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	true_a	2,421	5	5.1957	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61497	The English case, exactly set down by Hezekiah's reformation in a court sermon at Paris / Dr. Steward ...	Steward, Richard, 1593?-1651.	1687 (1687)	Wing S5521; ESTC R3486	21,870	37

this Fact was enjoyn'd by Moses aud practis'd too by the Hebrew Church whilst she was the Primitive Thus let but Rabshakeh once tell the tale and a Church larely reform'd shall indeed appear to be but a late founded Church Ignorance may perhaps excuse this Commander here in my Text but some Learned men in our times are more extreamly to blame for you 'l soon see how fond are their main Exceptions do but suppose their Words put into the Mouth of Rabshakeh when as here in my Text at Ierusalem he be-spake the besieg'd men upon the Wall Hear O ye Iews will your aged Synagogue at length turn Novelist Your Fathers worshipp'd in these High Mountains but ye now say Ierusalem's the place where was the Church before Hezekiah Was 't no where or invisible Were your Predecessors blinded with one joint consent Or are ye only become more clear of sight what than Solomon the wise or Asa the religious Does your God sometime forsake his Church or will for Hundreds of Years suffer it to be so constantly obscur'd Let not this pure Prince deceive you still with these fond upstart toys for 't is your Iudah's greatest Fame that she 's thought very Ancient What Iew I wonder could this speech move unless 't were to laughter Where was their Church before Hezekiah In the same place and among the same People and 't was still the very self-same Church I say the same in truth of essence for so 's a Thief a True man but not in condition or in quality for formerly it was corrupt now reform'd by the Law of Moses formerly it had heen dangerously diseas'd but 't was now cured by Hezekiah Let them ask Naaman too where was he before Elisha had heal'd him Would he not divide the Question He was long before but he was withal Leprous And Palestine had still a Church but God knows 't was a corrupt one So then he who calls a reform'd Church new because 't is newly reform'd might as well call Naaman a child too because after his cure the Text plainly says his flesh came again like a child's But in earnest is our Age to be accounted from our recovery Or is a man no Older than his Health By this Philosophy they might perswade the Leper that he bore Office in the Syrian Court before he was a Year Old. Let therefore the Modern Rabshakeh's cease to upbraid us with such known petty Cavils our Church was no more invisible than that of Iudah and might as well be before Luther was as theirs before Hezekiah Secondly They tax us of Schism which is questionless a great sin being in frequent Texts very sharply condemn'd in Scripture 'T is then committed when there is a Scissure a Breach an uncharitable Division made betwixt those men especially which in point of Religion were once joyn'd aud linkt together So that were this Rupture is there is sin without doubt all the Question is on which side the Crime must lie sometimes it may lie on both but it ever lies on him that gives just cause of Division not ever on him that divides Abraham did divide from his Idolatrous Kindred and so did St. Paul from his old friends the Iews The Orthodox Christians were forc'd to do the like when Arrianism did prevail and yet in the opinon of these Rabshakehs themselves neither Abraham not St. Paul nor those old Christians were Schismatical Thus when Hezekiah once had reform'd the Church of Iudea no man can think a Conscientious Iew would at all communicate in the service of these High Places he did divide from it without doubt although before either by custom or ignorance or the like he did it frequently without Scruple And yet might such a Iew be held guilty of Schism no more sure than Hezekiah who both did and enjoyn'd the like and yet the Holy Ghost in this History here does in express terms commend him in the fourth verse of this Chapter he commends him as much for reforming the Church as he does for being like David So that to tax him were indeed to affirm that the Spirit of God commends a Schismatick himself for the very act of his schism Thus then they are not still they who divide but they who give or continue the just cause of Division who are guilty of that sin we speak of But yet since in Church-controversies 't is not so easie to judg what makes that just cause I nam'd and that no wise man can think it fit it should be left to each private judgment since in such divisions as these men are extreamly apt to forget all bonds of Peace and for possession sometimes of a little suppos'd truth quit indeed their whole Estate of Charity therefore the Ancients do oft define schism by these two grand notes or Characters First when men make Divisions in point of Religion against the consent of their lawful Pastors 't is so defined by St. Cyprian and St. Ierom and others Secondly when men cast out of the Church Catholick and so damn to Hell all that hold not their opinions And this St. Austin doth oft times call schism in the Donatists And now take Schism in what sense under what note you please our Mother Church is guiltless of that imputation First take it for a Division in Gods publick Service She did no more in that point than what was here done by Hezekiah since she had as clear Text and so as just cause To give the Cup to the People to turn their Devotions into a language they understood as this King here had to bring the Iews from their Old Mass in high places unto that one Altar at Ierusalem Nay the cause we had was more just than that of Iudah because the corruptions of the Western Church were all backt by Tyranny Men were constrain'd into Errors when yet we read not at all that if a pious Iew would have kept himself unto that one Altar at Ierusalem he was either checkt by their Kings or opprest by their Priests or condemn'd to Tophet by their Sanhedrim Secondly Take Schism for an opposition made against our lawful Pastors and our Church you 'l find was not guilty in this matter neither For at that time when the Reformation was made we were under our own Synods only and with what readiness they joyn'd in this grand Work you have heard in my second General 'T is true that for some hundreds of years we had been under a known Foreign Power but yet such a Power as came not amongst us but by the breach of a great General Council as is clear from the last Canon of the first of Ephesus A Power I say Patriarchal and so meerly of Ecclesiastical Right not of Divine Institution A Power which in the Ancient Church had been set up by Emperors as that of Iustiniana prima by Iustinian in his 11th Novel Nay 't was openly maintained in the great Council of Chalcedon that all the Patriarchs had gain'd their

