Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	christian_a	church_n	true_a	4,006	5	4.8519	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39313	Hereticks, sectaries, and schismaticks, discovered to be the Antichrist yet remaining and the great enemies of the peace of this kingdome the question rightly stated and debated ... : with a hint about ordination and the covenant.	Ellyson, John.	1647 (1647)	Wing E631; ESTC R23279	25,773	37

the whole discourse and being kept in memory will in some measure enable thee if thou have any knowledge of the things of Christ to judge of truth and Errour in reference to the severall partyes it makes mention of A Church or an Assembly may be said to be true or false in respect 1. Of their Foundation 2. Of their Members 4. Of their Ministry 4 of their Doctrine 5. of their Institutions or Ordinances 6. of their placing and exercise of power Such Assemblies or Churches who have not God in Christ for the foundation or obiect of their worship can in no sence be called true or Christian Churches as the Turkes who worship Mahomet c. And such as doe lay this foundation may in some sence be called true or Christian Churches But then as they depart from the truth of Scripture either in their members ministry doctrines institutions or Ordinances right placing or exercise of power or Administration of Discipline if you please so to cal it in any some or all of those so may they be said to be more or lesse false or Antichristian which is a building wood hay and stubble upon the foundation as by the book of the Revelation it appeares Antichrist hath done in all Ages all which must be destroyed with fire I shall make no farther applycation consider what is said and the Lord give thee understanding in all things THE wisest of meer men hath said it That there is no new thing under the Sun but that which hath been is at this day and what is now shall be afterwards if God prevent not under base and odious names Persecution hath in all Ages been the Saints portion The Scribes and Pharisees in our Saviours time boasted that had they lived in the dayes of their fathers they would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets yet these very men cruelly persecuted and put to death some of the Apostles and Crucified Jesus Christ who was the Lord not onely of the Prophets but of life and glory too though he himself did forewarn them of it and so brought upon their own heads all the bloodshed upon earth from righteous Abel to Zacharias And I fear that all these things are coming upon this Generation else what may be the reason that whilest those that are called and faithfull and chosen in the land who have been with the Lamb and who have through the power of the Lamb overcome that part of the Beast viz. that Antichristian and Malignant power that hath risen up against them at this time in this Nation whilest these I say after all their travell and sorrow in expence of blood and estate are thinking upon the sweet fruit of their long endured hardships and hazards and peace others have whet their tongues sharper then any two edged sword and have dipt their Pens in the blacknesse yea and darknesse of Hell it self continually sending forth most railing and bitter speeches and are thus afresh preparing war against them If new troubles be not creating for these men what mean those daily invective Alarms by such who are called the Ministers of Jesus Christ too which from Presse and Pulpit are ratled in the ears of our most worthy Senators and other subordinate Magistrates in the Kingdom incensing and provoking them contrary to their own judgements and reason against such who by Gods even miraculous blessing upon their weak endeavours have been theirs and the Kingdoms Saviours Sometimes dashing Hell fire in the faces of their consciences to fright them if possible into the same persecution and condemnation with themselves and then otherwhile beseeching them as they tender the Blessings Peace and prosperity of the Nation that they would rise up in indignation against these Heretiques Sectaries and Schismaticks for so they call them the Seducers and deceivers of the people to their utter extirpation the old way of Satan the great Seducer of the Nations and all such who cleave to this present world to besmear the faithfull and godly of the land in all ages with names of ignominy and reproach and so to fall upon them to their ruin and destruction Witnesses of which Truth have the prophets been in all Ages yea Christ himself and his Apostles with all the faithfull Martyrs to this yery day whose accusations still were these men are pestilent fellows movers of sedition ring leaders of Sects broachers of strange Doctrines teaching things contrary to the Law Seducers stirrers up of the people drawing disciples after them speaking against Caesar troublers of the State and the like but the Saints are in expectation that these men who thus resist the people of God as sometimes Jannes Iambres withstood Moses shall not proceed much farther that their folly shal be made manifest to all For this wicked one and all such as act from him and for him shal the Lord consume shortly by the Spirit of his mouth and destroy with the brightnesse of his coming as hath in some measure been fulfilled already in our dayes and shall be more and more till Babylon be wholly fallen as a milstone to the bottom of the Sea never to rise again any more and till the Beast be taken and with him the false Prophets and be cast alive into the Lake of fire burning with Brimston If new Gives and Fetters be not contriving for the Saints why are the poor misled and ungratefull Citizens so constantly hurried on with most troublesome and unwearied paines to remonstrate Petition upon Petition and act contrary to the Priviledges of Parliament their own interests and the Kingdomes little dreaming what a foundation they are laying for their own destruction if affairs be transacted after their desires numerously and tumultuously and now formally attending day after day at Westminster as if they intended to force the Parliament to some unjust Laws or Ordinances against other men for satisfaction of their own carnall lusts and others who continually instigate and solicite them to this service Saying in their hearts we will not have this man to reign over us Come let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours Let us traduce these men Petition against them and every way make them vile and odious to the Magistrates and the People That now they have subdued the Enemy for us we may divide the places of Honour and Profit amongst our selves passionately and with uncivill language every where complaining of them as Hereticks Sectaries and Schismaticks and such who though they have ventured lives and estates for their preservations yet because they differ but it may be in some petty circumstance or opinion from them must be thought unfit to breath in the same common aire with them and to enjoy the common priviledges and liberties of Native Subjects though if any they have most right unto them as by birth claiming the same interests with others and having redeemed them well nigh lost by their own prowesse and valour

