Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	believe_v	church_n	spirit_n	2,902	5	5.3455	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85427	An apologeticall narration, humbly submitted to the Honourable Houses of Parliament. By Tho: Goodwin, Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jer: Burroughes, William Bridge.	Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.	1643 (1643)	Wing G1225; Thomason E80_7	16,409	36

as we or to that constitution and government that is yet to come and untill that be agreed on established and declared and actually exist there can be no guilt or imputation of Schime from it That proud and insolent title of Independencie was affixed unto us as our claime the very sound of which conveys to all mens apprehensions the challenge of an exemption of all Churches from all subjection and dependance or rather a trumpet of defiance against what ever Power Spirituall or Civill which we doe abhor and detest Or else the odious name of Brownisme together with all their opinions as they have stated and maintained them must needs be owned by us Although upon the very first declaring our judgements in the chief and fundamental point of all Church discipline and likewise since it hath been acknowledged that we differ much from them And wee did then and doe here publiquely professe we beleeve the truth to lye and consist in a middle way betwixt that which is falsly charged on us Brownisme and that which is the contention of these times the authoritative Presbyteriall Government in all the subordinations and proceedings of it And had we been led in our former wayes and our removall out of this Kingdome by any such spirit of faction and division or of pride and singularity which are the usual grounds of all Schisme we had since our returns again during this intermisticall season tentations yea provocations enough to have drawn forth such a spirit having manifold advantages to make and encrease a partie which we have not in the least attempted We found the spirits of the people of this Kingdome that professe or pretend to the power of godlinesse they finding themselves to be so much at liberty and new come out of bondage ready to take any impressions and to be cast into any mould that hath but the appearance of a stricter way And we found that many of those mists that had gathered about us or were rather cast upon our persons in our absence began by our presence againe and the blessing of God upon us in a great measure to scatter and vanish without speaking a word for our selves or Cause But through the grace of Christ our spirits are and have been so remote from such dispositions aymes that on the contrary we call God and men to witnes our constant forbearance either to publish our opinions by preaching although we had the Pulpits free or to print any thing of our owne or others for the vindication of our selves although the Presses were more free then the Pulpits or to act for our selves or way although we have been from the first provoked unto all these all sorts of wayes both by the common mis-understandings and mis-representations of our opinions and practises together with incitements to this State not to allow us the peaceable practises of our Consciences which the Reformed Churches abroad allowed us and these edged with calumnies and reproaches cast upon our persons in print and all these heightned with this further prejudice and provocation that this our silence was interpreted that we were either ashamed of our opinions or able to say little for them when as on the other side besides all other advantages Books have been written by men of much worth learning and authority with moderation and strength to prepossesse the peoples minds against what are supposed our Tenets But we knew and considered that it was the second blow that makes the quarrell and that the beginning of strife would have been as the breaking in of waters and the sad and conscientious apprehension of the danger of rending and dividing the godly Protestant party in this Kingdome that were desirous of Reformation and of making severall interests among them in a time when there was an absolute necessity of their neerest union and conjunction and all little enough to effect that Reformation intended and so long contended for against a common adversary that had both present possession to plead for it selfe power to support it and had enjoyed a long continued settlement which had rooted it in the hearts of men And this seconded by the instant and continuall advices and conjurements of many Honourable wise and godly Personages of both Houses of Parliament to forbeare what might any way be like to occasion or augment this unhappy difference They having also by their Declarations to His Majesty professed their endeavour and desire to unite the Protestant partie in this Kingdome that agree in Fundamentall Truths against Popery and other Heresies and to have that respect to tender consciences as might prevent oppressions and inconveniences which had formerly been Together with that strict engagement willingly entred into by us for these common ends with the rest of our brethren of the Ministery which though made to continue but ad placitum yet hath been sacred to us And above all the due respect we have had to the peaceable and orderly Reformation of this Church and State the hopefull expectation we have been entertained with of an happy latitude and agreement by means of this Assembly and the wisdome of this Parliament The conscience and consideration of all these and the weight of each have hitherto had more power with us to this deepe silence and forbearance then all our own interests have any way prevailed with us to occasion the least disturbance amongst the people We have and are yet resolved to beare all this with a quiet and a strong patience in the strength of which we now speak or rather sigh forth this little referring the vindication of our persons to God and a further experience of us by men and the declaration of our judgements and what we conceive to be his truth therein to the due and orderly agitation of this Assembly whereof both Houses were pleased to make us Members And whereas our silence upon all the forementioned grounds for which we know we can never lose esteeme with good and wise men hath been by the ill interpretation of some imputed either to our consciousnesse of the badnesse and weaknesse of our Cause or to our unability to maintain what we assert in difference from others or answer what hath been written by others wee shall with all modesty onely present this to all mens apprehensions in confutation of it That what ever the truth and justnesse of our Cause may prove to be or how slender our abilities to defend it yet wee pretend at least to so much wisdome that wee would never have reserved our selves for but rather by all wayes have declined this Theatre of all other the most judicious and severe an Assembly of so many able learned and grave Divines where much of the piety wisdome and learning of two Kingdomes are met in one honoured and assisted with the presence of the Worthies of both Houses at all debates as often as they please to vouchsafe their presence as the Stage whereon first wee would bring forth into

