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	scripture_n	tradition_n	1,628	5	9.1929	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52591	A Declaration of the faith and order owned and practiced in the Congregational churches in England agreed upon and consented unto by their elders and messengers in their meeting at the Savoy, October 12, 1658.	Owen, John, 1616-1683.; Nye, Philip, 1596?-1672.	1659 (1659)	Wing N1487; ESTC R16855	44,499	94

more perillous then the hottest seasons of Persecution We have sailed through an Aestuation Fluxes and Refluxes of great varieties of Spirits Doctrines Opinions and Occurrences and especially in the matter of Opinions which have been accompanied in their several seasons with powerful perswasions and temptations to seduce those of our way It is known men have taken the freedom notwithstanding what Authority hath interposed to the contrary to vent and vend their own vain and accursed imaginations contrary to the great and fixed Truths of the Gospel insomuch as take the whole round and circle of delusions the Devil hath in this small time ran it will be found that every truth of greater or lesser weight hath by one or other hand at one time or another been questioned and called to the Bar amongst Us yea and impleaded under the pretext which hath some degree of Justice in it that all should not be bound up to the Traditions of former times nor take Religion upon trust Whence it hath come to pass that many of the soundest Professors were put upon a new search and disquisition of such truths as they had taken for granted and yet had lived upon the comfort of to the end they might be able to convince others and establish their own hearts against that darkness and unbelief that is ready to close with error or at least to doubt of the truth when error is speciously presented And hereupon we do professedly account it one of the greatest advantages gained out of the temptations of these times yea the honor of the Saints and Ministers of these Nations That after they had sweetly been exercised in and had improved practical and experimental Truths this should be their further lot to examine and discuss and indeed anew to learn over every Doctrinal Truth both out of the Scriptures and also with a fresh taste thereof in their own hearts which is no other then what the Apostle exhorts to Try all things hold fast that which is good Conversion unto God at first what is it else then a savory and affectionate application and the bringing home to the heart with spiritual light and life all truths that are necessary to salvation together with other lesser truths all which we had afore conversion taken in but notionally from common education and tradition Now that after this first gust those who have bin thus converted should be put upon a new probation and search out of the Scriptures not onely of all principles explicitely ingredients to Conversion unto which the Apostle referreth the Galatians when they had diverted from them but of all other superstructures as well as fundamentals and together therewith anew to experiment the power and sweetness of all these in their own souls What is this but tryed Faith indeed and equivalent to a new conversion unto the truth An Anchor that is proved to be sure and stedfast that will certainly hold in all contrary storms This was the eminent seal and commendation which those holy Apostles that lived and wrote last Peter John and Jude in their Epistles did set and give to the Christians of the latter part of those primitive times And besides it is clear and evident by all the other Epistles from first to last that it cost the Apostles as much and far more care and pains to preserve them they had converted in the truth then they had taken to turn them thereunto at first And it is in it self as great a work and instance of the power of God that keeps yea guards us through faith unto salvation Secondly let this be added or superadded rather to give full weight and measure even to running over that we have all along this season held forth though quarreled with for it by our brethren this great principle of these times That amongst all Christian States and Churches there ought to be vouchsafed a forbearance and mutual indulgence unto Saints of all perswasions that keep unto and hold fast the necessary foundations of faith and holiness in all other matters extrafundamental whether of Faith or Order This to have been our constant principle we are not ashamed to confess to the whole Christian world Wherein yet we desire we may be understood not as if in the abstract we stood indifferent to falshood or truth or were careless whether faith or error in any Truths but fundamental did obtain or not so we had our liberty in our petty and smaller differences or as if to make sure of that we had cut out this wide cloak for it No we profess that the whole and every particle of that Faith delivered to the Saints the substance of which we have according to our light here professed is as to the propagation and furtherance of it by all Gospel-means as precious to us as our lives or what can be supposed dear to us and in our sphere we have endeavored to promote them accordingly But yet withall we have and do contend and if we had all the power which any or all of our brethren of differing opinions have desired to have over us or others we should freely grant it unto them all we have and do contend for this That in the concrete the persons of all such gracious Saints they and their errors as they are in them when they are but such errors as do and may stand with communion with Christ though they should not repent of them as not being convinced of them to the end of their days that those with their errors that are purely spiritual and intrench and overthrow not civil societies as concrete with their persons should for Christs sake be born withall by all Christians in the world and they notwithstanding be permitted to enjoy all Ordinances and spiritual Priviledges according to their light as freely as any other of their brethren that pretend to the greatest Orthodoxity as having as equal and as fair a right in and unto Christ and all the holy things of Christ that any other can challenge to themselves And this doth afford a full and invincible testimony on our behalf in that whiles we have so earnestly contended for this just liberty of Saints in all the Churches of Christ we our selves have had no need of it that is as to the matter of the profession of Faith which we have maintained together with others and of this this subsequent Confession of Faith gives sufficient evidence So as we have the confidence in Christ to utter in the words of those two great Apostles That we have stood fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free in the behalf of others rather then our selves and having been free have not made use of out liberty for a cloak of error or maliciousness in our selves And yet loe whereas from the beginning of the rearing of these Churches that of the Apostle hath been by some prophecyed of us and applyed to us That whiles we promised unto others liberty we our selves would

