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	godly_a	great_a	105	3	2.0638	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86191	The key of Scripture-prophecies: or, A glass of some new discoveries. Being an answer to a book published by Mr John Elmestone. Wherein is resolved, 1. Whether a true constituted church, with true office and visible membership, together with the ordinances proper to such a Gospel-stating, continued true by a line of succession from the primitive time downward to our times: or whether it were not interrupted by the apostacie. 2. If they did there intermit, when they return again to their first glory, whether now, or hereafter; and what is the dispensation now approved by the Spirit. / By Simon Henden.	Henden, Simon.	1652 (1652)	Wing H1430; Thomason E668_11; ESTC R202520	120,810	124

for this later coming of the Bridegroom by the pouring glory of his Spirit shall go in with him to the Marriage and not all they but properly the wise virgins shall be thus immediately invested from heaven * See Parag 4. Matth. 25.10 what may be afterwards by the sons of the Church we leave to the times to manifest If you will bring all our new-stated Churches to this touch-stone you may finde them to be of a different metal from the true and however so neer the primitive they seem to be in the outward shell yet in reality to be grounded upon another foundation to wit upon believers not possessed with such a power visibly sent down from heaven Now that faith or the profession thereof without such a divine call and spiriting cannot be a ground-work for stating Churches I shall further prove by these following Arguments 1. Faith must foot on a call as done in obedience to the heavenly voice but now there is no call for visible Church-marriage as is declared in our first Rule and no call no faith nay it wanting that must bottom upon our own call name and time which is presumptuous disobedience 2. God having promised to spirit this again faith must rely upon the same promise till fulfilled and not upon its own power the hundred and twenty were believers and yet begun not any constitution by vertue of that but waited till the keys were given 3. Profession alone can no more give life unto Ordinances from which the glory of God is departed then it can infuse a living soul into a dead carcase It is God's sole prerogative to create their breath of life which he will do in his own season according to what he hath promised Faith and profession are but effects and to attribute such a causal vertue to them is to confound and turn the causes upside down and to set the creature in the place of his Creator 4. This pretended saith void of the call and promise of God and the vital influence of its prime original cause is but a meer work a bare creature-foundation by far too weak to lay a Gospel-fabrick upon and being but humane must in divine things be bottomless and whether the smoke or dispensation arising thence be not then that of the bottomless pit we leave it to wise men seriously to consider We are sure that this is the proper distinguishing character to difference the true from the false The true begins with the smoke or winde Gods glory inspiring the follow the keys opening and entering and by that it becomes a spiritual building the false begins with the key the smoke ensueth and thence is it a building made with hands grounded on tradition Rev. 9.1 2. The true is as smoak descending from heaven the false as smoke ascending from an humane bottom I shall now speak a little to you of the Separation who are modeled into the form of stated Churches I know there are many precious Saints amongst you in whom the character of Jesus Christ is printed and confess that some of you have been instruments to bring to light some solid Truths and prepared way for greater You hold a Separation from all National Hierarchies according to the Scriptures have in part cleared that the Beast reacheth further then the Papal Chair of Rome have renounced prelacies and precedencies have vindicated the consciences of the godly from the Laws and Canons of Courts and Classes maintain the Gospel to come in the liberty and power of the Spirit have rightly pleaded that members of true Gospel-Churches must at least have a visible Saintship have to this day been real and cordial in that noble Cause beginning in our ends of the earth For these good things found amongst you I protest in the presence of the great Tribunal I am obliged by the bond of entire affection and desire your spiritual welfare as my own salvation Yet I must not dare not flatter or dissemble in matters divine but because I love I am compelled to deal plainly and faithfully resting confident that those who are truely pious will desire to see their combustible works burn by the fiery trial of the Vials What I shall expostulate with you I have already convinced in my self Consider seriously whether consultations be not weak grounds to bottom Gospel-Churches or whether the primitive the patern you labour to model by was ever laid upon such sandy foundations or whether these your actings do not contradict many of your own tenents before named Did the Kingdom of God in that first day come