Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	agree_v	church_n	true_a	1,693	5	5.5079	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42757	Aarons rod blossoming, or, The divine ordinance of church-government vindicated so as the present Erastian controversie concerning the distinction of civill and ecclesiasticall government, excommunication, and suspension, is fully debated and discussed, from the holy scripture, from the Jewish and Christian antiquities, from the consent of latter writers, from the true nature and rights of magistracy, and from the groundlesnesse of the chief objections made against the Presbyteriall government in point of a domineering arbitrary unlimited power / by George Gillespie ...	Gillespie, George, 1613-1648.	1646 (1646)	Wing G744; ESTC R177416	512,720	654

AARONS ROD BLOSSOMING OR The Divine Ordinance of Church-Government VINDICATED So as the present Erastian Controversie concerning the distinction of Civill and Ecclesiasticall Government Excommunication and Suspension is fully debated and discussed from the holy Scripture from the Jewish and Christian Antiquities from the consent of latter Writers from the true nature and rights of Migistracy and from the groundlesnesse of the chiefe Objections made against the Presbyteriall Government in point of a domineering arbitrary unlimited power By George Gillespie Minister at Edinburgh For unto us a child is born unto us a sonne is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder Isaiah 9. 6. Let the Elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour 1 Tim. 5. 17. And the spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets for God is not the Author of confusion but of peace 1 Cor. 14 32 33. August lib. contra Donatistas post collationem Cap. 4. Ne fortè aut indisciplinata patientia foveat iniquitatem aut impatiens disciplina dissipet unitatem Published by Authority London Printed by E. G. for Richard Whitaker at the signe of the Kings Armes in Pauls Church yard 1646. TO THE Reverend and Learned Assembly of DIVINES Convened at WESTMINSTER Right Reverend THough many faithfull servants of God did long agoe desire to see those things which we see and to heare those things which we heare Yet it hath been one of the speciall mercies reserved for this Generation and denied to the times of our Ancestors that Divines of both Kingdomes within this Island should be gathered and continued together to consult peaceably and freely concerning a Reformation of Religion in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government 'T is a mercy yet greater that two Nations formerly at so great a distance in the form of publike Worship and Churchgovernment should to their mutuall comfort and happines and to the further endearing of each to other through the good hand of God be now agreed upon one Directory of Worship and with a good progresse advanced as in one Confession of Faith so likewise in one forme of Church-government For all which as the other Reformed Churches in regard of their common interest in the Truth and Ordinances of Christ so especially your Brethren in the Church of Scotland are your debters Your name is as precious Oynment among them and they doe esteeme you very highly in love for your workes sake A worke which as it is extraordinary and unparalleld requiring a double portion of the Spirit of your Master so You have very many Hearts and Prayers going along with you in it that the pleasure of the Lord may prosper in your hand As for my Reverend Colleagues and my selfe it hath been a good part of our happinesse that we have been partakers of and Assistants in your grave and learned Debates Yet as we declared from our first comming amongst you we came not hither presuming to prescribe any thing unto You but willing to receive as well as to offer light and to debate matters freely and fairely from the Word of God the common Rule both to you and us As herein You were pleased to give testimony unto us in one of your Letters to the Generall Assembly of the Church of Scotland so the great respects which in other things and at other times you have expressed both towards that Church from which we are entrusted and particularly towards our selves doe call for a returne of all possible and publique testimonies of gratitude For which purpose I doe for my part take hold of this opportunity I know that I owe much more unto You then I have either ability to pay or Elocution to set forth Yet although I cannot retaliate your Favours nor render that which may be worthy of your selves I beseech you to accept this part of my retribution of respects I doe offer and entitle unto You this Enucleation of the Erastian Controversie which is Dignus vindice nodus I hope here is a word in season concerning it Others might have done better but such furniture as I had I have brought to the worke of the Tabernacle I submit what is mine unto your greater learning and better judgement and shall ever continue Yours to serve you GEO. GILLESPIE To the Candid Reader I Have often and heartily wished that I might not be distracted by nor ingaged into polemick Writings of which the World is too full already and from which many more learned and idoneous have abstained and I did accordingly resolve that in this Controversall age I should be slow to write swift