and blesseth Patience and Sufferings and Martyrdom either upon pretence to plant it where it now is not or to reform it where it has been planted is of all other kinds of Contentions or Wars the most Turkishly Antichristian And therefore to avoid Quarrels and Blood 't was Hezekiah the King who here reforms the Church of Iudea But yet durst he adventure alone upon an attempt so sacred and so great No you 'l easily find in the circumstances of the Text that he had both a Council and withal a Rule to direct him for if you read the 30 and the 31 of the 2d of Chron. you 'l see this Reformation was made in the time of a most solemn Passover where the Priests and Levites the Princes and the People met and when Saith the Text chap. 30. ver 30. Hezekiah had spoke comfortable words to all the Levites that taught the good knowledg of the Lord. Yea Iosephus seems to put into this Kings mouth a Synodical Oration in the ninth of his Antiquities I say when upon the Kings encouragement the Levites had once taught that good Knowledg then upon such counsel such direction as this then came the Reformation For so Moses was plain in the blessing he gave upon the whole Tribe of Levi They shall teach Iacob thy judgments and Israel thy Law Deut. 33. at the 10. And as he had a Council so 't is as plain by the self-same words he had a Rule too to go by 't was the good Knowledg of the Lord which is in Moses phrase his Iudgments and his Law And lest he should perhaps err in the Interpretation of that sacred Text he had the help of the best Comment too as you but now heard from the 22d of Ioshua 't was the sense and practice of the Hebrew Church whilst she was yet Primitive That the Church of England was reformed by the Power Royal by a Power that made use of the like Counsel and like Rule is a truth I think none here doubts of if any do 't will be soon clear'd both from our Stories and our Laws that first Our Liturgy which Reform'd Gods Publick Service was compos'd by Bishops and others of great Knowledg in Antiquity many whereof attained the Honour of Martyrdom And then the Book of our Articles which reformed the Theological Tenets the common Doctrines of our Church were Compiled by Synods by Convocations by the two Solemn Provincial Councils of London or if you will the two National because both our Provinces concurr'd in the same truth in the years 52 and 62. And that our Rule was the same they here used in Iewry Gods word interpreted by the Sense and Practice of the Ancient Church appears in the next Synod after where 't is decreed in plain words That whosoever undertakes to teach any truth as necessary to salvation which he is not able to make good by Text as 't was understood by the Fathers and the Ancient Church shall be expos'd to Ecclesiastical Censure and Canonical Correction And we cannot think our Church would enjoyn a Rule to her Sons which yet she had not kept her self In this Point then we are hand in hand with Iudah the same Power the same Council the same Rule I go to the next following The Extent of the Reformation 't was only set up in his own Territories Iudah and Ierusalem Indeed Hezekiah wrote Letters and sent to the remains of the Ten Tribes to joyn in this great Action with him but they for the most part contemn'd his Message and slighted his Attempt 2 Chron. 30. The King did exceeding well For 't was to be much wished that in a Design so highly pious as this all Israel would have been unanimous But yet if Ephraim and others will refuse to hear Iudah must mend alone How generally a Reformation was desir'd in these parts of Christendom by men of the choicest Note both for Learning and Piety 't were no hard Task at all to shew you Nay in the very Council of Trent Ten several Kingdoms and States desir'd the Cup for the People both by their Ambassadors and their Prelates Many press'd for a Redress of Service in an unknown Tongue many for many other particulars All were refus'd and the Reason plain Order was there taken you may guess by whom that there were more Italian Prelates sometimes by Twenty sometimes by an Hundred than there were of all the World besides so that in effect all this Christendom would have reformed her self had not Italy oppos'd it Nor can that be call'd a General Council 't was but Patriarchal at the largest since the Bishops of the East and other great Churches were not there no nor those Three long since so most famous Patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria and Antioch who though they may be deceiv'd in that Tenet of the Procession of the Holy Ghost yet whatever Error they are in in that point they are in no Heresie as is confess'd by P. Lombard himself and has been oft made unanswerably good by Men as well vers'd in controversal Points as any Christendom has bred But 't is the Artifice of the Western Church to perswade the World that those ancient parts are now fallen from the Church that so within the Curtains of their own Patriarchate she may have General Councils and an universal Church and so though she now make not near a Third part of the Christian World yet with the Donatist she dares profess her self the only Catholick Church and so damns all Mankind without her Neither yet do I deny nay I affirm it rather That a true General Council could best prescribe Remedies unto so large a Disease but to convoke that was extreamly difficult and we are all sure 't was not done For what Christian Princes can now give safe conduct to the Bishops and Patriarchs of those remoter parts of the Church So then if neither a true General Council nor free Patriarchal could be had were 't not strange Imprudence to refuse a Cure because we could not use the best Physicians In this case no doubt it unquestionably holds what Gerson the Learned Chancellor of Paris has spoken out without Limitation and he as Bell. affirms was Vir doctus pius he was a learned and a good man too and you shall hear that good mans words Nolo tamen dicere c. I will not say faith he but the Church may be reformed by parts yea this is necessary and to effect it Provincial Councils may suffice and in some things Diocesan 't is in his Tract de Gen. Con. unius obed And indeed Particular Churches have gone farther in this kind than our dear Mother e're dream'd of For four things there are chiefly of Synodical Cognizance Articles of Faith Forms of Divine Worship Theological Conclusions for the Peace of each Church and the points of Ceremony Only these Three last were the Subject of our Reformation we still adhering unto the Three Creeds which are the