by observations or by the descending majesty of the Spirit Or will Christ think you be less glorious in this later Reformation then in the former View I beseech you the Scriptures treating of the dignity of this later marriage Or if you cannot search primarily into the cause look into the effects that follow these your undertakings For knowledge in the ordinary way comes to us secundum posterius so that by those signes or symptomes which break out in manifestation we are directed to look into the fountains whence they issue forth Why was there so great efficacy in the outward order of the primitive Government but because it proceeded originally from the manifest blast of the Spirit Why is there so little in your externalities if not because arising from weak humane principles You that are most discerning do you not see too much of formality too little of power Nay why was that one and the same in every particular drawing the flock of Christ into a general unity unless because it footed in the Spirit which by its illuminating glory virtual operation and perswasive attraction congregated the whole body of Sions sons unto it Why are yours manifold disagreeing and occasions of dividing the Saints but because basing on obscure carnal apprehensions Experience informs us that your various constitutions have rent the Lords people in pieces and are as so many walls to keep them asunder and that which divides is carnal Tell us To which of you shall we joyn to come to the general Assembly Yea to what form shall we come and not in the very act of sitting down sequester our selves from the major part of the godly By a narrow search you may finde your union to ground in division your gathering in scattering View Ezek. 34.5 6 and compare them to your divisions Peter James and John chosen vessels were like in their minority to fall into the same relapse Matth. 17.4 Master if thou wilt let us build tabernacles but alas they knew not what they said understood not that Gospel-tabernacles were not to be made with hands but by the powerful dispensation of the Spirit Much like to this do you Let us build temples let us erect Gospel-Churches Well if you must needs be doing the proper work of your Master observe what censure he gives of such designes Matth. 24.23 24 26. Iuke 17.20 21 22 23. Mark rightly the secret chambers

tread the holy City the sealed number under foot are tyrannical and bestial But such National Churches do so tread as is further asserted And the holy city shall they tread under foot The truth of this hath shewed it self not onely in the cruelty of Rome but also by the like tyranny of the Bishops in England and the rigour of the Presbytery in Scotland and that the same aspiring spirit is in many amongst you if the sword of the Magistrate would second and impower you the declarations of some both in their writings and in their open Pulpits which men look upon as the oracles of Truth have sufficiently manifested to the world we hope they will be more wise and tender of the consciences of others for the future These National Churches considered in one universal body are the great city Babylon Chap. 17.15 18. Chap. 11.8 9 10. Now if the visibility of Church-constitution was onely National for many generations as is cleared by all the evidences of former times and these National Churches Babylonish then must there be a fail and cessation of the truth of the same visibility Compare this Scripture with the event and you may finde that as here the whole outward court was given to the Nations and then cast out by the Spirit so the event is parallel to the prophecie which tells us that the total Order of Ecclesiastical regiment became National and was for many hundred yeers Romish in the full possession of the Pope where by the common grant of all Protestants it is held to be Babylon and when the visible Church became a stranger and bottomless the key of outward Government in Confirmation Ordination Excommunication c. must be of the same nature with the Church as is declared in the former Paragraph The truth of this is likewise confirmed by the state of the true Church in the times of this apostacie who was onely a sealed elect number which by an invisible union made up a mystical temple a Sion a women c. whose visible abode was in the wilderness of Babylon as you may read in the Cessation I shall here demonstrate it by another Scripture which was there omitted The text is Micah 4.10 where the prophet speaking of the daughter of Sion saith that she shall go forth out of the city her genuine and celestial Order and shall dwell in the field answerable to the wilderness into which the woman fled Rev. 12.6 and shall go even to Babylon to such a field where is meer confusion from whence the Lord will at last deliver her by separation and redeem her from the hands of her enemies And that this alludes to the condition of the Gospel-Church in spiritual Babylon is evinced by the gathering of the nations against her vers 11 which agrees whith these last combinations against the Saints Zeph. 3.8 Isai 54.15 Revel 16.14 16. by her horns of iron and hoofs of brass to thresh and beat in pieces many people also after her complete victory by her consecrating