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	rule_n	scripture_n	1,767	5	5.9499	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56628	Christs counsel to his church in two sermons preached at the two last fasts : one April xi. MDCLXXX, the other December xxi. MDCLXXX / by Symon Patrick ...	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1681 (1681)	Wing P770; ESTC R22417	50,470	126

abstinence from all meats whatsoever and that for an exercise of humility and other Christian Vertues without any opinion of merit or satifaction And it may be added That it is a Religion to which the very Papists themselves are indebted several ways for their ease from many burthens For it is our Religion which hath quite spoiled the Trade that was driven by Indulgences which was so shamelesly exercised before the Reformation that Sellers of Pardons went like Pedlars from house to house and for half a Crown offered to let any man have a remission of all his sins and the delivery of a Soul out of Purgatory Which was the thing that first stirred up the just indignation of Luther to whose honest zeal they are beholden for deliverance from that imposture They are not abused neither as formerly with new lying Miracles and Apparitions which are seldom pretended now thanks be to our Religion for it in comparison with the many illusions of this kind in former times They are free also from being perpetually pillaged by divers grievous exactions which their Forefathers in this Kingdom I could shew you complained of as insupportable Nor do their people run with Offerings from one Image to another so fast as they did before our Religion let them see their follies To say nothing of their Crusado's and other things which it is not easie for the Pope himself now to gull them withal Which is to be put intirely upon the account of our Religion which hath opened many of their eyes to see more errours among them than they are willing to confess Have we not reason then to hold fast such a Religion as this so as neither to part with it nor to depart from it If truth had the same power over the will that it hath over the understanding we could never suffer our selves to be guilty of either Nay the Papists themselves would condemn their own madness for endeavouring to disturb this Religion and to bring back that authority hither which made such Fools of them But alas it is too notorious how little hold our Religion hath taken on our hearts There being so many who have revolted if not openly yet in their hearts and affections we have too much reason to fear unto the Romish delusion And others I am afraid the most who have retained what they received only in part but let go a great deal of it to the open disgrace manifest damage and almost undoing of our Religion Which is the thing I must now admonish you of in the last part of my Discourse upon these words wherein our Saviour calls upon the Church of Sardis to REPENT of their not holding fast that is what they had received And so must I now call upon you with all earnestness it being the particular business of this Day and the only thing that can save us from perishing in the Pit which is digged for us by our Romish Adversaries who have been long plotting and now have almost effected our destruction Yet I shall not expatiate through the whole Doctrin of repentance but confine my self only to such things as relate to what hath been already spoken III. You are not now to learn what it is to repent but only what it is you should repent of that is be heartily sorry for and amend And this also is soon known if in obedience to this admonition you will but reflect upon what you have received and heard and then consider what conformity your practice holds therewith And here let me deal as plainly with you as becomes my Office and the solemn business of this Day and the present distress of this Church and Kingdom which should awaken all men of sense to examine themselves upon these three Heads First What esteem is remaining among us of the holy Scriptures in which are contained as you have heard all our Religion Secondly What fruits our Faith hath brought forth which the holy Scriptures tell us God expects from us and are so necessary that we cannot be saved without them Thirdly more particularly What the behaviour of the people of this Church hath been and is towards the Pastors and Guides of their souls with whom God hath principally intrusted his holy Oracles If all the Members of this Church would thoroughly examine themselves upon these Heads they would find I fear too much matter for Repentance I. For the first of these I shall omit the disrespect to use no harder word of one whole Sect of men to the holy Scriptures which they have in a manner laid aside and only accommodated the Phrases of it to that which they call the light within them and touch upon such things only as are common to all Parties among us In which 1. We cannot but fear and with grief of heart it ought to be spoken and considered there are great numbers who have no value for the holy Scriptures at all but have quite forsaken even Christianity it self which is therein delivered some the very belief of it and others the profession This is one of the fearful sins of this Age which cries for vengeance against us and hath encouraged this Plot to bring in Popery that is Idolatry and Tyranny among us Which durst never have shown their heads here again if they had not been emboldned by our Irreligion And though now we seem to be stirred up to oppose them yet no Religion will be found an unequal match for some Religion which though a very bad one is better than none at all 2. And secondly It cannot be denied that abundance of those who still blessed be God believe the holy Scriptures yet have lost that high esteem and affection which our pious Ancestors had for them Or if they have any it doth not appear by their diligent reading of them which many have laid aside Time was when they were read and studied with great care and fervent desire in the beginning of the Reformation when every Body that could read had them in their hands and some had a great deal of them by heart as the Jew now generally have the principal things in the Old Testament But alas this ardour soon remitted and now is in a manner extinct Musculus I remember complains heavily of it in his Preface to the Book of Genesis many years ago and we are not grown better but much worse I fear since his days And what other cause saith he can we give for it but this That the greatest part of those who seemed to have given up themselves to the Truth of God busied themselves in the Scriptures not that they might be better by framing their lives according to that rule but that they might be able to dispute and to carp at the old errours and superstitions And so some ran into all manner of wickedness others lickt up their old vomit others leaving the manifest Truth turned to new Sects which sprang up and others became neutral and fell into perfect indifference

