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
A28141	Biddle dispossest, or, His Scripture perverting catechism reformed by Scripture wherein those points of the Christian religion blasphemed by Biddle by wresting the Scripture to answer his heresies question-wise propounded are vindicated in several anti-questions resolving themselves by pertinent answers taken word for word out of the Scriptures without either consequents or comments ... / collected for their sakes who desire to be true Christians ...		1654 (1654)	Wing B2884; ESTC R24805	42,983	158

or comments to save his credit we say so too without true ones And let not Biddle say or any for him we need a mystical or figurative interpretation though many texts of Scripture are of that nature to make the doctrines of Truth in our hand and the texts of Scripture alledged to maintain their sence for we do not as Biddle in this Instance draw the Scripture falsly to our doctrine but our doctrine truly from the Scripture nor do we once take this liberty to impose our mystical and figurative interpretations on the Scripture without express warrant of the Scripture it self and with that they are no more our interpretations but the Scriptures neither have we the less settled belief nor are we the more liable to be turned aside by any one can Invent a new mystical meaning of the Scripture there being as sure a rule to judge of such meanings as there is of the litteral ones to wit the spirit of Revelation in the knowledge of him I say Revelation conversant in not without and besides the Scriptures and that form of wholsome words once to the Saints nor is there any error how absurd or impious soever can on such terms be accorded with the Scripture nor the abominable Idolatries of the Papists nor the superstitious fopperies of the Turks nor the licentious opinions and practice of the Ranters nor all these abominable and damnable heresies the smoak belched out by Satan in several ages from the bottomless pit and now all Epitomised in the Person and Catechism of Biddle may upon such terms be palliated much less defended by the Word of God Certainly we do not of our own heads figuratively interpret the Scripture when the Letter seemeth repugnant to our spiritual sense to the scope of the respective Text and to many plain Texts to the contrary for in such cases Biddle himself confesseth we must of necessity admit figures in the sacred volume as well as we do in profane ones that the Scripture clash not with it self or with our spiritual sense which indeed as it hath the word for its foundation and only so is of infallible certainty I say if then we do admit a figure or spiritual meaning in the plain word of God neither do we make as some blaspemously and Biddle wickedly would make the Scripture a nose of wax for Instance it s delivered in the Scripture that the heaven of heavens cant contain God that there is no flying from his presence that he is present in heaven and in hell and in the uttermost parts of the Sea that the Heaven is his Throne and the Earth his Foot stool and alt these things hath his hand made that he is a God at hand and a God afar off that no man can hide himself in secret places from God and that he fills the heaven and the Earth neither is any thing said in the Scripture to the contrary but that several places say he is in heaven none saying he is not elsewhere I say now in this or such other cases why should I thus stick to the Letter of the Word and boldly affirm with Biddle having his understanding darkened with vain Philosophy of which we are bidden to beware that God is in a certain place would not this be to use the Scripture as a nose of wax and when of it self it looketh one way to turn it another at our pleasure the like may be said of the similitude or shape of God his Passions and affections the Redemption of all men and the falling from the faith and such like whatever is controverted in the ensuing Catechism And doth not God so speak to our capacity in his Word which is a sure refuge in many matters concerning God in Scripture as that he doth not render us uncapable of finding out his meaning when he speaks one thing and explains himself by another yea is not that way of his a direct course not to make us substitute an Idol in his place but to prohibit our so doing when he tells in one place our God is in the heavens and explains himself in another yea sundry other that he is also in the Earth in Hell and in the furthestmost parts of the Sea for thus doth he in plain terms express himself that we may not conceive amiss of him Thus we see that when sleep which plainly argueth weakness and imperfection is ascribed to God Psa 44.23 the contrary is said of him Psa 121. Thus does God in these forementioned things he tells us he is in heaven but that he is in the Earth and the Sea also which is the manner of God in Scripture to explain himself in one place what he means by another which hath so much weight in it that it cannot be avoided and he that shall deny it to any heretical end does but take up one erroneous tenet to maintain another But it s no wonder indeed this fellow doth so who entertains himself and would have us to entertain such conceipts of God and Christ as are repugnant to the current of the Scripture and far below the Divine Majesty as he hath pleased to discover himself in the plain but certain Letter of sacred writ which he doth in design to beguil the rude apprehensions of the vulgar and instead of making them meer Christians to make them worse then Heathens the root whereof is pride desiring to be accounted a learned man and able to speak more truly of God and the things of God then himself hath spoken in his word This indeed hath brought that more then Babylonish confusion into the Church whilst men such men who being of their Father the Devil his works they will do have framed those horrid doctrines under colour of Religion and Truth but in Truth to put a baffle on the simplicity of the Scripture and usher in heresies that so they may with the more advantage carry on their designs whither of applause or profit by their seduced followers which could not be effected but by the ignorance of such people and by wrapping up such dangerous conclusions in the guilded coverts of wrested misapplied Scriptures such things probably as our Author for so he would but shall not be called doth not and the first Inventors thereof for he hath taken them all from the inventions of others indivers ages before him who did not themselves believe even then when they did whither in design or in malice or both I say not first of all broach them wherefore there is no possibility to keep the Christian Religion in its primitive purity a thing worthily boasted of in reformed Churches as having been sincerely indeavoured and in some good measure effected by the good hand of God upon the labour among others his Servants Luther and Calvin but by detecting and cashiering those many false notions and devised forms of lying fathered on religion and wholly keeping our selves to the plainness and Truth of the Scripture for I have observed and

