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	holy_a	scripture_n	9,894	5	6.0621	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A07190	The avthoritie of the Chvrch in making canons and constitutions concerning things indifferent and the obedience thereto required: with particular application to the present estate of the Church of England. Deliuered in a sermon preached in the Greene yard at Norwich the third Sunday after Trinitie. 1605. By Fran. Mason, Bacheler of Diuinitie, and sometime fellow of Merton College in Oxford. And now in sundrie points by him enlarged.	Mason, Francis, 1566?-1621.	1607 (1607)	STC 17595; ESTC S112385	61,269	101

questions of discipline professeth that hee misliketh the frowardnesse of those men which for light scruples depart from the publike consent and hee protested to the English Church at Franckford that in externall rites he did show himselfe easie and flexible Wherefore I wish that you which in other things so magnifie and admire the person of Caluin would in this point follow the sound iudgement graue counsell and tractable disposition of Caluin But if you suppose those things which are imposed vpon you to be impieties then you dissent from M. Caluin who though he censured many things in our Church somewhat sharpely yet hee confessed that there was no manifest impietie and therefore the supposed blemishes of our Church hee accounted and tearmed tolerable but if you esteeme them intolerable remember you are men consider that you may be deceiued and therefore examine your grounds againe and againe without partiality and carry this Christian minde to forsake your selues to follow the trueth If you be ledde by example and pin your iudgement vpon other mens fleeues you must be content to bee tolde what an injurie you doe to the Church of England in suffering the opinions of priuate men to ouer-ballance with you the publike determination of such a nationall Church But if you will needs looke vpon examples then behold the former examples of Caluin and of that glorious martyr master Hooper who though hee did long withstand yet was not so wedded to his owne opinion but that at last after long conference hee reformed himselfe and yeelded to the publike iudgement of the Chuch of England 32 If you relie vpon reasons artificially deduced are they probable or demonstratiue if probabilities onely what trueth is there in the world so sound but a carping wit may finde some probabilities against it The holy Scripture hath beene oppugned though without all trueth yet with some probabilitie And reason it selfe can borrow a reason from nature to reason against faith But how shall the conscience of a subiect bee discharged in disobeying the commandement of his Prince vpon deceiueable probabilities Indeed if you can produce any one necessarie and demonstratiue reason to prooue that the things imposed vpon you are contrarie to Gods word then it must needs bee confessed that you are bound in conscience to refraine for we must rather obey God then man But what if you thinke a reason to be necessarie when it is not may not you be taken for such as haue vnnecessarilie troubled the Church of God your reasons out of Scripture against our orders when they come to the scanning prooue no such matters of necessitie as you pretend As for example those places which you vrge in such peremptory maner for the lay presbiterie wherein consisteth the life and soule of your desired discipline And whosoeuer shall examine the quotations of your admonitions to the Parliament shall finde them in some part violations of Gods holie word What is it to abuse the maiestie of Scripture if this benot 40 But peraduenture you will replie that howsoeuer your arguments be in themselues yet to you they seeme inuinciblie to conclude our orders to be vnlawful according to the saying of S. Paul I know and am perswaded through the Lord Iesus that there is nothing vncleane of it selfe but vnto him that iudgeth any thing to be vncleane to him it is vncleane In regard wherof many of you pretend that the conformitie required is against your conscience but beware lest this conscience proove an erronious conscience If you say that an erronious conscience bindeth so farre that whatsoeuer is done against it is sinne in the doer and therefore though conformitie in it selfe were lawfull yet because you iudge it vnlawfull in you it were sinne If this be your replie then tell mee I praie you whether the errour of the conscience take awaie the sinne of the soule in disobeying the lawfull commandement of lawfull authoritie If it bee cleere that it doe not because transgression is transgression and sinne is sinne though an erroneous conscience crie a thousand times to the contrarie Then see I beseech you into what perplexities you cast your selues If you should conforme you tell vs that you should sinne because it is against your conscience and if you do not conforme wee must tell you that you sinne because it is vniustifiable disobedience Thus if your conscience vpon iust trial shall proue erronious you are euery way insnared and intangled but if you stand vpon the cleering of your conscience as though it were void of all errour then let it so appeare by the holy Scripture and let not such vehement affirmations bee supported by such weake and feeble inducements It behoueth you which withstand the ceremonies established by the sacred authoritie of such a religious Prince and such a nationall Church to stand vpon such pregnant and infallible proofes as may vndoubtedly perswade the conscience that the things commanded are vnlawfull or if you cannot then without all question you are bound in conscience to reforme your conscience or at lest to suspend your iudgement But how shall this be done If heeretofore you haue fixed both eies vpon the one side vouchsafe now to cast one eie vpon the learning wisdome grauitie of the other If heretofore you haue greedily deuoured the bookes of the one vouchsafe now without preiudice to reade and consider what is said by the other If heretofore you haue looked vpon your owne reasons through the vapour of affection and therfore haue conceiued them to be greater and goodlier then in trueth they were dispell now all mists and clouds of partiallitie and pray to God in humilitie that his precious trueth may shine vnto you If you doe thus then peraduenture those reasons which heeretofore seemed giants in your eies may prooue like little dwarfes and those which heeretofore obtruded themselues to a minde sophisticate with partialitie as demonstrations may perhaps appeare to a pure and single eie nothing else but slender and sillie collections And for the better performance let mee intreat you to haue alwaies one eie fixed vpon the nature of things indifferent and the other vpon the dutie of a subiect to his Soueraigne 41 Some men will say that they could bee content to yeeld but onely because they haue so long withstood by preaching and practising the contrarie Those men in so saying approoue the orders of the Church of England for lawfull and condemne their owne former and present resistance for vnlawfull and therefore if they carrie so tender a conscience as they pretend why then doe they not leaue that disobedience which their conscience iudgeth vnlawful and imbrace that obedience which they know to be lawful But they imagine that in so doing their credit should be blemished with a note of inconstancie As though it were any credit to bee constant in euill things or any discredit to change for the better Indeed a good name is a precious

