Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	faith_n	infallibility_n	1,857	5	11.4967	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62873	Saints no smiters, or, Smiting civil powers not the work of saints being a treatise, shewing the doctrine and atempts of Quinto-Monarchians, or, Fifth-Monarchy-Men about smiting powers, to be damnable and antichristian / by John Tombes ...	Tombes, John, 1603?-1676.	1664 (1664)	Wing T1816; ESTC R6979	110,523	126

Ex AEd. Lamb. Feb. 29. 1663. Imprimatur Geo. Stradling S. T. P. Rever in Christo Pat. D. Gilb. Archiep. Cant. à Sac. Domest Saints no Smiters OR SMITING CIVIL POWERS Not the Work of SAINTS BEING A TREATISE Shewing the Doctrine and Atempts of QUINTO-MONARCHIANS OR FIFTH-MONARCHY-MEN About Smiting Powers to be damnable and Antichristian By JOHN TOMBES B. D. Matth. 26. 52. Then said Jesus unto him Put up again thy Sword into his place for all they that take the Sword shall perish with the Sword LONDON Printed by R. D. for Henry Eversden at the Greyhound in St. Paul's Church-yard 1664. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDWARD EARL of CLARENDON LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND BY Divine Providence declared in my Writings upon His Majesties return into this Kingdom I was engaged in the asserting the Oath of His Majesty's Supremacy which drew upon me a necessity of arguing the point of taking any Oath at all in somewhat an ample Treatise about Swearing which being presented to him it pleased His Majesty to accept of Since which time I have employed much of my study in a Treatise of the Kingdom of God and the seeking it But having made some entrance into it and finding it likely to become too large for the end intended to wit the undeceiving of those who under pretence of setting up the Kingdom of God think it their duty to demolish all present Powers as Antichristian they being persons averse from reading any thing that is prolix I have chosen rather to cut this part out of the whole piece than to stay the finishing of the rest Such as it is I presume to present it to your Honour in humble gratitude for that voluntary unthought of favour towards me which moved you of your own accord and goodness to insinuate to His Majesty your ancient knowledge and later apprehensions of me by which means I have enjoyed that peace which is through His Majesties goodness yet vouchsafed me which I humbly crave your Honour to accept of from Your Honours devoted and deeply obliged Servant in our Lord JOHN TOMBES The Contents § 1. THe Occasion of this Treatise is declared § 2. The words of Quinto-Monarchians expressing their opinions about seeking Christs Kingdom in this Age are recited § 3. Their Doctrine about smiting Civil powers is proved from Scripture precepts to be wicked § 4. The exceptions of Fifth-Monarchy-men and others against the first Argument are refelled § 5. Suppositions implied in the Quinto-Monarchians exceptions about the stone and its smiting Dan. 2. 34 35 44 45. are shewed to be mistakes or uncertainties § 6. Quinto-Monarchians Hypotheses about the Civil Governments being from the 4th Monarchy Rome and the Dragon are shewed to be groundless § 7. More Arguments are urged against Quinto-Monarchians Doctrine from precepts and examples of holy persons § 8. More Arguments are urged from Censures and determinations in the New Testament § 9. Quinto-Monarchians Doctrine of smiting Civil Powers inciteth to resisting of evil and self-revenging forbidden by Christ and his Apostles § 10. Quinto-Monarchians Doctrine tends to Murder and ruine of humane Society § 11. The 9th and 10th Arguments from the meekness peaceableness and patience of Saints are urged against the smiting work of Quinto-Monarchians § 12. The 11th and 12th Arguments from the contrariety of the Martyrs example and agreement with Papists Doctrine and practice are urged against the Quinto-Monarchians § 13. The smiting work of Quinto-Monarchians is grounded on falsities or uncertainties concerning the Agents means and time of the smiting Dan. 2. 34 35 44 45. § 14. Many things are groundless and false which the Quinto-Monarchians suppose and take for Articles of their faith concerning the Fifth Monarchy and its setting up § 15. The claim which the Quinto-Monarchians make to Civil Government on earth in the Saints afore Christ's coming is false § 16. The Reasons and Arguments of Fifth-Monarchy Men for their separation and engaging against Civil powers are shewed to be vain Saints no Smiters Smiting CIVIL POWERS not the work of SAINTS OR A Treatise shewing the Doctrine and Attempts of Quinto-Monarchians to be Damnable and Antichristian § 1. The Occasion of this Writing is declared IT was our Saviors injunction to his Disciples Matth. 6. 