their gain to the Lord which never was fulfilled in the majesty here delivered but must be proper to the time of the vials wherein the people coming out of Babylon reward her and her assistants with the like degree of punishment Rev. 18.6 Dan. 7.22 The event doth likewise comply with this Scripture as face answers to face in a glass For the primitive Church who was glorious in her visible constitution setled and beautified with Apostolical power did after decline from thence into the vast barren field of the Babylonish nations where she was scattered here and there a godly person outwardly mixed with the rude multitude from whom she was not distinguished either in Membership or Office and where she was held in chains of thraldom by Popes Bishops and the like beastly Hierarchies who in this strange country monopolized the key of Government into their sole tuition and in this desolate estate she must needs be an exile in a forraign land From this bondage also the Lord begins at last to call her out and deliver her from her enemies From hence we may necessarily conclude that if this external station wherein the daughter of Sion visiby stood was a field a wilderness a Babylon or forraign country of strange confusion then must all the beauty of her former outward Order be dissolved and turned into a rude Chaos that if her key of visible Rule was taken solely into the usurpation of Antichrist the Beast those alien lords Then must the Ordinances thereof lie void as did the Temple-vessels in the house of Nebuchadnezzar's idol-gods We will now with God's assistance proceed to answer your Objections made against this Object You alleadge that to say the visible Church did fail is as much as to affirm that the pillars of the earth were broken down the Church standing as firm by Gods ordinance power and faithfulness Answ It is true that the pillars of the earth are born up by the Word of God albeit the earthly governments thereof have the times of their shake and dissolution Psal 75.3 Isai 2.19 21. Hag. 2.21 And withal it is as true that the Church in the being of election inward grace outward profession and the more intrinsecal rule of grace is a kingdom that cannot be shaken Heb. 12.28 it being promised to be perpetual Matth. 16.18 But the visibility of Church-government was not so pillared in the Word for its successive abiding this is rather fore-prophesied that it should be corrupted by Antichrist and become Babylon To lay the ground-work of your after-discourse you here distinguish a visible Church M. Elmest First say you by a visible Church may be meant a company of Christians joyned together in one place set in true order of Worship and exercise of all Gods Ordinances that such a Church hath been in any one place or many successively you think cannot castly be proved Answ By such a Church if we understand you aright you mean a Church set in a right order of Discipline and furnished with true Officers And if such a Church cannot be proved to have been successively through the apostacie then must you yeeld that the primitive chain of Order was broken and so justifie its cessation for such an one it is that you have maintained to abide and we have proved to discontinue This grant of yours duely pondered doth at one breath unmount the whole fabrick of this your Babel and might soon put a period to the major part of this Controversie M. Elmest Secondly by a visible Church may be meant a company of persons professing true religion abstaining from all false worship and worshipping God in a pure way though for the most part in sundry places and meeting in small companies such a Church hath been perpetual Answ 1. Such companies may thus assemble for Ministery Prayer as did the one hundred twenty before they received powerfrom on high and we do now and yet not be a visible Church

the word of God we are assured is an unerring rule by which we shall endeavour to steer our course and not by the wandering notion of learned men Our recourse is onely to the Law and Testimony for proof whether you they or we be rightest In the interim we condemn not the grace of Christ where-ever we finde it nor the generation of the righteous as righteous Yet if their outward way be condemnable by the word of God we conceive it true humility and piety to judge accordingly and charity to acquaint them therewith Thus we shall end with your general exceptions against the whole and shall in the next place proceed to the more particular framed against some particular reasons before nominated which we will divide into several Sections Your fourth Objection is opposite to our first Reason deduced from Rev. 18.4 9. and runs as followeth Object 4. All Circumstances considered the time of this separating and rewarding is not untill God shall put it into the hearts of Kings to joyne together to destroy Rome it self and is surely about the pouring out of the last or some of the last vials And then being ready to give the onset on Rome by this voice they are called to plague her throughly At which time this call is directed to such of Gods people who are hidden in the Idolairous City and the adjacent territories to flee from her by a personal flight And how long it will be