripture he may be believed and so long as he teaches truth he may be believed saith R. E. in page the 58 59. Answ. The Church is in God 1 Thes. 1. and is the pillar and ground of truth she is in the world though not of the world and though the members thereof be visible in the world yet the world that lies in wickedness never owned them as such neither saw the glory of this Church but always persecuted it and was so far from owning it as rule and judge as it altogether gainsayed its direction but they that did believe in the word of life and were separated from the world and hated by it were willing to hear the Councel and to receive the instruction of the Church of God and the Church only medled with their own Members as in matter of Judgment and not of the

are verily perswaded so or no other answer but I am sure it is the spirit of God and I am a good man and an honest man and I believe my self but other reasons or evidence can they give none Thirdly This pretending of a private spirit is against 2 Pet. 1. 20. That no prophesie of Scripture is of private interpretation Answ. This Man beats all together beside the Anvil what ever the matter is but that he is blinded and confounded in himself he sets but up a shadow and then fights with it for instead of proving the Spirit of God not to be a competent rule judge and guide and instructer in all matters of Faith necessary to Salvation he goes about to prove a private spirit a pretended spirit a spirit of error is not a sufficient guide and Judge and in this he fights without an adversary and fills the world with noise and darkness and the air with smoak and would cloud peoples understandings with multitudes of words that tend not to edification with a quareling wrangling spirit which is not for peace but I see he hath delighted in contention and sported it self in varience and like the son of the bond-woman his hand against every man Secondly I wonder why R. E. quotes so much Scripture as for the proofe of his matter in hand seeing that it is one of his great pleas that it is insufficient as to be a rule or a guide or a judge as to answer any doubts or give any satisfactory solution to him that is enquiring and seeing he hath given in so many reasons against it as insufficient and as much as in him lay to invaluedate and set it at nought and hath laboured to set it at oddes and to make contradictions in it as to render it insufficient for matter of probation in any thing which is in controversie or how he can judge that others should receive them and his sometimes false rendering of them or his own interpretations upon them seeing he denies them as uncertain as they are translated and insufficient and not fit to be a rule and who this man hath conversed with I know not that should ever affirm a private spirit or their own spirits to be a sufficient rule or guide to walk by such I deny and leave them and thee to quarel together about your imaginations and thoughts and conceptions or else the conceptions of other men who are as uncertain and fallible as the first and shall assert the sufficiency of the spirit of God teaching ruling guiding and judging all true Christian men in that certain everlasting infallible truth which is necessary and satisfaction to the souls of all them that do believe in it and shall deny all the pretenders to it who run into heaps and heads and quarels and fights one with another about shadows and can give no other account or manifestation then I am sure I have the spirit of God and I ought to be believed and I am a good man and the like which thou saith thou could never receive any other evidence or testimony and what though many have pretended to the spirit and the guidance thereof and in the mean while have brought forth the fruits of the flesh and their own imaginary false conceptions and hath put on confidence enough to say so as thou thy self it may be hath had a share in in times past shall this make the Spirit of God insufficient and uncertain in its teachings to them that believe in it and have received and bring forth the fruits of it and have the deeds of the flesh mortified by it God forbid Thirdly Why hast thou perverted the Scripture as I said at the first onset Rom. 8. 16. The Spirit it self bears witness with our spirits that we are the Children of God and this thou hath put in in a distinct Character to be taken notice of as though it were Scripture and renders it thus the Spirit being witness in secret with our spirits or in plainer termes the private spirit Thou must repent of this and take heed how thou calls the spirit of God a private spirit for it was that publick spirit which manifested it self among all the Patriarks and Prophets and by which they spoke forth the words and mind of God unto the people and prophesied of things to come and through it alone is the deep and weighty things of God revealed and was and is the only way and means by which Christ promised after his Ascension to lead guide instruct and comfort his Disciples in all truth and that it should bring to their memory whatsoever he had spoken that they were to be without care or thought for through it the Father should give them what to speak and what to answer before Rulers and Councils for his Names sake And here the sufficiency of it is proved to any reasonable man who hath the least savour or discerning of the things of God and this is that publick spirit by which the Apostles published the Everlasting Gospel of peace and which Christ the head of the Body his Church had received without measure and this is a private twyning creeping spirit of thine who hath been lost in thy own imaginations and following thy own forward rash spirit and hath found no certainty in thy self of Gods spirit to stay thy mind upon nor no patience to wait upon it but reaching grasping at things in thy dark mind last of all hath brought in thy verdict for the devil against the sufficiency of the holy spirit of God its guidance amongst his people in the later days that is thy fond conception as to say that the Spirit of God is expressly against the 2. of Pet. 1. 20. which thou calls a private spirit all along 't is true no prophefie of Scripture is of private interpretation but the holy Men of God spoke it forth as they were moved by the holy spirit which was publick and conversant among them with them and in them and they that have it can receive them as they are written and can read them and understand them as they were spoken and doth see the intent of the Holy Ghost in so speaking unto different states and conditions notwithstanding the many Copies thou tells on and diversions and different translations which thou would make a great Mountain on and raise it up so high to make the Scripture uncertain and low as not fit to be taken notice on as to answer any doubt or to be any rule or guide or any example or president for any thing that I can perceive by the course of thy Spirit which in the truth is fathomed and comprehended though it is as uncertain as the way of a Serpent upon a Rock yet they that have the spirit of God sees beyond all and hath unity with the words and minds of the Spirit of God notwithstanding the many corruptions and defects in translations and the many foul hands it hath