to read and learne Yet there are certaine preponderating reasons which have made me willing to be drawn forth into the light upon this subject For beside the desires and sollicitations of diverse Christian friends lovers of truth and peace seriously calling upon me for an answer to M r Prynne his Vindication of his foure Questions concerning Excommunication and Suspension the grand importance of the Erastian controversie and the strong influence which it hath into the present juncture of asfaires doth powerfully invite me Among the many Controversies which have disquieted and molested the Church of Christ those concerning Ecclesiasticall Government and Discipline are not the least but among the chiefe and often mannaged with the greatest animosity and eagernesse of spirit whence there have growne most dangerous divisions and breaches such as this day there are and for the future are to be expected unlesse there shall be through Gods mercy some further composing and healing of these Church-consuming distractions which if we shall be so happy as once to obtaine it will certainely contribute very much toward the accommodation of civill and State-shaking differences And contrariwise if no healing for the Church no healing for the State Let the Gallio's of this time who care for no intrinsecall evill in the Church promise to themselves what they will surely he that shall have cause to write with Nicolaus de Clemangis a Booke of lamentation de corrupto Ecclesiae statu will finde also cause to write with him de lapsu reparatione Justitiae As the thing is of high concernment to these so much disturbed and divided Churches so the elevation is yet higher by many dègrees This controversie reacheth up to the Heavens and the top of it is above the clouds It doth highly concerne Iesus Christ himselfe in his glory royall prerogative and kingdome which he hath and exerciseth as Mediator and Head of his Church The Crowne of Iesus Christ or any part priviledge or pendicle thereof must needs be a noble and excellent Subject This truth that Iesus Christ is a King and hath a Kingdome and government in his Church distinct from the kingdomes of this World and from the civill Government hath this commendation and character above all other truths that Christ himselfe suffered to the death for it and sealed it with his blood For it may be observed from the story

the very same he makes to have been before the Sacrament to prove that Iudas was a scandalous sinner when he was admitted to the Sacrament He yeeldeth upon the matter that Iudas received not the Sacrament That before Iudas went forth none of the Apostles knew him to be the Traytor except Iohn yea some hold that Iohn knew it not That Christs words to Iudas Thou hast said did not make known to the Apostles that he was the Traitor and if they had yet by their principles who hold that Iudas received the Sacrament these words were not spoken before the Sacrament Divers Authors hold that Iudas was a secret not a scandalous sinner at that time when it is supposed he received the Sacrament yea M. Prynne himselfe holdeth so in another place He loseth much by proposing as a president to Ministers what Christ did to Iudas in the last Supper Christ did upon the matter excommunicate Iudas which many gather from these words That thou dost doe quickly And if Christ had admitted him to the Sacrament it could be no president to us CHAP. XI Whether it be a full discharge of duty to admonish a scandalous person of the danger of unworthy communicating And whether a Minister in giving him the Sacrament after such admonition be no way guilty Mr Prynne doth here mistake his marke or not hit it whether the Question be stated in reference to the Censure of Suspension or in reference to the personall duty of the Minister Five duties of the Minister in this businesse beside Admonition Admonition no Church censure properly Six conclusions promised by M Prynne examined His Syllogism concerning the true right of all visible members of the visible Church to the Sacrament discussed Four sorts of persons beside children and fooles not able to examine themselves and so not to be admitted to the Lords Supper by that limitation which M. Prynne yeedeth His Argument from the admission of carnall persons to Baptisme upon a meere externall sleight profession answered His eleven reasons for the affirmative of this present Question answered The Erastian Argument from 1 Cor. 11. 28. Let a man examine himselfe not others nor others him faileth many waies M. Prynne endeavours to pacifie the consciences of Ministers by perswading them to believe that a scandalous person is outwardly fitted and prepared for the Sacrament How dangerous a way it is to give the Sacrament to a scandalous person upon hopes that Omnipotency can at that instant change his heart and his life Of a mans eating and drinking judgement to himselfe CHAP. XII Whether the Sacrament of the Lords Supper be a converting or regenerating Ordinance Mr Prynne in this controversie joyneth not onely with the more rigid Lutherans but with the Papists The testimonies of Calvin Bullinger Ursinus Musculus Bucerus Festus Honnius Aretius Vossius Pareus the Belgicke confession and forme of administration the Synod of Dort Gerhardus Walaeus Chamierus Polanus Amesius are produced against M. Prynne