33. that they should first seek the Kingdom of God it was his care to direct how they were to seek it to wit by Prayer for its coming preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom suffering patiently for it and living holily according to his Precepts and Example And accordingly the holy Apostles Martyrs Confessors and Believers in Christ have in the several Ages since Christs appearing in the flesh promoted the Kingdom of God by these means Nevertheless to omit other Instances whether of former or later times there hath been a company of men in this Nation noted by the Name of Fifth-Monarchy-men or Quinto-monarchians who have in Sermons and in Printed Writings asserted another way which is like the barbarous proceedings of Turks or bloudy Papists of setting up the supposed visible Kingdom of God by bodily weapons fighting against all the present Civil Powers on Earth as Antichristian and in most cruel manner killing all that oppose them and determining this to have been the Generation work they were to prosecute in this Age. By what degrees and means they came to such monstrous Opinions they can best tell who have been acquainted with them The cursed effects of such Opinions as have been hatched and vented by the men of that perswasion after sundry other attempts before that time frustrated brake out in the beginning of January 1660. in the City of London a small number of men dementate by those Conceits in a most horrid furious manner making a most bloudy Insurrrection in a most violent audacious way not to be parallel'd Those Principles by which they acted and their Practises were to my knowledge opposed some years before in some of the Congregations to which some of the Assertors had joined themselves and they thence solemnly ejected and their Doctrine in the Confessions of Faith of those Congregations and some other Apologetical and Polemical Writings rejected and impugned And after that Insurrection presently those persons who were obnoxious to suspition and obloquy as abettting or fomenting that Attempt by reason of their dissent from the received way of Ecclesiastical Rites and Government did by humble Apologies and otherwise acquit themselves from that crimination Nevertheless having met with some of the Writings of the men whose Principles animated that Rising and fearing that there may yet some sparks of that fire lie unquenched after the publishing of some Writings against the Papists to shew the insufficiency of their proofs for the Truth Visibility Holiness Infallibility of their Church Supremacy of their Pope the certainty of their unwritten Traditions necessity of receiving the Trent Faith and joining to the Roman Church as it is now governed and some other against Quakers about the Light within each man as an

occur about Lands Wills Trades and other Actions which concern human affairs and society yea they that have perused the Talmuds and writings of the Jewish Doctors do find that notwithstanding the body of Laws given by God himself yet by reason of the varying of cases many resolutions there are added by their Judges or Lawyers which they receive as Laws And this was thought so necessary that God erected a Senate among them with strict injunction to the Jews to do according to the sentence which they of that place which the Lord shall choose should shew them and to observe to do according to all that they informed them Deut. 17. 10. which was in effect all one as to impower them to make Laws for them Sure notwithstanding the written Laws of Moses Solomon had been at a stand how to give sentence in the case of the two Harlots had not God given him an extraordinary Spirit of wisdom to do Judgment 1 Kings 3. 28. Nor can the Mosaical or Jewish Laws fit the government of this Nation unless there were the same distribution of Lands the same State of People and neighbour Nations the same manner of Trade and living as they had And it is to be considered whether this asserting of the Laws of the Jews as a constant standing rule to us Gentiles be not indeed the same error of Judaism which was condemned by the Synod at Jerusalem Acts 15. and the writings of the Apostles and counted as an Heresy which did evacuate the benefit of our Christian liberty which Christ hath purchased by losing of which we may forfeit our interest in Christ and their Lawes be so far from being the only Lawes fit for the Government of Christs Kingdom that they may in many things be most unfit and contention for them to be imposed on gentile belivers more justly to be counted Antichristian than the Civil Lawes of the Nations which they so much oppose as Antiehristian nor can those Lawes be fitted for the Kingdom of Christ which they look for For that Kingdom will be when all Christs enemies shall be made his Footstool Christ shall personally raign as they conceive on earth it shall be a Kingdom which shall have a s●at s●nless sorrowless deathless superiorless having no humane Ruling Majesty no Church censures no superiority of persons no fears no wants no desertions no painful labour no decay no procreation of Children as Dr. Homes reckons them in his Resurrection revealed lib. 5. c. 4. And therefore this supposition and the inference that is made thereupon is false and insufficient and it would be not only a sin against God but also a most extream degree of wickedness to destroy our Lawes Records Government upon this pretence and all men are truly bound in conscience to defend them and to oppose those as Antichristian and Enemies to Christs Kingdom who would disanul them As for the Common-wealth of Israel its being the only type of the Lambs Government Gal. 6. 