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	word_n	6,560	5	4.2187	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A03500	A sermon of obedience especially vnto authoritie ecclesiasticall, wherein the principall controuersies of our church are handled, and many of their obiections which are refractorie to the gouernment established, answered, though briefly as time and place could permit: being preached at a visitation of the right worshipfull M.D. Hinton,in Couentry. By Fran: Holyoke.	Holyoake, Francis, 1567-1653.	1613 (1613)	STC 13623; ESTC S115476	21,457	38

Gods word wee shall neither profit by it nor yeeld obedience vnto it nay it will bee a fauor of death vnto death vnto vs when wee shall be guilty of taking Gods name in vaine and refuse the word of reconciliation meanes of salvation offred S. Paul 1. Thess 2.13 reioiceth that the Thessalonians receiued the word preached not as the word of man but as it is indeed the word of God 2. Cor. 4.7 we haue this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the vertue thereof might be of God and not of ourselues And this is not only in the Prophets and Apostles who were extraordinary men directed in speciall manner by the holy Ghost but of all ordinary ministers in the Church that so long as they speak the truth of God according to the Scriptures draw soūd instructiō thence apply it to our vse this word so preached is to be esteemed as the word of God and so to be reverenced and obeyed And they that shal otherwise esteeme of it shal be guilty of taking Gods name in vaine For in old time God revealed his wil by dreames visions and sometimes by his owne voice from heavē yet after hee had ordained an ordinary ministery hee made knowne his will vnto the people by them In the 20. of Exod. ver 19. After the law was delivered with thunder lightnings and the noyze of trumpets and the smoaking of the mountaine the people were sore affraide and made request vnto Moses that they might not heare God speak but that Moses might be for thē to God deliver Gods will to them In this ordinance of God that his Ministers should declare his will vnto the people first he declareth his good will toward vs when he taketh out of men them that shal do his message in the world that shal be interpreters of his secret will that shal represent his owne person And so by experience he proveth that it is not vaine that commonly hee calleth vs his temples when out of the mouthes of men as out of his sanctuarie hee giveth answers to men Secondly this is the best and most profitable exercise to humility when hee accustometh vs to obey his word howsoever it be preached by men like vnto vs yea sometimes our inferiors in dignity Thirdly there was nothing fitter for the cherishing of mutuall charitie then that men should bee bound togither with this bond when one is made pastor to teach the rest and the people are commanded to be schollers of the same schoole to receiue all one doctrine at one mouth These points Calvin handleth so largely and so pithily that I referre them that would be farther satisfied vnto his fourth booke of Institutions and third chapter But here arise two maine doubts the one touching the doctrine the second touching the life of the Minister First as concerning the doctrine it seemeth that here is great danger if we shall take all for true Prophets and all that is delivered for Gods word For we read 1. King 18.26 and 1. King 22.6 and many other places that their were false prophets and therefore Deut. 18.20.21 the Lord is faine to teach them how to know the true Prophet from the false whether they speake his word or their owne Touching Prophets their calling was immediate and extraordinary there was no such question of Levits or Priests Ob Our Saviour Christ in the gospell Mat. 7.15 bids his disciples to beware of false Prophets and S. Paule and S. Jude make mention of false teachers c. Resp In our Saviour Christs time the extraordinary calling of Prophets was not altogither ceased And the Apostle spake not of ordinary Ministers but of such as went about like Apostles or Evangelists and such as without any setled place or ordinary calling went from place to place to sowe heresies some of which denied Christ the foundation some taught doctrines of devils and damnable heresies If they had meant ordinary ministers in an established Church they would haue easily told them a redresse by ordinary proceeding either to reclaime or depose them Ob Yet further it is obiected 1. Ioh. 4. we are commanded to try the spirits whether they be of God or no c. Resp Indeed many herevpon ignorantly presumptuously haue and doe assume vnto themselues a power and liberty to dieue into the secrets of God and to censure some to be ministers of God and sent by him some to bee no lawfull ministers but send themselues some this and that at their pleasure Whereas the Apostle giueth no such liberty but expoundeth himselfe in the wordes following that he that denieth the Lord Iesus to be come in the flesh is not of God Ob But how if vpon the right foundatiō they build wood hay stubble insteed of gold siluer and precious stones Resp God suffereth such sometimes 1 To stirre vp our care and attention to teach vs to doe as the noble Bereans did Act. 17.11 Secondly to try vs as Deut. 13.3 whether we will bee carried away with every blast of false doctrine Thirdly to try the ministers humilitie whether he will acknowledge his error when he is convinced and reforme it as S. Augustine de catechizandis rudibus declareth Quod si humanae infirmitatis intentio etiam ab ipsa rerum veritate errauer it ne forte accidat vt hinc offendatur auditor Non aliunde nobis debet videri accidisse nisi quia Deus experiri nos voluit vtrum cum mentis placiditate corrigamur ne in defensione nostri erroris maiori praecipitemur errori Fourthly to teach the minister not to trust to his wit or present faculty but by studie reading meditation prayer prepare himselfe Ob But many preach much out of humane writers ancient fathers therefore their sermons are not to be received as the word of God Resp If their sayings alleadged by the preacher be agreeable to the word of God and fitly applied they are to be receiued as the word because if it bee truth it is of him that is the truth the way and the life Heare what Saint Augustin in lib. 2. de doctrina christiana cap. 40. saith of this point Philosophietiam qui vocantur si qua forte vera fidei nostrae accommoda dixerunt non solum formidanda non sunt sed ab ijs etiam tanquam iniustis possessoribus in vsum nostrum vēdicanda c. The heathen Philosophers saith hee those things which they haue spoken truely and agreeable to our faith we ought to be so farre of from being afraid of it as that we are to challenge it from them as from vniust possessors to our owne vse as the Israelites did the vessels iewels and rayment which they borrowed from the Aegyptians c. To the same purpose S. Hierom. Vid etiam S. Hieron Tom. 2 pag 326 Basu-edit epist magno oratori Romano hanc quaest copiose disputante And now to conclude this point also If thou suspect that