theirs be imbraced for they are no where commanded If theirs be not commanded and yet be lawfull then ours also may be lawfull though they be not commanded Let themselues be iudges let them acquit vs or condemne vs chuse them whether Thirdly as they are not commanded so are they no where in holie Scripture forbidden either directly or by consequence if they bee let the places be produced if they be not then seeing they are neither commanded nor forbidden the Lord hath left them as things indifferent and therefore authoritie may command them and wee may with a good conscience obserue them without sinne Fourthly it shall bee conuinced by example and first what speciall commandement of God was there for Purim which Mardocheus inioined Hester set forward and the Iewes established for all generations Was the institution diuine or Ecclesiasticall If meerely diuine let it so appeere by diuine authoritie if Eccclesiasticall then I inquire whether it was lawfull or vnlawfull If lawfull for the Iewish Church why not for the Christian If it bee said that the Iewish Church was directed by the spirit it is true And vnlesse the contrarie could be proued why should wee not iudge the like of the Christian Church which hath more ample promises If it be saide that Hes●●● and Mardocheus did it by speciall and extraordinary directions they must consider that we must not flie to extraordinarie motions without sufficient warrant of holie Scripture And this seemeth to be done by the ordinary power of the Church for the Iewes in Shushan kept the fifteenth day of the moneth Adar with feasting and ioy the Iewes of the villages kept the fourteenth Mardocheus brought them to an vniformitie by inioining of both daies Afterward the Iewes by reason of an other deliuerance added the thirteenth day changing it from fasting and mourning to feasting and ioy and the like they did commonly vpon the like occasion If any imagine it to be vnlawfull though that imagination were very strange let him cast his eie vpon another example I meane the feast of the Dedication which was no where commanded in the law yet was solemnly obserued and Christ himselfe may seeme to haue approoued it by his presence But to leaue these Iewish festiuals and to come to the Christian. Are there not many which were instituted in the primitiue Church and euer since continued in the Church of Christ The feast of the Natiuitie is no where commanded in scripture yet hath bin allowed by the general consent of al Christiā nations Some reformed churches haue laid away those festiuals which beare the name of Saints yet they which vse them not themselues excuse the vse of them in the Church of England The Church of Geneua at the comming of Caluin obserued no holidaies but the Sabbath onely for so it pleased Farellus and Viretus to appoint The same decree which banished Farellus and Caluin brought in other holidaies and Caluin at his returne from banishment sought a middle course which was that the feast of the Natiuitie should be celebrated and as for other holidaies there should be solemne praiers in the forenoone and the people should returne to their labour in the afternoone This proouing inconuenient they were all againe abrogated except the Sabbath onely Caluin protesting that he was not the cause thereof yet not misliking it being done Other reformed Churches vsed some more some fewer according to their Christian libertie Wherefore it is cleere that the Church in all ages hath vsed authoritie in things indifferent and the customes and constitutions of the Church which are not repugnant to the word of God haue beene generally approoued although no where commanded Lastly though the admonition would haue nothing placed in the Church but that which is commanded in the sacred Word and grounded vpon this assertion as vpon an oracle yet the Defendour of the Admonition was forced such is the light of trueth to forsake his friends the admonitioners and to confesse the plaine contradictorie of their position to be apparently true 30 Secondly our opposites doe glance at vs as though the orders and ceremonies of our Church were not Apostolike To which I answer that those Apostolike times we honour and reuerence not onely for doctrine which then did runne most cleere as being neerest to the crystalline fountaine but also for discipline so farre as the state of those daies could possiblie suffer But though the doctrine of the Apostles be fully set downe in the Apostles writings yet the discipline is not so The reason whereof is because the doctrine is one and the same eternall and vnchangeable and therefore it is called an euerlasting Gospel but the discipline especially the ceremonies is for the most part variable according to circumstance of time and place Therefore the whole doctrine is purposely and plentifully the discipline onely in part by occasion and sparingly deliuered in holy Scripture and consequently what the orders Apostolike were can not bee fully knowne by the Apostolike writings yet of those which are knowne the grand and maine points are obserued in the Church of England as namely among other the gouernment by Bishops and the ceremonie of laying on of hands in the making of Ministers Moreouer those that call for reformation doe not 16 themselues absolutely and altogether imbrace the Apostolike orders as for example to salute with a holie kisse was an apostolike order which now is not thought fit to be restored in reformed Churches So Loue-feasts were vsed in the Apostles time but are not receiued in reformed Churches Furthermore the Church of England altereth nothing from the Apostolike institution but such things onely as may be altered One kinde of Physicke agrees not to all bodies neither one kinde of ceremonie to all Churches the same Physicke which is good for the bodie when it is yoong may be dangerous in the same disease when it is old One maner of discipline may beseeme a citie and an other a kingdome One may be good for a Church newly planted and an other when it is in the flourish One ceremonie may be seemely for the time of peace and an other for the time of persecution Now to require like where the case is vnlike agrees not with reason Our Sauiour did celebrate the Communion after Supper and it was fit hee should so for the Passeouer by the law was to be eaten betweene the two euenings and the Communion was to succeed the Passeouer therefore it was fit that the Communion should be instituted in the euening But for vs to celebrate it in the morning is farre more conuenient For I make no doubt but our learned and godly brethren which seeke reformation will in this point rather ioine with the Church of England and with all other Christian Churches which make choice of the morning then with the Anabaptists