it Where R. E. hath read of a visible Church with two heads I know not and to take it for infallible I intend not and where is Peter called a visible Rock and the chief Pastor among the Apostles doth not this contradict Scripture doth not Christ say the Gentiles exercise Dominion one over another but it shall not be so amongest you he that will be greatest among you let him be your servant and he that will be chief let him be your Minister and as for thy visible and militant Church we read no such words in the Scriptures of truth we read of a Church of God and of the first born whereof Christ was the Rock and the foundation and another foundation can no man lay then that which is laid which is Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 3. 11. and Paul saith in the 10. ver as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation I hope R. E. will not be so impudent as to say he had laid Peter or that he had preached up Peter to believe in for the remission of sins nor for the foundation of faith for that had been contrary to the Apostles commission and their Doctrine for saith the Apostle We have not preached our selves but Christ the Lord and our selves your servants for his sake And I may say to thee R. E. as Paul said to the Corinthians when they were striving about Men 1 Cor. 3. 21. therefore let no man glory in men for all things are yours or as he saith in the 1 chap. 13. ver was Paul crucified for you or were you baptised in the name of Paul were they not carnal that so gloried was Peter crucified for us or were we baptised in the name of Peter is not your visible Church carnal who thus judges that Christ intended Peter to be the foundation of his Church for what was he or the rest of the Apostles but Ministers by which many believed and if thou had been present it is very like would have instructed Christ what to have said and bidden him have spoken after the Grammer Rule and Construction upon that Rock I will build my Church for Peters faith in Christ is to mediate it seems and his confession too remote and anticedent to be the Rock meant in the 16. of Mat. 18. and therefore Peter must be imediate and the Rock upon which Christ hath doth and will build his Church but as imediate as he was and a sure a Rock as he was when he began to rebuke Christ he turned him about ver 23. and said unto Peter Get the behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me for thou savours not the things of God and so say I to R. E. and his Catholicks they savour not the things of God but it is thy private spirit and your own Interpretations and not the mind of Christ and how far anticedent is Peter's Confession of Christ the Son of the Living God is it not in the 16. ver and wherein was Peter blessed but in this that it was revealed to him that Christ was the Son of the Living God the Rock of Ages and the foundation of his Church and as for thy visible Church with its two heads indipendent head and dependent head which sure must have two bodies where they can be found but that I shall leave to R. E. and I hope from the grounds that thou hast here laid which did appear so clear to thee that none will be afraid not judge that such a visible Church with two heads is to be rule and guide to all to whom all is to submit under pain of Damnation which is to have Peter for its Rock which if he had been living he would have denyed you all as seters up of Men and ●leighters of Jesus Christ the Rock of Ages the Foundation of the Church the Head of the Body the Rule of Life the Judge of quick and the dead the Law-giver directer instructer and preserver of his Church for ever but R. E. goes on and saith it only remains that we consider which among all these congregations now on Earth which pretend themselves to be this Church of Christ for having once found her and knowing that she is so assisted with the Holy Ghost that she cannot teach us an error we shall no more dispute the verity of her Doctrines then we would have questioned the Articles of Faith taught by the holy Apostles or the words of Christ himself wherefore if this Church this infallible guide shall teach us that Infants ought to be Baptised and that it is as lawful to desire the Saints departed to pray for us as to desire the Prayers of them that are alive and that the body of Christ our Saviour is really and truly present in the Sacrament of the Alter or any other article of Faith we shall no more doubt it then the first Christians did the verity of what the Apostles taught them Among all those Congregations on Earth that looks upon themselves to be this Church and spouse of Christ there is one if thy eye could behold or if thou could discern it but before thou can there is an eye in thee must be put out and there is a wisdom in thee that must be confounded and turned into foolishness before thou can discern it in its glory as it is but however that is it undoubtedly which is begotten into the faith through the publication of the immortal word of Life who are translated from death unto life who have received the power and spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ and meets in his name and power and doth witness his presence among them and have received a measure of that infallible Spirit of truth which leadeth into all truth and out of the pollutions of the World and are dead unto the World and baptised into the sufferings of Christ and are crucified with him who keep unviolated his Statutes and commands without adding to or diminishing from who walk in the order of the Gospel and are not conformable to the world nor to that which fallen men sets up but to the power of God which worketh in the hearts of all that believe to the framing of them a meet habitation for God to dwel in and abideth in the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and are sayers and doers speakes the truth and doth the truth and holds the truth in Righteousness and the faith once delivered to the Saints in a pure heart and a pure Conscience who prayes in the spirit and with understanding who publisheth the truth and declares it in the spirit reaching to the Consciences and to the witness of God in all that hears who rejoyce only in Christ Jesus the great power of God and the wisdom of God and hath no confidence in the flesh nor fleshly performances whose faith stands not in words but in the mighty power of God which she hath received according unto the promise of God this Congregation or Congregations