16. it is so in respect of the spiritual Kingdom of Christ in which believers are an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ a Royal Preisthood to shew forth Gods praises 1 Pet. 2. 5. 9. and if this reason be of validity to tie us to their Lawes it will tie us to the Lawes about the Jewish Temple Priesthood Sacrifices and the rest of the Ceremonial Lawes which were to reduce us from Christ to Moses and compleat Judaism As then it was a pretious benefit which the Gospel brought that the Gentiles were not tied to those particular Lawes of Religious service which were required of the Jews that the Yoke was not put upon the Neck of the Disciples which neither the Fathers nor the Apostles were able to bear Acts 15. 10. but that many things even in Gods worship were to be determined by prudence of Rulers according as might best fit the service of God with respect to the condition of several people so much more in Civil affairs it was the great goodness of God and a great advantage to the furthering of Christs Kingdom among the Gentiles that the Gospel did not impose on the Nations either the Mosaical or any other particular Lawes or Civil Government but left them to their own Lawes and Government in such things and required Christians to submit to them without which there is no likelihood Christianity had been embraced as it was nor Christians to have subsisted and been multiplied among infidels as they were And therefore whereas the Quinto-Monarchians have made such great stirs as they have done not only for a reformation in Ecclesiastical discipline and worship but also to bring the Government and Lawes Civil to the Jewish platform in the holy scriptures which is their Diana they have therein followed their own fancy not the holy scriptures but to the great wrong of the Church of God and injury to his name and truth caused many to follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth is evil spoken of so that of them may be verified which we read Rom. 3. 14 15 10 17. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood destruction and misery are in their ways and the way of peace have they not known 11. It is granted by them that the powers of the great Image might be taken for the Ordinance of God so long as they kept their pure Civil and unmixed estate so saith Paul the powers that be i. e. the Civil powers of old Rome tho a bloody persecutor and devourer of the creation and Gods heritage are ordained of God In which passage they intimate 1. that the Civil powers of old Rome were a bloody persecutor and devourer of the creation and Gods heritage 2. That then they kept their pure Civil and unmixed estate 3. That so long though they were the powers of the great Image yet they might be taken for the Ordinance of God according to St. Paul Rom. 13. 1. 4. That therefore so long they were to be obeyed and not resisted For discovery of the fallacy that is in these speeches it is needful that it should be inquired into what they mean by the Civil powers of old Rome keeping their pure Civil and unmixed estate The opposite estate is thus expressed When the power of Rome adulterated from it's pure Civil state became a mixt Antichristian state the Beast and a Whore the power of Rome was in the Apostle Pauls time the power of the Emperors whether Caius Caligula Claudius Nero and the Senate and Consuls of Rome the Praetors Kings Presidents such as Herod Agrippa Pilate Felix Festus and others under them The unmixed estate seems to be their not taking upon them that which after the Emperors or Popes did when they became Antichristian Now sure what ever it were that after the Civil powers of Rome assumed or did it is certain that they were as it is

expresly declared by the Apostles Acts 4. 25 26 27. to have been fulfilled in the conspiracy of Herod and Pontius Pilate the Gentiles and Princes of Israel putting Christ to death The other text Revel 19. 19. is confessedly meant of Christs enemies that shall be near the time of the rise of the Kingdom of Christ and therefore is madly applied to a duty of Non-assisting or ressisting present powers It 's against all Rules but those of frayes when Tinkers and Pedlers and the rabble Rout fall to fighting to strike Richard for Robert to oppose the present powers in this Generation the civil and Ecclesiastical because the Beast and the Kings of the earth and their Armies shall be gathered together to make War against him that sate on the Horse and his Army No marvel men that thus argue should hate Lawyers and Universities which would hisse out such Law and Logick no marvel godly Brethren desert them when they vent such things as befit Devils rather than Saints and better agree with the doctrine of Hell than of the Church of Christ to whom that may be applied which Christ saith Revel 2. 9. I know the Blasphemy of them which say they are Jewes and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan As for us who have not known the depths of Satan as they speak we judge we may be friends and subjects of men even such as do oppose the righteous Kingdom of Jesus Christ if we do not concur with them nor love nor favour nor yeild obedience to them in that opposition we may be subject to them in the things of men though we oppose them according to our duty as did the three Children Dan. 3. 