Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A74841
|
The first decade of vseful observations, raised out of modern experience.
|
|
1649
(1649)
|
Thomason E562_5; ESTC R205023
|
5,188
|
8
|
contribute to the multiplying of Schisms and Factions as affectation of novelty and variety implanted in men by nature weary for the most part of things when they grow stale and common as children are of babies with which they are much taken at the first For if Manna it self became lothsom to the Israelites because it grew common though it was the Bread of Heaven and answered at first to every mans taste and relish so that they lusted after the flesh-pots of Aegypt and after Leeks and Onyons even to a nauseous rejecting of that which might have been food for Angels if they could have hungred If men grew weary of Christ himself and his heavenly Doctrine the spiritual Food and Manna of their souls so that within a while after the Christian Faith was planted in the Churches of Pergamus Thyatira and Laodicea the first became infested with the Idolatrous and impure doctrines of Balaam and the Nicolaitans The second suffered the woman Jezabel vailing her self under the name of a Prophetess to teach and deceive many even such as profest themselves the servants of God and his blessed Truth to make them commit fornication and to eat meat sacrificed to Idols And the third was become lukewarm neither hot nor cold without zeal either to maintain truth or practise holiness Is it possible that schismatical Opinions erroneous Tenets and seditious Doctrines which are the poyson of the soul though cookt and set forth and sweetned by the best art of Satan should still please the same appetites though corrupt much less diverse if they be still the same and offered after the same mode and fashion And as there is a desire of novelty and variety in all men more or less by a secret spring in nature though men of wisdom and sobriety much restrain and rectifie the same so is there oftentimes too a disease of inconstancy in the same particular men which after much acquaintance and intimate familiarity grow out of love with and become strangers to their own Principles which they held forth to others and fall away from their own party with whom they solemnly if not superstitiously had engaged which inconstancy of Individuals for the most part proceeds from the access of clearer light and fuller knowledg with which by degrees they come acquainted which discovers to them the vanity and falshood of that whose defects in the twi-light of their ignorance and first dawnings of their knowledg did not appear unto them from discovery of dangers not foreseen and inconveniences as to to their own benefit and proper interest if they persist in the worship of that golden Image their peculiar imaginations which themselves have set up with calling upon others by the various musick of the most harmonious and best tun'd Rhetorick of their tongues and pens to the dedication of and falling down to the same and from new and more advantagious ends presented upon desisting to prosecute their hitherto profest way which makes them shake hands with themselves and steer a new course to arrive at a more safe Port and commodious Haven The different tempers also which are predominant in men the divers senses which oversway men in their judgments together with the several ends which they aym and level at as their whites and marks occasion diversity of Sects Schisms and Factions at their first advance and marching forth the which through some mens spleentique discontent with others in chief afterwards or their ambitious singularity to set up their own Ensignes and Standards apart are much widened and encreased VII Schismatiques and Sectaries though divided amongst themselves are of several professions in regard of their peculiar and specifique Principles are fellow-laborers notwithstanding in building up the Devils Kingdom as the fellow-craftsmen of Demetrius the silver-smith for Diana at Ephesus who obnoxious without question to private spleens and emulations faber enim fabro invidet being called together with other workmen of like occupations in an unanimous shout almost for the space of two hours cryed as the Ephesian Diana and her Temple For though the Devils Kingdom if it were divided against it self could not stand yet by the divisions of seduced men through evil lusts and seducing spirits his Kingdom is enlarged and propagated because such divisions separate from Union with God and Communion with his Saints and make the divided belong to the same Army under their Captain General Abaddon or Apollyon Rev. 9.11 though following divers Colours and different Ensignes whose service they advance in seeking by a joynt labor though with sundry Engines and means to pull down Gods spiritual pallace and holy Temple on Earth as Ephraim and Manasses to oppress Judah the Pharisees and Saduces to destroy Christ and the Manichees by their two Principles and fatal necessity and Pelagians by their free will and universal grace to pervert the Catholique Faith of true Beleevers VIII Amongst Schismaticks and Sectaries some like the Adversaries of Judah and Bâ—njamin Ezra 4. viz. the inhabitants of Samaria whom the King of Assyria had placed there instead of the ten Tribes hearing that the children of the late Captivity were building the Temple to the Lord God of Israel to the end they might retard and hinder it came to Zerubbabel and to the chief Fathers and said unto them we 'l build with you for we seek the Lord your God as ye do and we have sacrificed unto him c. to interrupt and trouble the spiritual workmen about Gods Temple consisting of many well polisht and living stones whose Foundation is Humility and Patience whose Pillars are Order and Uniformity whose Windows are Wisdom and clear Knowledg in spiritual Things and whose Roof is Faith arched with Charity and overlaid with the precious gold of shining and good Works and to hinder the advancement and amplifying of Christs in the hearts of Beleevers will pretend to the same mystical Body the same gracious Spirit the same soveraign Lord Evangelical Faith and Christian-Baptism too except in this evening of time and dotage of the world when some though but once born from their mothers womb will needs be twice new-born within the bosom of the Church with those who sincerely follow the Truth in Peace and Love and meeting together in the Unity of Faith and Knowledg of the Son of God grow up into a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the Fulness of Christ IX An Assembly of Schismaticks may be justly stiled a generation of Vipers for the young Vipers as Naturalists observe gnaw their way through their Dams belly to come into the world So these struggle in the womb and tear in sunder as it were the bowels of the Church of Christ to bring forth themselves into the world to deceive simple and unstable souls whose unhappy labors and pernicious diligence tend to the breach of spiritual Unity to corrupt the purity of Faith to dissolve the bonds of Peace to untwist the cords of Love to stain the beauty of order and grace of Uniformity to unlink and sever the chain of heavenly Graces and in a word to undermine the strong Pillars loosen the Couples darken the Lights and shake in sunder the whole frame of Gods Spiritual House and Building the Congregation of Beleevers X. To conclude The happiness of a particular or national Church free from Schism redounds to the happine s and quiet of the Civil State and preserves it from unnatural Combustions unreasonable Divisions and factious sidings Rebellion for the most part masking it self under the visor of Religion which teacheth Christians under the yoke of subjection innocence prayers and patience not arms resistance or reviling Within a Church so becalmed and setled the Jerusalem of God is builded as a City which is at Unity in it self Christ protecting it his Spirit breathing on it his Angels ministring unto it who rejoyce at its Order Peace and Unity the Devil and his Emissaries cast out and her spiritual Sons and Daughters growing up into Christ by whom all the Body being coupled and knit together according to the effectual working in every part receiveth encrease of the Body to the edifying of it self in Love June 25. 1649. Imprim T. J. London Printed for T. M. FINIS