are termed Presbyterians and who put these names upon them Who can with any face affirm that ever these men were members of any Presbyterian Churches in this Kingdom of England or ever had union or communion with them as such how can they then be said to make a Schisme or separation to part away or divide asunder from them who knows not that they are but of yesterday if so they may be said to have yet any being to this day some few it may be shuffled together after a fashion here in this great City but few or none else throughout the Kingdom and who knowes not also that many of these men who are thus reproached by them were such as they are in their opinion and practises long before there was any noise hope or expectation of any Presbyterian Government or Churches to be erected in this Kingdom Object Neither will it help them to say they were Members of the Church of England in the Bishops times and the Church consists of the same Members still Ans. But it s notoriously known that many of them were not so having long before discovered filthinesse in her skirts and if upon the common abjuration of those Officers Offices and wayes the same filthinesse Tyranny Superstition c. being generally by Discourses Conferences Arguments Debates Laws Ordinances and Oaths made known to many more ther have according to their Protestations and Covenants forsaken those wayes and are come up farther in a Reformation then the common light of the State will yet reach to who shall lay this as a crime unto their charge when as the higher powers through a speciall hand of Providence engaging men in a solemn Covenant for Reformation have necessarily forced them hereunto I answer if the Members be such as indeed it is too true this cannot but be a Just cause of breaking from them though men for such a separation ought not to be termed Schismaticks for Schisme is alwayes a causlesse seperation whilst they depart rather from their corruptions then their Communion being ready to joyn with them in such acts of Piety wherein they are not obliged to professe or practise what they are perswaded is Eroneous but I conclude this argument with this Assertion That to leave the Church and to leave the externall Communion of a Presbyterian Church is not one and the same but two distinct things the first is done by ceasing to be a Member of the Church i. e. by ceasing to have those requisites which make constitute a man a Member of it viz. Faith and obedience the second by refusing to communicate with such a Church in her publike worship and service of God I affirme this as a certain and undoubted truth that there is no necessity of communicating with true Believers in evill actions when men are Convinced know and believe they are so nay I assert farther there is a necessity herein of seperation from them and men may without scruple forsake and renounce the receiving and practise of some opinions and observances the which your Churches hold and in which they do communicate but I maintain that this is done without Heresie or Schisme because they have cause to do so and no man can have cause to be a Heretick or Schismatick and so I passe to the third Position which is That in case the name of Sectaries Schismaticks be truly applicable to any persons in this Nation that themselves and no others can so properly deserve that name and that they only make the rent and division that is amongst us my reason is because these men endeavour to force and compell others to the opinion and practise of such tenants as themselves maintain for true when others are convinced they are false a thing themselves did laetly much complaine against and which was hatefull and detestable in the old Episcopacy but is of a sudden grown very laudable and lovely in our new Presbyterie I shall hold forth this truth in these two Assertions which I shall place as Bul-warks to defend these poor harmlesse Sectaries from all the force the Presbyterian enemy can raise against them 1. That not every separation but onely a causlesse or needlesse separation from the externall Communion of any Church is the sin of Schisme If this Position be not sound there can be no justification of the Protestants separation from the Church of Rome nor of those eminent Saints who have in all Ages born witnesse against the errours of that Church 2. That Antichristian spirit and principle of persecution which makes some men to impose on others under penalties a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient just necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alledge to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome now that divers things practised by the Presbyterian Churches are errors known so to be to those that depart from them None without the highest breach of charity can deny nor with lesse impudency affirm they endeavour not that others should believe the same or suffer All that men forsake in them is onely the beliefe practise and profession of their errors And for men not to forsake the belief of their errours having discovered them so to be is impossible and not to forsake the practise and profession of them is damnable hypocrisie Let them free their Churches from requiring the belief practise or profession of any errour or whether they will or no they must free such as depart from them from being Schismaticks for Schism there cannot be in leaving their communion unlesse men were obliged to continue in it And man cannot be obliged by man but to what either formally or virtually he is obliged by God For all just power is from God God the eternall Truth neither can nor will oblige us to believe the least and the most innocent falshood to be a truth that is to erre● nor to professe a known errour which is to lie Thus you see that whilest they require the belief practise or profession of any errour amongst the conditions of their Communion the obligation of mens communicating with them ceaseth and so the imputation of Schisme and the names of Horsticks and Secta its vanish into nothing but lie heavy upon themselves for making mens separation just and necessary by requiring unnecessary and unlawfull conditions of their Communion either let them prove then that they erre not at all or forbare those odious names or at least apply them rightly as they ought to themselves If men would be themselves and would be content that others should be so in the choice of their Religion the servants of God and not of men if they would allow that the way to Heaven is no narrower now then Christ left it if all men that believe the Scriptures would free themselves from prejudice and passion and sincerely endeavour to finde out the true sence of them live