Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	ancient_a	church_n	doctrine_n	1,896	5	6.2759	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23818	The reform'd samaritan, or, The worship of God by the measures of spirit and truth preached for a visitation-sermon at the convention of the clergy, by the reverend Arch-Deacon of Coventry, in Coventry, April the sixth, 1676 : to which is annexed, a review of a short discourse printed in 1649, about the necessity and expediency of worshipping God by set forms / by John Allington ...	Allington, John, d. 1682.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1213; ESTC R2327	57,253	87

we are to take no notice by a Worship in Spirit and Truth and by worshipping the Father understood worshipping in a Form for Father implies a Form and by publick Liturgies let us a little survey their Piety and their Prayers First Our blessed Lord and Master who gave this rule he himself exemplified what he gave for the exact Pattern and the very Basis of all Gospel-worship is Pater Noster Our Father The Apostolical Symbol the Canon and Square of all the Professions of our Faith it begins Credo in Deum Patrem I believe in God the Father Confession of sins as the words were by our Saviour put into the mouth of the penitent Prodigal it is an address unto the Father I will go to my Father c. And Father I have sinned against heaven and against thee The Sacrament of Initiation or first admittance into the mystical Communion it is confined to this rule In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Yea when the Church in humble thankfulness returneth Praise and Glory unto God for all his benefits it is done as becomes true Worshippers by worshipping the Father and by saying Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. And as for the Church of England is not every Collect a most exact Gospel-worship Almighty and most merciful Father begins our Confession Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ begins our Absolution Then the Prayer of the Son unto his Father And the Close of every Collect is through Jesus Christ which is still an implication of the Father So that according to this rule the true Worshippers shall worship the Father Who can be truer Worshippers than that Church all whose publick Prayers are Addresses and Acts of worship to the Father And as for Spirit and Truth had it been inconsistent with publick and outward Worship or with Form then St. Paul would never have writ to Timothy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Prayers should be not onely said but made for Kings and all that are in Authority St. James the Brother of our Lord he had scornfully and ignominiously been termed Jacobus Liturgus James the Liturgist had set Forms been inconsistent with Spirit and truth Justine Martyr he would never have spoken of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Common-prayers nor Ignatius before him of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one Prayer had it been a stinting of the good Spirit to have a Liturgy or a Common-prayer Yea there would have been no Churches to have worshipped God in no publick Assemblies to have worshipped there nor indeed no use at all of our Bodies in order to God's glory if Spirit and Truth concluded against outward worship Whatsoever then the antient Churches understood by Spirit and Truth they did not understand an opposition either to bodily or to outward worship For that which is held the best Interpreter of Scripture to wit Praxis Ecclesiae the Church-Practice you see it doth evince the contrary for they had Churches they had known and set Forms for publick worship Yea Beza himself in his smaller Notes thus Quae ad Ordinent spectant ut precum formulae disposuit Apostolus Those Decencies which appertain to Order as Forms of Prayer the Apostle himself prepared and disposed By Spirit and Truth then we may very well here understand a worshipping of the Father according to those measures which the Spirit Light and Grace of the Gospel prescribeth and alloweth to us By Truth we may understand such outward expressions and manifestations as are proportionable to such a Spirit to such Light to such Grace for so by their unanimous and constant practice the primitive and best Churches understood it Lastly therefore give me leave in a word to shew how much it concerns us to give all due regard and respect to the outward and publick Worship of God under the state of the Gospel The Servants of God under the Gospel they are stiled by our Saviour Veri Adoratores the true Worshippers not the unsatiable Hearers Now it seems strange to me that Christians should emphatically be called the true Worshippers and yet many make no account at all of Evangelical Worship as if God did not as much regard the honour done unto his Person as he doth the bare hearing and listening to his Word Or as if Pray continually and Continue in prayer sounded not as much duty as doth Be instant in season and out of season By Evangelical Worship I understand Prayers Supplications and giving of Thanks confession of Sin profession of Faith making and performing of Vows oblation of Praise singing of Hymns and Psalms reception of Sacraments Adoration either with or without these So that the Father is then worshipped in Spirit and in Truth when there is a reverential address or a religious performance of all or any of these before him so that we cannot come under the honourable Appellative in the Text Veri Adoratores true Worshippers unless we outwardly and publickly even thus assemble for to worship Esay 66. 23. the Evangelical Prophet speaking of Gospel-days thus writes All flesh shall come to worship before me saith the Lord. To worship is not to clap on our Hats and sit on our Seats to hear a Sermon but to perform some act of honour some humble office some such religious Duty the reverence whereof may shew forth our distance and the Father's glory the performance whereof may move all who see it say These men are in the presence and before their God These men know what they worship These men have the Fear and Apprehension of a glorious Majesty before their eyes For being the great designe of God in all his works is the setting forth of his own Glory Worship it is the very immediate tendency to that great end For they that worship it is their actual employment to set forth his praise and to magnifie him under some glorious Attribute or other So that indeed between Hearing and Worshipping there is as much difference as between Hearing and Doing For Hearing being but a disposition to Doing Worship is the very practice Doing and actual Advance of God's honour and therefore a Duty not to be laid aside nor so coolly frequented and performed as by too too many He who in the second Commandment said Thou shalt not bow down to them or worship them He who forbids Sacrisice and Prayers and Praises yea the very bowing of the Body to false Gods doth not in so doing imply less than a reservation of this Worship to himself And therefore to him who is the everliving God and the everlasting Father to him we must ascribe and give the Glory the Honour and the Worship that evangelically is due unto him for the true Worshippers are in all duty bound to worship the Father and to worship him in Spirit and Truth Hos 6. 6. I desired mercy and not sacrisice and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings

