Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	babylon_n	doctrine_n	zion_n	16	3	8.4975	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39566	Christianismus redivivus Christndom both un-christ'ned and new-christ'ned, or, that good old way of dipping and in-churching of men and women after faith and repentance professed, commonly (but not properly) called Anabaptism, vindicated ... : in five or six several systems containing a general answer ... : not onely a publick disputation for infant baptism managed by many ministers before thousands of people against this author ... : but also Mr. Baxters Scripture proofs are proved Scriptureless ... / by Samuel Fisher ...	Fisher, Samuel, 1605-1665.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1655 (1655)	Wing F1049; ESTC R40901	968,208	646

here in E●gland from the depth of Popish darknesse have been the most self preserving sect as is to be seen this day in the world keeping together Catervatim in covents Counsells Classes and as trooping so trumpeting together for the most part in one tone according to the tempers of the Princes in whose times you happened to be trained up or have a being in against all that as Heresie which you saw the Higher Powers or general Assemblies of the Kirk directing and State correcting would have so and saving some few still among as well the Popish as Prelatick and Presbyterian Priests for its a hard case if there be never a consciencious Priest at Rome that would say otherwise then you all said saying and unsaying seeing and unseeing turning and returning changing and unchanging singing a new song and unsinging it again agreeing to speak with one mouth like the Prophets that Prophecyed before Ahab 1 Kin. 22.13 who all save one Micaiah said but one thing and nothing still but good good to please the King so that whereas of old it was throughout all Christendome like Priest like Prince like People the heart of all Kingly power being hammered to the will of the Whore with whom it was enamoured Ahab being not a little overwiv'd by Iezebell that stole the breeches from him while he lay in bed with her and ran a whoring after her from the Lord so now since the civil Powers in these parts are resolved to be suprem and to be no more such underlings as to crouch any further then Consultativè about religion to any of the three parts of the Tripple Crown you the Priesthood seeing all your Pomp depend upon your obedience to the Sic volo Sic jubeo of King Henry and his Successors it hath been here like Prince like Preist like People me thinks I here you say O yee time-serving Prince Pleasing Priesthood Tempora mutantur nos mutamur in illis let us have our fees the fleece and let the flock feed how they will Kings Popes or People which ere Supreme do sit May let Religion be as you think fit We cannot but be aware unlesse we will wink how the body of you the Priesthood have for livings sake like reeds in the tide leaned this way and that way even which way soever the waters have turned and stood under K. Henry Papists under K. Edward Protestants under Q. Mary Papists under Q. Elizabeth and K. Iames Protestants and though you were ever eager for that form of Government and Worship still that was in present being pleading the truth of it as if you would have lost your lives rather then left it crying out that Religion it self was taken away if that were not continued as of old for Masse and Popes supremacy and more lately for Common prayer and Episcopacy and more lately yet for a Synodian Supremacy and Scottish Directory yet like children crying for the losse of some Gaudy Hornbook or Gilded Primmer a new Book a new Psalter and Festraw a New Testament or Will of the State streight stops your mouths so that any form else if it be an indifferent Independency may serve the turn specially when you judge it may cost you a whipping if you grumble and conform not Thus whilest truly tender spirits like a few harmlesse flies are catcht in the Cobwebs of mens lawes about Religion the Spider creeps clear over all and lives it out under Papacy Prelacy Presbytery under commands of King Parliament and Army under the impositions of Masse Liturgy Directory and should a law be made as I desire of the powers there never may for conformity to the true form indeed may as well for ought I know begin again with the Baptists in the principles or A B C of Christs doctrine Heb. 6.1 2. and primitive practice You professe you Protestant Priests to be Reformers in these times and places and bringers back of Gods people from Babylon to Sion but verily you hold them back from Returning so fast and so far homeward to the truth as some do more would do were it not for you who rather rap them in then help them on that run faster then your coveteous turns can afford them to do in this work of reforming by the word yea you are the greatest hinderers and retarders that are of that perfect reformation of all things according to the plain pattern of the word which yet upon several occasions since Protestanism came up you have protested for your selves and also pressed not to say