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	ground_n	pillar_n	16,417	5	10.6783	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77718	Solomons blessed land a sermon upon Ecclesiastes X.17. Preached before an extraordinary assembly at Newark upon Trent, May 29. 1660. Being the birth-day of our soveraign lord Charles II. King of Engladnd, [sic] &c. / By Samuel Brunsell rector of Bingham in Notting.	Brunsell, Samuel, 1619 or 20-1688.	1660 (1660)	Wing B5233; Thomason E1033_9; ESTC R208965	28,934	40

understand according to sobriety as God hath dealt to every man the measure of Faith The Originall is too elegant to be exactly rendered in any other Language For men also to claim and contend for an arbitrary power or liberty in the publique Offices of the Church which certainly if any had need to be guided and regulated by the publique wisdom of the whole Government and by vertue of that liberty to prescribe or dictate at pleasure what to them shall seem good as it gives occasion to defile the Worship with polluted offerings so it most affectedly disparages the piety and judgment of a Church and State as fit to be rejected in comparison of the Scepticall and desultory Fancy of an Opinionative Novellist And then since to have the Government of any people is nothing else but to have a power to dispose of their actions according to ones will those actions chiefly that are of a publique nature he that upon his own private account assumes the authority of dictating to a Congregation or making them all act the same with himself and not according to the legall appointment of the Church doubtless arrogates in a matter of great importance the exercise of a piece of arbitrary Government to very ill purposes Such practise whatever colours may be us'd to varnish it is not really effectuall to mens greater edification or a better oeconomy but rather subservient to the vain ostentation of a personall ability and displaying the cheap Inventory of some striped Furniture to the itching admiration of ignorant and deluded people who if they become by this means more receptive of Errour and more apt to be cloven into factious separations must needs be expos'd to a very great temptation of attempting things inconsistent with Rule and Order and consequently destructive both to the publique and themselves I rather urge this because our Government having Christians for its Subjects our late Contentions having been kindled at this fire from the Sanctuary the effect whereof among other ill Consequences of Subverted Government hath been the offering of strange fire upon Gods Altars by Priests made of the lowest of the people The more have they to answer for that still bring fuel to keep them alive rather then water to quench and extinguish them To speak that which I take to be clear and evident reason when men meet together in publique to serve God by Prayers Praises Thanksgivings Sacramentall Devotions c. the question is Whether they shall act every one apart by the suggestion of his own spirit and fancy without any Rule and Government or not If so then another coming in must needs say they are mad Where 's the Union where the Communion of Saints If they must not act in Division and Confusion but in Conjunction and Order of necessity they must all agree in one form and proceed as that shall direct The question now is Who shall prescribe that Form Let the Answer be Such as may most reasonably pretend to be most able prudent and judicious to dictate that which is fit to be offered unto God by us all who can best assure us that we do not present a blinde or a lame Sacrifice Now would it not be a ridiculous presumption for any private ordinary Minister to step in and say I have a gift and can hold it forth extempore and you shall do better to give me occasion to exercise and let you see that I have that gift then to take that Form which the Church with the approbation of the State in so many Convocations Synods and Parliaments in solemn manner upon the wisest deliberation upon a nice and careful disquisition of all particulars were able to contrive and fit to all the ordinary and extraordinary necessities of Christians Might it not justly and reasonably be replyed We are much better provided for and secur'd by the deliberate Judgment and Wisdom and Piety of the Church and State in this matter then by the suddain incoherent effusions of your inconsiderate fancy that are but One and that so small a Member and so much inferiour every way perhaps to the least of them When we pray with you our spirit of prayer is restrained by a form of your devising which what it will prove in the tryall you as yet know not your self much less can we As it is not your business in this case to proclaim your gifts so neither is it ours to admire you for them Whatever reason you may have to think your self abler and fitter to dictate to us then the ablest of the Church in so many full and solemn Assemblies in severall Ages after such clear and strict debates of all questions and doubts that did then offer themselves to their piercing observations we sure can have no imaginable reason to think so of you If you may be in the right much more may they If they may be mistaken in any thing much more may you It can therefore be no less then madness in us to reject them in comparison of you We know also and are assur'd that by the Laws of God we owe obedience to their Authority from which it is not in your power should you pretend to more then ever any Pope did to absolve us Besides the truth is our own unhappy experience in this matter is such that the most unlearned among us have been able to discern such mistakes and absurdities yea sometimes blasphemies to have fallen from pretenders in this kinde that our folly would be as inexcusable as theirs is manifest should we rather choose to lean upon such broken Reeds then on the Church of the living God the Pillar and the ground of truth For by its holy care and wise direction the whole publique Worship is now so compleat in all the parts and so fitted to the occasions and necessities of Christians moreover for the comely fashion or manner of doing it all is perform'd with such grave and decent Ceremony fitted only to keep the mindes of people intent by apt Declarations of their due concurrence and suitable improvements of their zeal and fervour as also to gain a necessary regard and reverence to the action that as the Church knew not how to provide for us better so we have no reason to expect any other so good but shall rather thankfully joyn with the rest of Gods people happily subjected to the same Discipline then follow a multitude to do evill And this we believe must needs be more honourable to Religion by the harmony and beauty and more effectuall with God by the strength of so great an Union and consequently much more reasonable and safe for us then the pert inventions of any the most illuminated pretenders They must be I conceive extremely passionate self-willed and prejudiced that should hold such a Reply unreasonable For certainly we have no cause to fear any danger from that which commonly men deem and by mistake have learned to call Will-worship which must needs be