Jesus is onely to testifie our inward humility Christian resolution and due acknowledgement that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true and eternal Son of God This being the known and declared end and meaning of this Gesture bowing at the Name of Jesus can no more in my weak apprehension be accounted Superstition than is inward humility Christian resolution or the due acknowledgement of the Lord Jesus Christ to be the true and eternal Son of God for being Actus exterior interior eandem constituunt virtutem being the outward expression and the inward meaning do make but one compleat act if the inward be vertuous the outward cannot be vicious if the inward be religious the outward cannot be superstitious So that since bowing at the Name of Jesus is by the Church and use of England determined to signifie an expression of inward humility Christian resolution and a due acknowledgment of the Deity of the Son of God I cannot yet imagine how to him who so understandeth and so useth it bowing at the Name of Jesus can be counted superstitious Nor doth onely the Canon of the Church of England but even the Canon of holy Scripture warrant me sufficiently that superstitious it cannot be for Dato sed non concesso suppose it no duty of that known Text yet there is congruity enough to avoid the Superstition of it for if by those Knees the Apostle meaneth the spiritual and inward Knees of the Heart then as he without thought of Superstition expressed that inward duty by bodily incurvation why may not I or any other by his example express my inward profession of the Deity as he by a corporal expression by bowing at his Name But my intention is not to write a Volume or indeed to say ought more than may conclude my designe mentioned to prove that I have not been nor yet am scrupulous without cause nor a sufferer without reason Now my first scruple is whether a Minister may with a good Conscience renounce or leave off any Act Rite or Gesture under the brand and notion of Superstitious which he believes is not so I dare not do it for these Reasons 1. I should bely mine own Soul in calling good evil and evil good 2. I should confirm a scandal laid upon many godly Orthodox Divines that they in thus doing have been superstitious 3. I should do an irreparable violation to those holy Gestures which I do verily believe are advancers of God's glory 4. I dare not omit that as superstitious which I believe not to be so for fear in so doing to this undetermined notion I might adde such Latitude that under the colour of Superstition even Religion it self may be violated In a word for my particular whether I look upon Adoration in abstracto as the meer expression of that subjection and distance which Dust and Ashes oweth to his Maker or whether I look upon it in concreto as joyn'd with some other duty as saying our Prayers receiving the Sacrament or profession of our Saviour's Deity in neither respect it seemeth to me more guilty of Superstition or troubling the Waters than was the Lamb in the Fable when the Wolf charged him So that if by some greater Light or Latitude of understanding your clearer judgement shall discern otherwise I shall with all respect and thanks yield up my Soul to further illumination which till it shall please God to give me I dare not in cool blood call an honest woman Whore or what I conceive religious superstitious for more than yet I am or hope for to be worth And this may suffice for the first scruple viz. That my judgement concluding otherwise I dare not acknowledge or relinquish Adoration under the notion of superstitious innovation The second thing I have to do is to give my reasons wherefore I conceived it a sin of omission to lay aside much more to renounce the Liturgy And that I may do it methodically First I shall give my Reasons why I dare not countenance the worshipping of God without a Form Secondly why I dare not in specie omit this Form First I dare not countenance the worshipping of God without a Form for being the Scripture chargeth not onely to hold the Faith but to hold fast the very form of sound words I conceive a set Form of Prayer a necessary expedient to this end for being experience both ancient and modern hath taught us this sad truth that Errours Heresies and Innovations in Doctrine are instilled and infused by the conceived Prayers of such who are either Authors or Abettors of such Opinions therefore and especially in these times I dare not but endeavour a set Form A set Form seeming now as necessary as an Antidote in time of pestilence Secondly to worship without a prepared and set Form it seems to me to serve the living God with less care than Pagans did their Idols For witness Plato a Law there was whatever Prayers or Hymns the Poets composed to the gods they should first shew them their Priests And Alexander ab Alexandro testifieth the Gentiles read their Prayers out of a Book before their Sacrifice and that for this reason Ne quid preposterè dicatur c. or for fear some thing rashly or preposterously might pass the Lips as if stolen from that of Solomon Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty An Argument to me that even an Heart may be over-hasty and therefore my weakness desires a set Form Thirdly The serving and worshipping God by a set Form seems to be approved by God in all ages before the Law under the Law under the Gospel Before the Law we read thus Then began men to call upon the Name of the Lord Eo tempore ritus certos colendi Deum institutos fuisse quos observarent filii Dei From that time forward say Expositors certain Rites or set Forms were taken up for the publick worship of God yea forsitan propter Idolatriam insurgentem perchance for the prevention of incroaching of Idolatry saith a learned Neoterick therefore was Enoch sedulous to prescribe and deliver a set Form But whether Enoch were or no sure we are God Almighty under the Law to prevent Idolatry had his set Rites and in particular to the point in hand a prescribed and set Form of Prayer On this wise shall ye bless the children of Israel saying as it followeth The Lord bless thee and keep thee c. Under the Gospel both St. John the fore-runner and our blessed Lord and Master the substance both we know taught to pray and it is strange teaching without a Form as the corner and first Stone in the building the Lord left us a Prayer and this Prayer proved the basis and fundamental of all future Liturgies This through the devotion and piety of the Church increased and grew into a Form and in this I suppose M. Beza may be my advocate who tells me and