what in you lies forced all people to protest for with you How is it else that men when they passe but a little from you Watchmen find him who their souls love and being first ashamed of your and their abominations while by implicit faith they dwelt under the shadow of your Ministery see the form and fashion the commings in and goings out and even all the ordinances and the lawes of Christs house and keep and do them in some measure and not tarrying for man Mic. 5.7 nor waiting for the Sons of men are if not fully reformed yet daily reforming according to their covenant viz. the word of God and example of the best reformed Churches viz. Iudaea Rome in her first and true glory Corinth Galatia Ephesus Plilippi Colosse Thessalonica c. Yet you even you Watchmen are blind and found beating and abusing the spouse for her inquiries and sit like a company of Black Ravens or Rooks in a mist gaping after what way the whole body will take their flight before any Individuall though never so clear in discovery of the right dare once move from his standing before his fellowes you wait one upon another Sperantes omnes in singulis singuli in omnibus for light but behold obsurity for brightnesse but you walk in darknesse You groap for the way like the blind like them that have no eyes calling out help King help Houses help Councells help Neighbour Nations help Brethren of Scotland from all which because they are men and not God flesh and not spirit there comes no help at all save help to Gods people against you and such help too that he that helpeth you shall fall and you that are holpen shall fall down and you shall all fall together and none deliver You are sworn as well as we in the sight of both God and men to reform according to the word and that word is nigh enough even in your mother tongue bibles hearts and mouths viz. the word of faith which we preach Neither is it far off you unless your shutting your eyes against it and putting it away from you hath engaged the Lord to shut up your eyes and put it further so that because seeing you would not see thereupon seeing you shall not You have also promise enough from Christ to know his will in his word if you look to him onely and to it Yet you say who shall go up to heaven to bring Christ

b. c. darians in the School of Christ but Sirs what need so much peccavi and precari if your ware were currant it would go off with acceptance without such a deal of cap and congee and pittiful intreaty to the Reader to cover the weakness of your Arguments the strength of which onely should cause him to gather the goodness of your cause and not strong intreaty to take it for good though the Arguments you plead it by are but weak Vino vendibili non opus est haedera if your Arguments and reasons for baby-baptism be strong and solid your Reader if rational will receive them if weak as you say they are he is a Reader scarce worth writing reason to who will be prevailed with by your desire so to cover their weakness as in charity to suffer himself to be overcome and carried away by them notwithstanding that their weakness to close with you in your cause and to be beaten into a belief of your baptism as good though it hath but broken reeds and bulrushes to maintain it by the force of bare beggings and beseechings or if in this request of yours to us to cover the weakness of your Arguments your meaning is not that we should be so silly as to build our belief and practice upon them though weak by your own confession whose they are but onely that we should not publish discover and divulge their weakness to the world but in charity be content to think our think or to see and say nothing truly Sirs what others will do at your request in this kind I know not but I assure you I cannot possibly for my part grant your desire in this case forasmuch as your selves have engaged me several waies not to be silent on pain of giving away the cause which if it were onely my own too the matter were so much the less you should have it with all my heart yea verily and my own life too to do your souls good for I know I could freely part with it to be a means of effecting your salvation but since it is the cause of God which he hath intrusted me with the pleading of against you who presume to enter the lists against it with such silly tools and weak weapons on behalf of a Babish-baptism which is not from heaven but of men I dare not give place so far as in foolish pitty to spare the Cittie Babylon or in Charity not to bewray a Breach or weakness in her walls of defence when I spie it for that were in Charity to betray the truth of of God and such Charity is more Antichristian by far then Christian what ere you call it and such as could have small hope of acceptance before God however esteemed of among men wherefore I desire you to have me excused if I cannot in charity cover the weakness of your Arguments for in Charity to poor souls that are led aside from the way of truth by your piteous pious pretences and weak reasonings for your way 〈◊〉 I am concerned in the very next place after I have done with this of yours to