16 17 18. in the things of God when they act contrary thereto Nor need we fear to be charged with serving Christ and Belial or being found secret or open Traitors to Christ while we assist them in matters of civil Government and good order of Churches though they be adversaries to some truths we hold or some practises which we conceive and perhaps are our duty The power is not Belial alwaies when those that have the power be men of Belial A believing servant may serve with a good conscience an unbelieving Master enough hath been said of this before I am ashamed that any that hath the name of a Protestant or Saint should thus argue and it is altogether inexcusable in these men who acknowledge in this their writing that the persecuting powers in the Apostles dayes were the Ordinance of God to which Christians should be subject Rom. 13. 1. 3. Say they because the very life well-being rest and happiness of the Saints both in the external and internal sence consisteth and is laid and wrapt up in the Kingdom of Christ which is granted they add and not in this Kingdom of Antichrist and Babylonish state which is a filthy and polluted thing Heb. 11. 26 27. 2 Pet. 3. 13. But how doth it appear that the present civil powers are the Kingdom of Antichrist and Babylonish state or that owning or assisting them is resting in such a Kingdom or state Sure Heb. 11. 26 27. 2 Pet. 3. 13. there 's not a word to prove that which they take for granted yea we may perhaps better retort this reason and say it is the happiness of Saints to separate from these Fifth-Monarchy-men who instead of the Kingdom of Christ would bring us into the Kingdom of Antichrist and Babylonish state by inciting us to separate from and smite civil powers and charge them as denying the power and authority of Christ who would have to Caesar the things of Caesar given even from this their own speech of forbidding us to be under the power of men which is Gods Ordinance Rom. 13. 1. And though the followers of Christ ought to travel and cry and be restless until the man-child be brought forth to rule the Nations and until Zions righteousness go forth as brightness and her salvation as a Lamp that burneth Mic. 4. 10. Isa. 62. 1. c. yet are they not to give their goods or to use their endeavours to further the Quinto-Monarchians project Nor do the words Micah 2. 10. warrant them to relinquish powers which be over them but we may justly exhort all holy persons in the words of Moses Numb 16. 24 26. Get you up from about the Tabernacle of the Quinto-Monarchians who are seditious against their Governors as Corah Dathan and Abiram were depart I pray you from the tents of these wicked men though pretended Saints and touch nothing of theirs lest ye be consumed in all their sins 4. Say they Because 't is prophesied of the Saints that they shall take the Kingdom power and dominion from the Beast Dan. 7. 18. 26. we therefore conclude that 't is a duty incumbent upon the Saints of the later daies to endeavour the translation of the Kingdom and power from the Beast to Jesus Christ else how shall they fulfil the Word of God which is a sure word of prophecy now how can Saints be instrumental in this great work except they first perform this act of separation which being done renders them in a great measure ready for that which follows Answ It is prophesied of the Saints of the most High that they shall take the Kingdom and possess the Kingdom for ever even for ever and ever But it is not said that the Kingdom they shall take shall be the visible Kingdom on earth after or towards the time of the end of the fourth or Roman Monarchy or that the Saints are the Gentile Saints or the Gentile Saints of this Age or this Island or of the City of London or that they shall take it from the Beast or that the Beast is the civil power of England or that they shall take it by their separation or smiting work or that the Saints shall take away the Dominion of the Horn to consume and to destroy it unto the end by some fighting Act of theirs or any such as the Quinto-Monarchians design But in the reading and meaning of those words there is so much difficulty and uncertainty that no sober person would ever have made such an inference as these men make from it For first it is not very certain whether the fourth Beast be the Kingdom of the Seleucidae or the Roman Kingdom though I incline to the later 2. It is uncertain whether the little Horn be Antiochus Epiphanes or the Roman Papacy though I incline to the later 3. Nor is it certain that it is to be read the Saints of the most High shall take the Kingdom which I follow with our interpreters the same persons being to take the Kingdom who are to possess it for ever and not as some read they shall take the Kingdom of the Saints of the most High meaning the four Beasts shall take the Kingdom of the Jewes 4. Nor is it certain that v. 26. when it is said they shall take away his