all these and many others denying the Lords Supper to be a converting Ordinance How both Lutherans and Papists state their controversie with Calvinists as they call them concerning the efficacy of the Sacraments M. Prynnes distinctions of two sorts of conversion and two sorts of sealing being duely examined doe but the more open his errour instead of covering it Of the words Sacrament and Seale concerning which M. Prynne as he leaneth toward the Socinian opinion so he greatly cals in question that truth without the knowledge whereof the Ordinance of Parliament appointeth men to be kept backe from the Sacrament Foure distinctions of my own premised that the true state of the Question may be rightly apprehended The 1. Distinction between the absolute power of God and the revealed will of God 2. Between the Sacrament it selfe and other Ordinances which doe accompany it 3. Between the first grace and the following graces 4. Between visible Saints and invisible Saints CHAP. XIII Twenty Arguments to prove that the Lords Supper is not a converting Ordinance 1. FRom the nature of signes instituted to signifie the being or having of a thing The significancy of Sacraments à parte ante 2. Sacraments suppose faith and an interest had in Christ therefore doe not give it 3. The Lords Supper gives the new food therefore it supposeth the new life 4. It is a seale of the righteousnesse of faith therefore instituted for justified persons onely 5. From the example of Abrahams Justification before circumcision 6. From the duty of self-examination which an unregenerate person cannot performe 7. From the necessity of the wedding garment 8. Faith comes by hearing not by seeing or receiving 9. Neither promise nor example in Scripture of conversion by the Lords Supper 10. Every unconverted and unworthy person if he come while such to the Lords Table cannot but eate and drink unworthily therefore ought not to come 11. The wicked have no part in an Eucharisticall consolatory Ordinance 12. Christ calleth none to this Feast but such as have spirituall gracious qualifications 13. They that are visibly no Saints ought not to partake in the Communion of Saints 14. Baptisme it selfe at least when administred to persons of age is not a regenerating but a sealing Ordinance 15. From the necessity of the precedency of Baptisme before the Lords Supper 16. From the method of the Parable of the lost sonne 17. From the doctrinall dehorting of all impenitent unworthy persons from comming to the Sacrament unlesse they repent reforme c. allowed by M. Prynne himselfe which a Minister may not doe if it be a converting Ordinance 18. From the incommunicablenesse of this Ordinance to Pagans or to excommunicated Christians for their conversion 19. From the instrumentall causality of a converting Ordinance which in order doth not follow but precede conversion and therefore is administred to men not qua penitent but qua impenitent which can not be said of the Sacrament 20. Antiquity against M. Prynne in this point Witnesse the Sancta Sanctis Witnesse also Dionysius Areopagita Justin Martyr Chrysostome Augustine Isidorus Pelusiot●… Prosper Beda Isidorus Hispalensis Rabanus Maurus besides Scotus Alensis and other Schoolmen CHAP. XIV Master Prynne his twelve Arguments brought to prove that the Lords Supper is a converting Ordinance discussed and answered HIs first Argument answered by three distinctions His second proveth nothing against us but yeeldeth somewhat which is for us His third charged with divers absurdities His fourth concerning the greatest proximity and most immediate presence of God and of Christ in the Sacrament retorted against himselfe and moreover not proved nor made good by him His fifth Argument hath both universall grace and other absurdities in it His sixth concerning conversion by the eye by the booke of nature by Sacrifices by Miracles as well as by the eare examined and confuted in the particulars His seventh not proved Nor yet his eighth concerning conversion by afflictions without the word His ninth concerning the rule of contraries

at the time when Christ instituted the Sacrament he foretold the Disciples that Iudas should betray him Iohn 13. 18. to 28. Matth. 26. 20. to 26. Marke 14. 18. to 22. Luk●… 22. 21 22 23. More plainly pag. 27. he saith Christ did admit Iudas to eate the Passeover and Sacrament with his other Disciples and they made not any s●…ruple of conscience to communicate with him in both no not after Christ had particularly informed them and Iudas himselfe that he should betray him Matth. 26. 21. to 36. Answ. 1. It was but just now that M r Prynne told us to manifest that Iud●…s was at the Sacrament that Luke placeth Christs words concerning Iud●…s after the Sacrament not before it And more expressely he told us out of Iohn that Christs discourse about Iudas and his informing of the Disciples that one of them should betray him and his giving the sop to Iudas was after the Sacrament because it was after supper end●d the Sacrament being instituted and distributed before supper ended Vindic. pag. 18 19. 