the Reader to discover to the world the weakness of them besides sith you have made so bold with your selves as to proclaime the weakness of your own Arguments for Infant-baptism I hope the Counties of Kent and Sussex will consider this that their choise Ministry that stood up to maintain Infant-Baptism at Ashford did after in their own Account theerof give out of their own accord that there was weakness in the Arguments they brought for that purpose men mutire nefas I hope it shall be no offence to you for me to second you in your own saying 't is you who have publisht your arguments to be weak my business shall be only publickly to prove them so to be as you assert them yet if it be offensive to you it shall be no wonder to me for I know already that you can bear it better to have your Disputation ly under disgrace and disparagement under shame and censure of weakness from your selves in print then from your supposed Adversary and true Friend my self so much as in a private Letter only and that some men as the Proverb is may more safely steal the horse then some so much as peep o're the hedge Pre. Not to suffer the cause to be wronged thorow the desects of those who had more zeal to maintain it then abilities c. Post. T is both usual and lawfull for us to judge of causes by the effects that naturally and necessarily flow from them for qualis causa i. e. naturalis per se talis effectus Retró e. g. Infant-sprinkling hath been a cause efficient and per se from whence much evil hath necessarily crept into the world for it hath been a means of confounding the Church and the World together of letting the Gentiles or Nations by whole sale into the outter Court of filling the world with meer nominal Christians and carnal Christianity whereby they have got advantage ever since to tread down the holy City and true worship and worshippers as Heresie Hereticks of bringing the nations into one Catholick Church whereof the Pope was universall Bishop or overseer for ages together thorow the eyes of his creatures the Clergy the very Stirrup whereby he and his Ministers who have blended themselves into a blind and beastly uniformity have become Masters of the Kingdomes and have got up to ride them a plea and president for traditions it being one it self which ever make Gods commands void and mens worship of God in vain an inlet of these and innumerable more mischiefs and absurdities for posito hoc uno absurdo sequuntur mille therefore it is undoubtedly an ill cause also t is lawfull to judge of a cause by the common Consequents which come from it not as caused properly but meerly occasioned by it and in respect of which it is called only causa sine quâ non i. e. that without which the other would not be and yet no other then the bare accidentall occasions of those effects which flow from something else as the cause thereof perse and most especially when those consequents are declared by the word of God to be such as will upon that occasion universally and unavoidably come to pass and thus we may give a shrew'd guess that our cause is good viz. that our Gospel Ministery Church-way and Baptism is the true one because we see it is seconded now and ever hath been with what it was of old seconded and foretold also that it should ever be even every where to the worlds end viz. divisions in families two against three and three against two the Father against the Son the Daughter against the Mother c. offences of friends and fleshly relations the account of Heresie and baseness hatred of men persecution cavils stirs tumults about it by which things Christs people Gospel Ministers and Ministrations are ever

and cry that we be Hereticks that have departed from their Church sith there hath been no cause of our estranging from them but this one that they can in no wise abide the pure professing of the truth but I tell not how they have driven us out with cursings and cruel execrations Which very self-doing doth abundantly enough acquit us unlesse they will also condemn the Apostles for Schismaticks with whom we have all one cause Christ I say did foresay to his Apostles that the time should come when they should be cast out of the synagogues for his name sake And those Synagogues of which he speaketh were then accounted lawful Churches Sith therefore it is evident that we be cast out and we be ready to shew that the same is done for the names sake of Christ truly the cause ought first to be inquired of before that any thing be determined upon us either one way or other Howbeit if they will I am content to discharge them of this point For it is enough for me that it behoved that we should depart from them that we might come to Christ. S. 10. But we see how each where they cry out that their assemblies are unholy to which it is no more lawful to consent then it is to deny God Therefore it is needful to depart from the consent of those assemblies which were nothing else but a wicked conspiracy against God In like manner if any man acknowledge the assemblies at these daies being defiled with idolatry superstition and wicked doctrine to be such