ere this be effected the Lord knowes Answ This your assertion consisteth of many fallacies which must be drawn out in their parts to clear up the truth 1. As that Babylon is not onely Rome with her adjacent territories but the great City chap. 17.18 reaching where out Lord was slaine chap. 11.8 above two thousand miles distant from Rome and duely pondered must be as large as the whole Roman Christian Empire and so compriseth England Scotland France or what place soever hath a false Church or beastly power to bear it up 2 These last plagues of God are not onely against Rome but every land where Babylonish Churches are residing even all Christian Nations The same whirlwind in these latter daies is said to begin at the ends of the earth and to go from Nation to Nation Jer. 25.31 32 33. chap. 23.19 20. chap. 30.23 24. Psal 110.5 6. and to be universall Isa 24. chap. 34. Luk. 21.35 Mat. 24.37 c. We have seen the beginnings of it in our Dominion the effects whereof were lately like to fall on some men of note in England Caetera taceo 3. This call of separation is not simply from Rome as an outward place but from all Antichristian stands whether Romish Episcopal Presbyterial c. the call is generall and the surest remedy to escape the general judgement 4. The pouring these plagues is not all at once by the last or some of the last vials it is gradual by every vial degree after degree For all the Angels pour out in their order upon the Earth Sea Rivers and fountains Sun and Throne of the beast upon the great river Euphrates and the aire chap. 16. 5. Not the Kings of the earth but the separated people are the principal instruments in rewarding for the text bids first Come out of her my people then reward States that come off may be assistants Object But this was done by the ten hornes ten Kings chap. 17.16 12. Answ The reading of the text must be warily observed for the better understanding thereof The most and authentick Greek copies have it The ten horns and the beast shall hate the Whore but Aretas whom the vulgar Latine followes renders it The ten horns on or upon the beast shall hate both senses are true and in both the hornes and the beast are coupled together the hornes and the beast hate also the horns hating are fastened on the beast And as the horns are these ten for nature Christians not for number for they did not all ten but some of them detest this Whore to the same Christian beast that abhors must be taken by the like Synecdoche the whole for the part to wit the Episcopal and Presbyterial beast shall hate not the Papal and the Whore defied must must be the great Whore or grandmother Rome who in her whordoms was grown over-foul They detested not the lesser and more specious daughters of whom themselves were a part nor yet the the woman Babylon in her extent for they most sadly mourned for her downfall their riches and delicacies being taken away with her chap. 18.9 10. Neither did they abominate the beast but beeing fastned on him did assist him with their Armies against the sitter on the white horse and his Armies and both hornes and beast fell together ch 19.11 to the end The abovesaid hating appeares to us to allude to the Protestant Princes who together with their beast the ecclesiastical hierariches either Episcopall or Presbyteriall did hate make desolate and naked consume and burn up the whore of Rome as having nothing to do with her in their dominions Now the rewarders before specified were not horns on the beast being severed from the very number of his name and being on Christs side follow him upon white horses to subdue the beast and horns together For the time of the call of separation I shal speak in the next place Object You go on and say that the spiritual separation made by Protestant Princes and Churches from Rome in doctrine and worship as they had a warrant from this call the reason whereof belonging to all times and persons not to partake in Romes sins do sufficiently inforce it so had they pregnant grounds from other Scriptures and commands Answ Here are many insinuations also couched up in this sentence which must be examined in their parts As 1. What you here intend by your spiritual separation 2. How you can justifie a spiritual separation to be made by Princes you mean I suppose by their laws If it be spiritual it must be caused by the free motion of the Spirit constraining a people by the linkes of love and not inforced by the cumpulsive lawes of men 3. You affirme your separation to be in doctrine and worship it seemes you are ashamed to say in discipline as being convinced in your conscience that yours is the same radically with Rome If your Church be grounded upon a Baylonish discipline it cannot be a visible Sion Jer. 51.26 4. You tell us they had a warrant for it from this call by which at at one breath you blow downe all you built before Marte cadunt subiti per mutua vulnera fratres For if this call be not untill Kings join together to destroy Rome it self about the last or some of the last vials and that then it is directed to such onely who are hid in that City with the adjacent territories how can these be applyed to Protestant Princes and Churches They renounced Rome long before they were