become servants of corruption and be brought in bondage to all sorts of fancies and imaginations yet the whole world may now see after the experience of many years ran through and it is manifest by this Confession that the great and gracious God hath not onely kept us in that common unity of the Faith and Knowledge of the Son of God which the whole Community of Saints have and shall in their generations come unto but also in the same Truths both small and great that are built thereupon that any other of the best and more pure Reformed Churches in their best times which were their first times have arrived unto This Confession withall holding forth a professed opposition unto the common errors and heresies of these times These two considerations have been taken from the seasons we have gone through Thirdly let the space of time it self or days wherein from first to last the whole of this Confession was framed and consented to by the whole of us be duly considered by sober and ingenuous spirits the whole of days in which we had meetings about it set aside the two Lords days and the first days meeting in which we considered and debated what to pitch upon were but eleven days part of which also was spent by some of us in prayer others in consulting and in the end all agreeing We mention this small circumstance but to this end which still adds unto the former That it gives demonstration not of our freeness and willingness onely but of our readiness and preparedness unto so great a work which otherwise and in other Assemblies hath ordinarily taken up long and great debates as in such a variety of matters of such concernment may well be supposed to fall out And this is no other then what the Apostle Peter exhorts unto Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason or account of the hope that is in you The Apostle Paul saith of the spiritual Truths of the Gospel That God hath prepared them for those that love him The inward and innate constitution of the new creature being in it self such as is suted to all those Truths as congenial thereunto But although there be this mutual adaptness between these two yet such is the mixture of ignorance darkness and unbelief carnal reason preoccupation of judgement interest of parties wantonness in opinion proud adhering to our own perswasions and perverse oppositions and aversness to agree with others and a multitude of such like distempers common to believing man All which are not onely mixed with but at times especially in such times as have passed over our heads are ready to overcloud our judgements and do cause our eyes to be double and sometimes prevail as well as lusts and do byass our wills and affections And such is their mixture that although there may be existent an habitual preparedness in mens spirits yet not always a present readiness to be found specially not in such a various multitude of men to make a solemn and deliberate profession of all truths it being as great a work to finde the spirits of the just perhaps the best of Saints ready for every truth as to be prepared to every good work It is therefore to be looked at as a great and special work of the holy Ghost that so numerous a company of Ministers and other principal brethren should so readily speedily and joyntly give up themselves unto such a whole Body of Truths that are after godliness This argues they had not their faith to seek but as is said of Ezra that they were ready Scribes and as Christ instructed unto the kingdom of heaven being as the good housholders of so many families of Christ bringing forth of their store and treasury New and Old It shews these truths had been familiar to them and they acquainted with them as with their daily food and provision as Christs allusion there insinuates in a word that so they had preached and that so their people had believed as the Apostle speaks upon one like particular occasion And the Apostle Paul considers in cases of this nature the suddenness or length of the time either one way or the other whether it were in mens forsaking or learning of the truth Thus the suddenness in the Galatians case in leaving the truth he makes a wonder of it I marvel that you are SO SOON that is in so short a time removed from the true Gospel unto another Again on the contrary in the Hebrews he aggravates their backwardness That when for the time you ought to be Teachers you had need that one teach you the very first principles of the Oracles of God The Parable contrary to both these having fallen out in this transaction may have some ingredient and weight with ingenuous spirits in its kinde according to the proportion is put upon either of these forementioned in their adverse kinde and obtain the like special observation This accord of ours hath fallen out without having held any correspondency together or prepared consultation by which we might come to be advised of one anothers mindes We alledge not this as a matter of commendation in us no we acknowledge it to have been a great neglect And accordingly one of the first proposals for union amongst us was That there might be a constant correspondence held among the Churches for counsel and mutual edification so for time to come to prevent the like omission We confess that from the first every or at least the generality of our Churches have been in a maner like so many Ships though holding forth the same general colours lancht singly and sailing apart and alone in the vast Ocean of these tumultuating times and they exposed to every wind of Doctrine under no other conduct then the Word and Spirit and their particular Elders and principal Brethren without Associations among our selves or so much as holding out common lights to others whereby to know where we were But yet whilest we thus confess to our own shame this neglect let all acknowledge that God hath ordered it for his high and greater glory in that his singular care and power should have so watcht over each of these as that all should be found to have steered their course by the same Chart and to have been bound for one and the same Port and that upon this general search now made that the same holy and blessed Truths of all sorts which are currant and warrantable amongst all the other Churches of Christ in the world should be found to be our Lading The whole and every of these things when put together do cause us whatever men of prejudiced and opposite spirits may finde out to slight them with a holy admiration to say That this is no other then the Lords doing and which we with thanksgiving do take from his hand as a special token upon us for good and doth show that God is faithful