find my observation to be true and certain that when men to express matters of religion wrest the words and phrases in Scripture contrary to the sense thereof as explained by the holy Ghost the Author of the whole Divine writ in other Scriptures they slyly under them couch false doctrines and obtrude them on us for without question the doctrines of the Scripture can be so aptly explained by no Spirit no Scripture being of private interpretation as by the spirit of the Scripture it self so that it s not always safe to stick to the Letter of every Scripture but onely as explained by other Scriptures nor is it alwayes unsafe to express matters of religion in words and phrases unfound in Scripture as to the Letter of them provided they be sufficiently warranted and allowed as to the sense of them This Liberty therefore has the Church unblameably taken to speak of the things God in the exact sense of Scripture in their own words And he that blasphemes any such sentence which in sense is the very language of Scripture though the very words are not found in Scripture blasphemes the Scripture its self and so doth he who not ignorantly but maliciously opposes the expressions of Gods being infinite and incomprehensible of his being a simple act subsisting in 3 persons a Divine Circumcession an eternal generation eternal procession incarnation hypostatical union communication of properties original sin Christs taking our nature upon him of Christ making satisfaction to God for our sins both past and present and to come of Christs fulfilling the Law for us being punished by God for us Christs merits or his meritorious obedience both active and passive of Christs purchasing the Kingdome of heaven for us of Christs enduring the wrath of God of Christs rising from the dead by his own power of apprehending and applying Christs righteousness to our selves by faith of Christs being our surety paying our debts of our sins imputed to Christ of his righteousness imputed to us of Christs dying to appease the wrath of God and reconcile him to us of infused grace of free grace of the world of the elect of Irresistible workings of the Spirit in bringing men to believe of carnal reason of spiritual desertion of spiritual incomes the out-goings of God of submitting to or taking up the ordinances c. some of which are in the same terms expressed in Scripture all of them so owned by the Scripture as that the things are expresly and fully contained in them which all men know that are any thing acquainted in that sacred book but for the terms the mother of God Transubstantiation Consubstantation and the ubiquity of Christs body we will add them to Biddles holy spirit of Christians and confess them neither to be owned by Scripture name nor thing Therefore excellent was Pauls advice to Timothy to hold fast the form of sound words which if we once let go we shall be in danger of corruption by new coined words of some and the new coined doctrines of others which is many mens sad case as woful experience teacheth us for wicked and ungodly men in succeeding ages from the Apostles have coined not onely words but doctrines to Hence it is that Arrius began wickedly to blaspheme oppose the Divinity of the second person who is coessential with the father for he is God blessed for ever Amen this opened a gap for other hereticks after him as at present Biddle like so many undershrubs taking life from the droppings of his heresie under pretence of returning to Truth to propagate that accursed heresie The like of others which though it could not vitiate the chastity and simplicity of our faith delivered in the Scriptures every point thereof yet remaining sound and entire yet did there or yet doth remain not any one point thereof uncontradicted and opposed And those heresies of whatsoever kind thus propagated from hand to hand are so far from being like Theseus his old ship new mended as that t was hard to say whither t was the old ship or new as that they are rather like the bird which was alterius ornata coloribus so that though they may perchance vary their words and new dress their arguments yet are they the same and but the same which were at first propounded by this or that Master Heretick and as often answered so that this Master-Builder himself does here Jurare in verba Magistri onely with this difference this o that Heretick at this or that time hath tacked this or that error to our Religion but this would subvert the whole Religion which Christ and his Apostles taught and put this body of heresie in the room thereof in this outstripping them that what they do scatteringly against this or that part of Religion he Rallies and applies to the ruin of Religion it self but thanks be to God through our Lord Iesus Christ who amidst the present Inundation of heresies hath preserved his written word intire for had men corrupted it they would have made it speak more favorably in behalf of their lyes and heresies then it doth wh ch word if we with prayer humility pry into resolving sincerely to imbrace the doctrine therein plainly delivered though all the world should set themselves against the Truth our minds being enlightned we shall easily discern it and be kept therein through the power of God unto salvation And thus much we shall see by experience that a weak instrument of none much less of no great abilities hath sufficiently detected his wicked errors in the Body of heresie by naturall and pertinent Questions and answers exactly transcribed out of the Word of God it having been already of much vantage to me and may I question not through the spirit be so to all whosoever shall search the Scripture alledged and make inquiry into the Oracles of God These Oracles which all men that have by the Spirit of Truth which can onely lead into all Truth studied the same be enamored with as breathing out the wisdom and Truth of God and as being the exactest rule of a holy life which the true Religion acknowledges the way unto happiness whose Divinity notwithstanding hath been is and will be Questioned by many to the worlds end who are unwilling to deny their wordly lusts and obey the pure and perfect precepts thereof which truly Biddle himself would not stick to do might it advantage him in his design against Truth as well as the Divinity of that Spirit which made them Divine But he judges it the most Politick way to stand on the foundation to batter down the house which is a stratagem so perfectly devillish as that in this life and in that to come t will without repentance make him equal to the Prince of evil Angels CHAP. I. QVest The Word of God is quick and powerful and more sharp then a two-edged sword but is to so of it self or with the spirits operation Asw 2 Cor. 3.6 Who