25. The same thing which before he made to be after the Sacrament to prove that Iudas did receive the Sacrament the very same he now makes to be before the Sacrament that he may prove Iudas a scandalous ●inner and a known Traitor even before his receiving of the Sacrament And shall he thus abuse not onely his Reader but the Word of God it selfe with palpable and grosse contradictions I shall beseech him in the feare of God to looke to it and never more to take this liberty to put contrary sences upon the holy Scripture so as may seeme to serve most for his present advantage Surely such lucubrations are not onely subitane but sinfull 2. His answer which now he gives us doth clearely yeeld these two things 1. That the Discourse about the Traytor and the giving of the sop I●…hn 13. 8. to vers 28. was before the Sacrament Now Iudas having gone out immediately after the sop hereby Master Prynne strengthneth my argument which I brought to prove that Iudas did not receive the Sacrament which argument in this very particular he formerly opposed 2. He hath here also yeelded that these words Luke 22. 21 22 23. But behold the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the Table c. though mentioned after the Sacrament which is the most colourable argument for Iudas his receiving of the Sacrament yet were spoken before the Sacrament and that the order of time is not to be gathered from Luke but from Matthew and Marke who record that discourse about Iudas before the Sacrament And in yeelding this he takes off his own strongest argument and confirmes what I have before taken pains to prove 3. Those Divines that hold Iudas did receive the Sacrament doe conceive that those words But behold the hand of him that betrayeth me c. were indeed spoken after the Sacrament and that Luke placeth them in their proper place And so holding that the discourse about the Traytor was after the Sacrament they doe thereby intimate that Iudas was not knowne to be the Traytor till after the Sacrament Wherefore either a man must quit the most considerable argument for Iudas his receiving of the Sacrament or else acknowledge that Iudas was not knowne by the Disciples to be the Traytor till after the Sacrament 4. When after the giving of the sop Christ said to Iudas That thou dost doe quickly No man at the Table knew for what intent he spake this unto him John 13. 28. But if Christ had particularly informed them that Iudas was the Traytor how is it that they could have been so altogether ignorant of Christs intent as to thinke that he was still trusting Iudas with the buying of what they had need of against the Feast or with giving to the poore Hence Lud. Capellus Spicileg in Joh. 13. collecteth that when Iohn asked of Christ who it was and when Christ said He it is unto whom I shall give the sop this was but a secret conference and the rest of the Disciples did not heare it else they could not have been so ignorant of it 5. The places cited by M r Prynne doe not prove that Christ did particularly tell and informe his Disciples that Iudas but that one of them should betray him Christ made it known to Iohn alone by the signe of giving the sop Ioh. 13. 26. Yea Theophylact. upon Ioh. 13. thinkes that as the other Apostles heard not what Christ said to Iohn concerning the Traytor so Iohn himselfe even at that instant could hardly imagine that Iudas would commit so great wickednesse Nullus ergo cog●…vit saith he no man did know it which he gathers from the words of John himselfe vers 28 29. Bucerus in Matth. 26. 23. holdeth the same I know some thinke it was made knowne to all the Disciples by that Math. 26. 25 Then Jud●…s which betrayed him answered and said Master Is it I He said unto him Thou hast said But others answer that it is not certaine that Christ said this to Iudas in the hearing of all the Disciples also that these words Thou hast said are not a cleare affirmation of the thing Lud. Capellus Spicileg in Matth. 26. admitteth these words Thou hast said to be affirmative of that which had been said But he moves this doubt when Iudas had said Is it I he did not affirme the thing but doubted of it How then did Christ returne such an answer as agreeth to that which Iudas had said as if it had been a positive truth He gives this solution that Christ as searcher of the heart did speake it to Iudas who was in his conscience convinced that he was the man and so assenteth to the truth of that testimony of his Conscience Now this could not be certainly known to the other Apostles For my part I shall not need to contend much about that for granting it to be a cleare information to all the Disciples that Iud●…s was the Traytor yet by their principles who hold Iudas did receive the Sacrament this was after not before the Sacrament for they make the anticipation to be in Matthew and Marke and the true order to be in Luke 6. Beside that of the French Catechisme which saith the impiety of Iudas was concealed and not broken forth into the light and knowledge of men when the Sacrament was given take these other Testimonies Martyr in 1 Cor. 5. Et quod attinet ad Judam peccatum ejus non erat cognitum atque perspectum nec ullo judicio convictum Gerhard Harm Evang. cap. 171. pag. 453 Iudae scelus nondum erat in lucem productum sed anim●… suo illud ad●…c ela●…sum tenebat The same he hath in his common places Tom. 5. pag. 181. where he sheweth that Iudas receiving of the Sacrament maketh nothing for the admission of scandalous persons because although Iudas had gone to the chiefe Priests and agreed with them this was