Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	apostle_n	church_n	hold_v	2,172	5	6.0670	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A12788	A learned and gracious sermon preached at Paules Crosse by that famous and iudicious diuine, Iohn Spenser ... ; published for the benefite of Christs vineyard, by H.M.	Spenser, John, 1559-1614.; Marshall, Hamlett.	1615 (1615)	STC 23096; ESTC S521	35,428	60

imposed lawes to his owne mother drawing all power into his hands and making himselfe as the Sunne from which all others both Moone and Stars do receiue their light Thus hath Lucifer inuaded Christs poore Family and hath made choyce of a person of humility by whom vnder the colour of piety and religion hee might bring into the Church of Christ the highest degree of pride that euer the world saw in any worldly state or the weakenesse of man is capable of whom hee setting vp on the foundation not of a rocke but of imagination and opinion only and crowning with a triple crowne hath perswaded both him to take and perswaded men to giue more then humane honours as high as to the titles of Optimus maximus our Lord God the Pope and as our Countryman Stapleton writeth to him Supremum in terris Numen forcing the Emperors sometimes acknowledged for his gracious Lords and Soueraignes to yeeld their neckes for him to trample on and the Kings and Princes of the earth to licke the dust of his feet and all the people for their saluation to fall downe before him as hauing all keyes and powers of heauen and earth and hell and purgatory as blasting with the breath of his mouth like lightning whatsoeuer hee curseth as hauing the oracles of God in his breast and that neuer ordinary priuiledge that he cannot erre This was the punishment of the Church after that thorow abundance and wealth and ease she became wanton and loued not the truth that as it was prophesied 2. Thess 2. God should send strong delusions and men should belieue lies to the astonishment of all other churches both Easterne and Southerne who wonder that wee can belieue such fancies As for the necessity of one visible Monarch to make the visible church one seeing the Apostles writings in their so often mention of the church and the pastors of the same neuer intimate this doctrine of this Monarchie seeing Eph. 4. the Apostle of purpose laieth the grounds of vnity alledgeth those other bonds One Lord one Faith one Baptisme and omitteth this seeing after reckoning vpon the seuerall degrees of Ministers both ordinary and inordinary giuen to his church after his affection for the building of it in truth and loue hee setteth downe Apostles Euangelists Prophets Pastors Teachers this one Monarch is not once named to the church seeing before Christs comming God had a visible Church in Iob his house not depending vpon the Church of Iudah and is also granted by Bellarmine and yet the Church of God was alwayes one seeing since Christ the Primitiue Church had no such head but as Aeneas Siluius acknowledgeth Ante Nicenum Concilium sibi quisque viuebat ad Romanam Ecclesiam paruus ad modum respectus habebat and yet in the long time of that little regard of Rome the Church of Christ was one seeing to this day all Churches in the three partes of the world haue so anciently renounced this one head who notwithstanding may not be accounted castawayes and no partes of Christs Church seeing whatsoeuer reason is vrged of necessity one Bishoppe doth as necessarily proue the necessity of one King ouer all the Christian world truely we are so farre from thinking the necessity of one visible head to be an article of our faith that contrariwise wee agree in iudgement with Gregory the Great concerning the danger of the same who disputing against the very name and title of an vniuersal Bishoppe bringeth this reason against the thing Ecclesiae vniuersa corruit si ille vniuersus cadit if that vniuersall Bishoppe should fall his fall be the ruine of the whole Church This our lamentable experience hath made good not onely in the gouernment of the Western Churches in which he hath been like a wilde Bore in the Lords Vineyard but also in their faith which by reason of their generall subiection to that one head was as generally tainted with the same errors for as when one foot slippeth the other may stand and vphold the body vnlesse it bee carried with the sway of that which slipped so when one Church faileth in any point of truth an other may stand vphold the same vnles they be dependant one vpon an other respect not that only vncorruptible head Christ and his vnchangeable lawes 2 Now that we haue found out the Lords Vineyard and considered the nature and state of the same wee are in the next place to consider the husbandry which the Lord of this Vineyard vseth the labour the cost the skill and care hee bestoweth on it to make it prosper for since that vniuersall curse pronounced by the mouth of God Cursed be the earth for mans sake thornes and thistles shall it bring forth Gen. 3. good things do hardly thriue without skilfull and Industrious planting and cherishing their impediments are many their helpes must be so many that the Vineyard which is neglected and left to it selfe may seem in a manner blamelesse though it proue not fruitfull for these duties therefore of the husbandman the Lord conscious to himselfe of his own goodnesse towards it doubteth not to make the Vineyard and Church it selfe and euery plant thereof euen all the inhabitants of Iudah his Iudges what one thing hee hath omitted which might haue smothered it What could I haue done to my Vineyard saieth God which I haue not done The particulars were set downe before 1. The choice of the seat of Canaan My beloued had a Vineyard on a verie fruitfull hill 2. His fencing it from spoyles He hedged it about with his mighty protection 3. The choyce of the plants Hee planted it with the best plants the roote the true Vine that came downe from heauen the branches the sonnes of Abraham 4. The preparing of the Soile he gathered vp the stones that might hinder the growth the Cananites and Hittites 5. For a further defence hee built a Towre in the middest of it his glorious Temple 6. He set vp a Vinepresse in it an Altar vpon which they might offer the fruits of their free will offerings to those hee added continuall pruning and dressing watring of it from the cloudes of heauen It appeareth after Ver. 6. For the proofe of these particulars reade the old Testament What is the whole history of the Bible but the narration of Gods blessings vpon his owne people as if hee minded no other nation no part of his creation but onely them What is Genesis but the miraculous preseruation of them in their first spring and tender beginnings till they were growne into a great people now a plant able to bee remoued and to stand by it selfe What are Exodus and Numbers but a powerfull translating of this Vine by a mighty hand out of the Garden of Egypt where it was borne downe and the gracious ordering and preseruing of it as it were aboue ground in a wildernesse where it had nothing to liue on for forty yeares till it