device of entertaining the people with Images which they call the Books of the Ignorant and are the means of keeping them in ignorance instead of the holy Scriptures which are able to make men wise to salvation For all which the holy and reverend Name of the Church and its infallibility is used for a colour By which they mean only the Roman Church which being but a particular Church not the universal is become Judg in her own Cause and maintains she does well nay cannot erre because she says she cannot do otherwise There is no man who will take the liberty to consider that can think this the way of salvation No it is the manifest method of perishing without remedy for any thing that the people of that Church can know For they being taught simply to believe in the Church of Rome and to depend wholly upon its authority without any other enquiry can never be satisfied whether this Church wherein they believe teaches the true and pure Doctrine of Christ Jesus the Lord and Spouse of the Church For they are deprived of all means to find this out being forbidden to look into the holy Scriptures where Christ hath delivered his mind unto us All the Faith therefore of the poor people of the Roman Church is no other than a humane Faith being grounded wholly on the authority of men and of all humane Testimony they rely upon the most uncertain viz. that which they give of themselves For they believe their Church to be good merely because She says so that is make her judge in her own case which is like to produce the most partial Judgment of all other But it is time to leave the consideration of their faults in this thing and as the duty of this Day requires to reflect seriously and impartially upon our own Which we shall the better do when I have a little opened the second general part of my Text wherein we shall see how happy we of this Church might have been if we had held fast that which we have received II. For that follows you see in the Charge given to the Church of Sardis Remember what thou hast received and heard and HOLD FAST or keep to it observe it and take care to do accordingly For that 's the end of calling things to mind that we may not depart from them if they be of consequence to our happiness Such was the Doctrine at first delivered by Christ and his Apostles and to apply it wholly to our selves such is that which we have received being the very same as you have heard with that at first delivered Which we ought therefore to keep most sacredly and to stick to it stedfastly never in the least warping from it nor turning aside either to the right hand or to the left from the principles and rules of a Religion which is so well grounded that it stands upon the undoubted word of God our Saviour For as I have shewn you the Religion which we have received and heard is no other than what the holy Scriptures which all acknowledg to be the word of Truth teach us to believe and practise And is a Religion so sincere that it teaches the people to read the holy Scriptures because it is not afraid they should therein read its condemnation And for that end propounds the Scriptures to them in their own Language because it is not in the least ashamed of any thing it bids them believe nor unwilling to be laid to that rule of righteousness and examined by it A Religion also which in reading the holy Scriptures bids the people content themselves with that which they find there clearly and evidently delivered for that it assures them is sufficient for their salvation leaving things obscure for the exercise of the learned and things not drawn from thence but from uncertain Traditions or private Inspiration to superstitious and fantastical Persons A Religion which doth not make Faith consist in ignorance but in knowledge and yet to keep this knowledge within the bounds of sobriety directs and enjoyns all private persons to take heed to the publick Ministry of the Church and all publick Ministers to study the Scriptures diligently and to teach nothing to be religiously held and believed as one of our ancient Canons is * 1571. Tit. Concionatores but what is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and which the Catholick-Fathers and the ancient Bishops have collected out of that very Doctrine It is a Religion also which doth not teach us to rely upon Faith alone but presses the necessity of good works far more than the Roman Church doth whatsoever they falsely pretend only it teaches that God rewards all the good we do out of his own free mercy without any desert And therefore instead of framing and fashioning Wood and Stone into the Images of men and setting them up for the people to worship it exhorts men by all means possible to study to frame themselves after the Image of God in righteousness and true holiness and to conform themselves to those excellent patterns of Vertue which the Saints have left us for imitation Instead also of worshipping the Sacrament it teaches us to worship the Lord Jesus Christ in the holy and reverend use of the Sacrament not using it to make Jesus Christ but to honour Him not to make His Body descend from Heaven to us but to lift up our hearts to Him in Heaven not to turn the Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Blood of Christ but into the spiritual nourishment of our Souls For it doth not think that Christ and the Devil both entred into Judas together or that our Saviour did eat Himself or hath ordered matters so that He may be carried away by a Mouse and eaten by his greatest enemies It teaches none of these or any such like absurd and incredible things nor doth it intrench upon any man's civil Rights But though it bid men reverence and obey their spiritual Pastors yet doth not place any of them above Kings nor exempt them from their jurisdiction much less ascribe a power to them of deposing them from their Thrones giving away their Kingdoms and exposing them to be murthered which the proud Bishop of Rome challenges but humbly and meekly declares as St Paul doth That every Soul even the greatest Apostle as St. Chrysostome interprets him must be subject to the higher Powers What shall I say more It is a Religion which acknowledges no other supreme Head of the Church but Jesus Christ no other rule of Faith but his Word no propitiatory Sacrifice but his Death no Purgatory but his Blood nor any merits but his obedience to God in all things A Religion therefore which hath little of outward pomp and show but much of inward substance life and power which ordaineth few Ceremonies but ministers abundant instructions and consolations which attributeth little to distinction of meats but prescribes fasting and