but that every man should be left to his own liberty we should haue so many seuerall congregations so many diuers religions We see the varietie of opinions touching the gesture in receiuing the communiō though there be order set downe for the receiuing of it kneeling Some hold it vnlawfull to kneele and deeme that to receiue standing is the best way as here in this place Others condemne kneeling as Popish and idolatrous and hold standing as Iewish as the other Popish and therefore say that Christs example in this must bee vnto vs a lawe and rule from which wee may not varie hee received it sitting and therfore any other gesture vnlawful Thus wee see if in this and other things every man were left to his owne liberty what an endlesse worke there would be there would be cōcord in nothing but in diversities and disagreements The vse and ende of these rites as D. Zanchie saith are first that they may procure a reverence vnto the holy things and that by such helpes we may be stirred vp vnto godlines by a streight hand be led vnto Christ The second end That modesty gravity which in all other actions ought to bee regarded may herein chiefly appeare Afterwards he proveth that ecclesiastical traditions and constitutions are not meerely humane but divine good true holy and pleasing to God because they are ordināces of the church which is guided by the spirit of God which is truth For the particulers they are partly humane and partly divine divine because they are a part of that order and decorum that God hath commanded in generall leaving the particulers to the discretion of the church to bee framed according to the generall rule Now as there must of necessitie be a vniforme order in these things prescribed so also is it no lesse necessary to see vniformity in the observance of these orders For they are made to mainetaine and preserue vnity and therefore generally to be observed in those places where they are established And if any inferior governors in the church who are to see vniforme orders to be observed will see some observed and some others wilfully to be broken It were in my opinion much better for them to be meanes vnto superior autority that those orders which they thinke vnfit were altered then that this liberty of diversity shoulde be given which breeds so great scandals For I knowe by manifold experience the danger that this diversity of observing orders bringeth Some poore soules haue and doe stand amazed whilest they see in one parish one forme of praiers and administring the sacraments and another in the next parish They thinke these are divers religions and doubt what they may follow Herevpon it commeth to passe that some fall to Popery some to Atheisme some to other heresies schismes These inconveniences were wisely foreseene in the establishing of an act in Parlament for vniformity And if political lawes of heathen princes be to be observed for conscience sake so that they enioine not disobedience to God much more these that are for mainetenance of concord order and decencie in the worship of God Aug. epist 166. Hoc iubent imperatores quod iubet Christus quia cum bonum iubent per illos non iubet nisi Christus That which kings commande that Christ commandeth because when as they commande that which is good Christ commandeth by them Ob But many of our lawes ordinances and constitutions say some are vnlawful Therefore not to be observed Ans Bucer being written vnto by D. Cranmer then Archbishop of Canterbury and also by B. Hooper as appeareth in his booke de sacris vestibus Touching the lawfulnes of these matters which are now made question of by divers writeth his censure at large vpon our booke of cōmon praier liturgie and ceremonies Now he saith that when first he came into this land he made doubt whether he might ioine with our church as with a church of God things were so farre out of order but when hee looked more seriously into the matter he foūd that the fault was in the manners of the men and for want of the execution of the wholesome orders prescribed and not in the lawes and ordinances prescribed themselues after hee doubteth not to avouch that touching our lawes Bucer subscribeth to our book of commō prayer orders and discipline established he found not any thing that was not either directly or by necessary consequence drawne out of the word of God howsoever he wished that some things that troubled the consciences of some men were removed for their sakes that tooke offence which hee sheweth in particuler Peter Martyr in his Epistles seemeth to bee of the same iudgement Ob Others thinke that all or the most of our ceremonies are lawfull in themselues but the imposing a necessitie in observing of them destroieth Christian liberty Ans That is they were lawfull if they were not cōmaunded Indeed vpon this conceipt some do strongly and strangly hold that the king may not cōmande them to weare their ordinary apparell of this or that fashion much lesse any to be vsed in the Church for they must stande vpon Christian liberty A strange principle of obedience and like to breed loialty in the subiects towards their Prince I marvaile vnto what this humor woulde growe if it were followed Ob Againe some think they ought not to yeeld obedience to these orders of the church because they are not resolved but stand in doubt and whatsoever is not of faith but is done doubtingly is a sinne Ans It is much better to obey doubtingly then to disobey doubtingly but me thinkes they should reason thus Because I am enioined to doe such a thing if I obey not the authoritie of a Christian Magistrate I must needes sin vnlesse I can manifestly proue that that which is commāded is vnlawfull Ob There are others that grant them lawful but say they we cannot yeeld vnto them without offence and scandall of Many Christ paid tribute Mat. 17.27 which he was not boūd vnto seeing he was free yet neverthelesse hee did it for avoiding offence Now these men in seeking to shun offence of I know not whom they imagine will run headlong into the wilful offence of the church whole state and rashly breake the cōcord vnity of the Church This is to streine at a Gnat and swallow a Cammell S. Augustin writeth at large most divinely on this point Epist 118. ad Ianuarium Those things saith hee which we obserue not by written autority but by tradition which are observed throughout the whole world we must vnderstand that they are commanded and appointed by the Apostles themselues or els are decreed in lawfull councels whose authority in the Church is most wholesome and holy As that the passion resurrection and ascension of our Savior Christ the comming of the holy Ghost are celebrated solemnized yearely whatsoever such like is observed of the whole church generally