be named the Lords Vineyard Surely to vse Gods owne similitude where there hath publikely passed a solemne contract of marriage visibly confirmed by Couenants and pledges mutually deliuered and receiued though the wife keepe not the truth of her first faith but euen openly and shamelesly turneth away her heart after other louers yet til there passeth a publike renouncing one of the other and a bill of diuorcement giuen and separation passed she is accounted his wife whose name she beareth whose wife shee publikely professeth her selfe to be So is betweene God and his visible Church both Israel and Iudah notwithstanding their fornications still kept the publike profession of the name of the God of Israel they retained circumcision the outward seale and pledge both of his Couenant both offered sacrifices to him that brought thē out of Egypt euen by that stile though in a superstitious maner both had the law of God publikely amongst them his Prophets also And therefore this outward foundation of the old league and couenant continueth stil the Lord accounteth them both as his and notwithstanding their knowne adulteries and their children of fornication by other gods whom they also serued hee intreateth them though in anger and displeasure and in threates and sometimes in chasticements yet as his owne for they were neuer denounced till they were destroyed and by the benefite of that same outward society coniunctiō which in the midst of their other abominations still remayned between God and them of the word and Sacrament many spirituall children also were borne by them to the Lord such as those 7000. were in Elias dayes who liuing in house together with their illegitimate brethren feared their father the God of Israel and secretly mourned at the abominations of their mother howsoeuer by liuing in so corrupt a house they might be tainted with some of the corruptions of their mother and carnall brethren And this is the nature of the Christian Church wherof that was a figure it is here on earth subiect to alterations and to that like generall defection and ouerrunning with weeds which both Christ and the Apostles prophesie should happen in the outward and visible face thereof which we see did happen in the figuratiue Church of Israel before Christ though the roote and foundation of Christianity shal neuer faile in it and the booke of God the seed of immortality shall remaine in it vncorrupted and the publike profession of Christ shall neuer be vtterly choaked for the Elects sake that shall bee from age to age of this world being borne in it yea though one part of the Church whose preseruation of the trueth shall be lesse corrupted then an other as Iudah was in comparison of Israel For the particular Churches are like Vineyards some flourishing for a time some barren and according to their husbandmen some cleaner kept some ouergrowne with thornes some become wilde for want of pruning yea they are like our bodies some sound and orthodox some more diseased some sicke vnto death and some vncleane and leprous and with whom there can bee no communion Thus the Church of Corinth in the Apostle Saint Paules time was not so sound as the Churches of Rome Ephesus the Church of Galatia was infected with a most dangerous error After when S. Iohn wrote the church of Ephesus had her imperfections the other sixe Churches were more infected and amongst them Laodicea was in farre worse estate then either Pergamus or Thyatira and yet all these remained the Lords Churches and Vineyards in the middest of their errors corruptions because they helde that foundation of Christianity vpon which the Church is builded Thou art Christ the Sonne of the liuing God For although as euery sinne is opposite to theloue of God so euery error also is opposite to his truth and doe not agree together yet by reason of our weake eyes and iudgements not discerning the disagreement of truth and error as of righteousnes and sinne the best men doe receiue some probable errors into the society of truth without reiecting and ouerturning their faith of those grounds which they truly hold and therefore though euery little error in matter of faith be dangerous and causeth some defect and mayme in our practise of piety eyther in our inuocations of faith or in our works of loue and the more deadly the nearer they touch the principall grounds yet they doe not all make wounds vnto death and kill our faith and piety till they come to be knowne and wilfull errors that is to be heresies and sinnes of the will for then the least error is deadly because it is wilfull and directly opposite to the loue of the truth of Christ Finally as one Church is more or lesse pure and Orthodoxe then another so wee see how the selfe same Churches continue not alwayes in one and the selfe same state for the Church of Iudah was sometime religious sometimes idolatrous sometimes purged in part the groues and high places still remaining so hath euery Church in the world since Christs time vndergone great alterations and changes the Church of Rome in her first ages was very sound and pure the Easterne Churches were more ouergrowne with errors in these latter ages since as Platina obserueth Iohn 10. The people were cleane departed from Saint Peters steps the west Churches haue more declined and the Easterne Churches except that one error of the proceeding of the holy Ghost in all other parts of faith remaine much more pure then the Church of Rome and her adherents yea Rome it selfe began a little changing of her selfe when Pius the fift acknowledging that their bookes of publike diuine seruice in all places were stuffed with vaine errors of superstitions did cast out some corruptions and no doubt besides the priuate reformations both in the iudgements and practise of numbers of her followers who will not embrace all her abominations she would haue proceeded further in publike reformation had not besides the loue of her priuate gaines a respect of her publike credit hindred her for by confessing any one error shee seeth that shee should giue preiudice against her self for other her opinions in acknowledging that shee might erre in them also Which ministreth an answere to their vaine obiections who demand of vs where our Church was for so many ages till Martin Luthers dayes in what caue of the earth it lurked for our Church is one and the same which it was at the first planting of Christianity amongst vs It hath alwayes had one and the same roote and foundation one and the same Christ publikely professed though at the first more purely afterwards more corruptly and not by Gods mercy the same Christ more purely againe For as the new dressing and weeding of a Vineyard is not a new planting and as the often repairing the decayes and purging of the vncleannes of the Temple was not the new founding and building of another Temple so in our Church