publique view our Tenets if false and counterfet together with our own folly and weaknesse We would much rather have chosen to have been venting them to the multitude apt to be seduced which we have had these three yeers opportunity to have done But in a conscientious regard had to the orderly and peaceable way of searching out truths and reforming the Churches of Christ we have adventured our selves upon this way of God wisely assumed by the prudence of the State And therein also upon all sorts of disadvantages which we could not but foresee both of number abilities of learning Authority the streame of publique interest Trusting God both with our selves and his own truth as he shall be pleased to manage it by us Moreover if in all matters of Doctrine we were not as Orthodoxe in our judgements as our brethren themselves we would never have exposed our selves to this tryall and hazard of discovery in this Assembly the mixture of whose spirits the quicksightednes of whose judgements intent enough upon us and variety of debates about all sorts of controversies afoot in these times of contradiction are such as would be sure soon to find us out if we nourished any monsters or Serpents of opinions lurking in our bosomes And if we had carryed it so as that hitherto such errours were not aforehand open to the view and judgement of all yet sitting here unlesse we would be silent which we have not been we could not long be hid But it is sufficiently known that in all points of doctrine which hitherto in the review and examination of the Articles of our Church or upon other occasions have been gone thorough our judgements have still concurred with the greatest part of our brethren neither do we know wherein we have dissented And in matters of Discipline we are so farre from holding up the differences that occur or making the breaches greater or wider that we endeavour upon all such occasions to grant and yeeld as all may see and cannot but testifie for us to the utmost latitude of our light and consciences professing it to be as high a point of Religion and conscience readily to own yea fall down before whatsoever is truth in the hands of those that differ yea though they should be enemies unto us as much as earnestly to contend for hold fast those truths wherein we should be found dissenting from them and this as in relation to peace so also as a just due to truth and goodnes even to approve it acknowledge it to the utmost graine of it though mingled with what is opposite unto us And further when matters by discussion are brought to the smallest dissent that may be we have hitherto been found to be no backward urgers unto a temper not onely in things that have concerned our own consciences but when of others also such as may suit and tend to union as well as searching out of truth judging this to be as great and usefull an end of Synods and Assemblies as a curious and exact discussion of all sorts of lesser differences with binding Determinations of truth one way And thus we have nakedly and with all simplicity rendred a cleare and true account of our wayes and spirits hitherto Which we made choice of now at first to make our selves known by rather then by a more exact and Scholastique relation of our judgements in the points of difference about Church government reserving that unto the more proper season and opportunity of this Assembly and that liberty given by both Honourable Houses in matters of dissent or as necessity shall after require to a more publique way of stating and asserting of them In the meane time from this briefe historicall relation of our practices there may a true estimate be taken of our opinions in difference which being instanced in and set out by practices is the most reall and least collusive way and carries its own evidence with it All which we have taken the boldnes together with our selves humbly to lay at the feet of your wisdom and piety Beseeching you to look upon us under no other Notion or character then as those who if we cannot assume to have been no way furtherers of that reformation you intend yet who have been no way hinderers thereof or disturbers of the publique peace and who in our judgements about the present work of this age the reformation of worship and discipline do differ as little from the Reformed Churches and our Brethren yea far lesse then they do from what themselves were three yeers past or then the generallity of this kingdom from it self of late And withall to consider us as those who in these former times for many yeers suffered even to exile for what the kingdom it self now suffers in the endeavour to cast out and who in these present times and since the change of them have endured that which to our spirits is no lesse grievous the opposition and reproach of good men even to the threatning of another banishment and have been through the grace of God upon us the same men in both in the midst of these varieties And finally as those that do pursue no other interest or designe but a subsistance be it the poorest and meanest in our own land where we have and may do further service which is our birth-right as we are men with the enjoyment of the ordinances of Christ which are our portion as we are Christians with the allowance of a latitude to some lesser differences with peaceablenesse as not knowing where else with safety health and livelyhood to set our feet on earth Tho Goodwin Philip Nye Sidrach Simpson Jer Burroughes William Bridge FINIS Mr. Cheynett Rise growth of Socinianisme