in whose full communion a Christian man ought to continue even to the consent of doctrine he shall greatly erre S. 12. Whereas therefore we will not simply grant to the Papists the title of the Church we do not therefore deny that there be Churches among them but onely we contend for the true and lawful ordering of the Church which is required in the communion both of the Sacraments which are the signes of profession and also specially of doctrine Hereby therefore appeareth that we do not deny but that even under his tyranny remain Churches but such as he hath profaned with ungodlinesse full of sacriledge such as he hath afflicted with outragious dominations such as he hath corrupted and in a manner killed with evil and damnable doctrines as with poisoned drinks such wherein Christ lieth half buried the Gospel overwhelmed godlinesse banished the worshiping of God in a manner abolished such finally wherein all things are so troubled that therein rather appeareth the face of Babilon then of the holy City of God Therefore because these marks are blotted out which in this discourse we ought principally to have respect unto I say that every one of their assemblies and the whole body wanteth the lawful form of a Church These very words of Calvin which are your defence and mine too against the Pope O ye Protestant Priesthood are mine also against you when you clamour against us as Schismaticks for separating from your Nationall Churches and calling as many out with us as we can viz. because you two PPs as well as the Popish Priesthood are not Syon as you suppose but two of those three parts of that great City Mystery Babylon the great the Mother of Harlotry and Heresie that hath reigned over Kings and Kingdomes of the Earth You hold not unity with the head you return not to the fountain of the truth reform not by the Primitive standard but start aside like a broken bow you hear not the voice of our Prophet in all things he saies but make void his lawes you walk not in those scorned mean base waies which he hath chosen but are they rather that count them base and so we can no more ioin with you then deny Christ so far are we from being Hereticks and Schismaticks thereupon that we rather truly declare you such as stand divided from the Root the Sun the Fountain as well as all three one from another yea what need we any further witness that you three Hierarchies are all Hereticks and Schismaticks since the whole World hears it aloud out of your own mouthes the Bishop saith the Presbyter as to his Government is a Schismaticall Heretick the Presbyter saith the Bishop is so the Pope saies they are both so and they both say he is so and therefore I say they are all three so if we may credit what they say among themselves you stand all divided from Christ and the Apostles and now God hath justly divided you into three parts and divided you three miserably each against other among your selves yea and sub-divided you i. e. divided his people and well nigh all other people from you so that though you labour in the fire of wrath and rage to bring them back to unity with you and their old blind conformity to your waies yet you weary your selves for very vanitie for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea even so O Lord divide their tongues more and more and let great BBBabel come down daily by the division of Languages that the whole Earth which was once of one Language and one speech even that of Babylon may at last after all and by all this diversity learn all that one pure Language of the Land of Canaan yea come my beloved hast'n this blessed work and be like a swift Roe or young Hart upon these Mountains of Bether So having discovered what Heresie and Schism and who the Hereticks and Schismaticks are I come now to discourse o're again in a little plainer way your own discourse concerning them and the means of opposing them which as I said above is a parcell of pretty right matter if spoken of the Pope and his PPPriesthood to whom of right and most properly it appertains yea quid rides O S S Sacerdos mutato nomine de te fabula narratur Thy own tale is a fit rod for thy own taile thou hast sharpen'd thine Arrows and bert thy Bow to shoot at a Pigeon and kild a Crow for verily thou art the man to whom all those properties of the Heretick and Schismatick propounded by thy self do much more aptly and exactly agree then to him thou talkest of a little translating a little trimming a little turning of it towards the true subject will make every tittle of that tattle of thine to be the truth which is but a peice of fained falshood as thou tellest it of the Baptists what thou hast reported lacks but to be retorted O Priesthood with a little amplification and a right application of it to thy self and then omne tulit punctum it hits the nail on the head and tels no●hing but the truth indeed Thus then distinguishing your Patheticall piece O ye Ashford Opponents which I mean shall be my Text all along by a different carracter from my own peraphrasticall amplification and genuine application thereof so that both you and the World