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	infallible_a	pillar_n	1,606	5	10.4793	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57597	Shlohavot, or, The burning of London in the year 1666 commemorated and improved in a CX discourses, meditations, and contemplations, divided into four parts treating of I. The sins, or spiritual causes procuring that judgment, II. The natural causes of fire, morally applied, III. The most remarkable passages and circumstances of that dreadful fire, IV. Councels and comfort unto such as are sufferers by the said judgment / by Samuel Rolle ...	Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Preliminary discourses.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Physical contemplations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Sixty one meditations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Twenty seven meditations.	1667 (1667)	Wing R1877; Wing R1882_PARTIAL; Wing R1884_PARTIAL; ESTC R21820	301,379	534

uniformly transcend the piety of former ages as well in all other things as we have done in this then shall we not need to doubt but as our greater sins have of late years procured us greater judgements one in the neck of another than have formerly been known in so quick a succession viz. of Sword Pestilence and Fire so our transcendant Reformation will end in greater blessings than former ages have been acquainted with It is not without several Patterns and Presidents in Scripture that Memorials should be erected as well of Judgements as of Mercies For not only did Jacob set up a Pillar of Stone in the place where God talked with him and fastened the name of Bethel upon it Gen. 35.14 in remembrance of the great Favour there vouchsafed him but God himself to commemorate his great displeasure against Let 's Wife for looking back towards Sedom which she ought not to have done verse 17. turned her into a Pillar of Salt which may signifie a lasting Pillar or a hard stiff Body of perpetual duration in which sense the Covenant of God is called a Covenant of Salt that is of perpetuity to season after-Ages with the remembrance of his judgment upon her We read of the brazen-Censers of Kerah and his Company those sinners against their own souls as they are called that they were made into broad-Plates for a covering of the Altar to be a memorial to the children of Israel that no stranger that is not of the seed of Aaron come near to offer incense before the Lord that he be not as Korah and his company Numb 1.16.39 We read also of a great Stone called Abel which word lignifieth Grief and that name seemeth to have been given it because of the Lamentation which the People made over those Bethshemites that were slain for looking into the Ark. 1 Sam. 6.18 The Philistims themselves when smitten by God with Emereds and plagued with Mice are said to have presented the Lord with certain Monuments of those judgments that were upon them viz. with so many Golden Emerods or figures of Emerods and so many Golden Mice as a Trespass-offering 1 Sam. 6.4 5. VVherefore ye shall make Images of their Emerods and of your Mace whichs mar the Land and shall give glory to the God of Israel● peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you● from off your gods and from off your Land which plainly showes that even those blind Heathen did look upon the due Commemoration of Judgments as a thing well-pleasing unto God and we are assured it is so by the complaint which God maketh of the Israelites their forgetting the great things which God had done in Aegypt and terrible things by the Red-Sea meaning the drowning of Pharaoh and all his Host there Psal 106.21 And the Apostle writing of what had befallen the murmuring Israelites 1 Cor. 10.6 saith These things are our examples that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted Therefore remember them we must or else we can take no warning by them He that questioneth the needfulness of erecting a Pillar or some other Monument to commemorate the late dreadful Fire may see his Error if he do but consider that London though not such a London then as this was hath formerly been burnt several times and did once continue in ashes fourscore and five years together and yet the generality of men now living in these parts were so far from considering and awing their hearts with the remembrance of it that but here and there a man doth so much as know that any such thing was ever done How vain a thing is it for Papists to bear us in hand De 〈◊〉 Hist C●l 114.8.131.161.213.263 That Orall-Tradition is sufficient to transmit Religion to the World and is the great thing we are to vely upon when but for the Writings of Historians we had all been ignorant of so remarkable a thing as was the burning of London five several times viz. Anno Domini 798 and Anno 801 and again Anno 982 and again Anno Domini 1087. and after that in the year 1133 which was little more than five hundred years agoe Had our Parliament had any such considence in Orall-Tradition they had never designed a Pillar for the memorial of a Fire so hard to be forgotten How weakly do Papists Argue that the Authority of the Scriptures is built upon the Church and the Church its self Infallible because it is called The Pillar of Truth 1 Tim. 3.15 Whereas Pillars are many times erected for other uses than to uphold and under-prop buildings as the several Instances which I have brought from Scripture of Pillars set up only as Monuments and Memorials and the use to which the Pillar I am now treating of is to be applied do plainly prove Such a Pillar is the Church viz. to transmit the memory of Religion or rather that Inscription the Scriptures I mean which are the great memorial thereof from one Age to another But Will the intended matter of that Pillar which is appointed to be either Brass or Stone afford us nothing of a profitable Meditation Methinks it should What Mettal is there that more resembleth Fire than doth burnished-Brass therefore in Ezek. 1.7 we read that the feet of the living Creatures there spoken of did sparkle like the colour of burnished-Brass It is but fit that the Memorials of things should bear as lively a resemblance as may be of those things of which they are intended Memorials So the Philistims made choice of Artificial Mice and Emerods in remembrance of those that were true and natural More over if London were consumed by Treachery no mettal can be more fit to receive the Characters of their most Impudent Villany who as to that had sinned with a Brow of Brass and with a Whores Fore-head Or if Stone be chosen rather of the two to make that Pillar of be it a lasting Emblem of the Hardness of their hearts harder than the neither Milstone that could burn such a City and ruin so many thousand Families both for the present and for many years if not Ages to come Where the Fire began there or as near as may be to that place must the Pillar be erected if ever there be any such If we commemorate the places where our Miseries began surely the causes whence they sprang the meritorious causes or sins are those I now intend should be thought of much more If such a Lane burnt London Sin first burnt that Lane Causa causa est causa 〈◊〉 Affliction springs not out of the dust not but that it may spring thence immeditely as if the dust of the Earth should be turned into Lice but primarily and originally it springs up elsewhere As for the Inscription that ought to be upon that Pillar whether of Brass or Stone I must leave it to their Piety and Prudence to whom the Wisdom of the Parliament hath left it Only three things I

both wish and hope concerning it The first is That it may be very humble giving God the glory of his righteous Judgements and taking to our selves the shame of our great demerits Secondly That the Confession which shall be there Ingraven may be as impartial as the judgement its self was not charging the guilt for which that fire came upon a few only but acknowledging that all have sinned as all have been punished Far be it from any man to say that his sins did not help to burn London that cannot also say and who that is know not that neither he nor any of his either is or are ever like to be any thing the worse for that dreadful fire Lastly whereas some of the same Religion with those that did hatch the Powder-plot are and have been vehemently suspected to have been the Incendiaries by whose means London was burned I earnestly desire that if time and further discovery be able to acquit them from any such guilt that Pillar may record their Innocency and may make themselves as an Iron Pillar or Brazen Wall as I may allude to Jer. 1.18 against all the accusations of those that suspect them but if indeed and in truth that Fire either came or was carried on and continued by their treachery that the Inscription of the Pillar may consigne over their names to perpetual hatred and infamy Though I have thought too long already upon this subject yet me-thinks I cannot but muse yet a little further How men will or ought to be affected with seeing that Pillar and reading such an Inscription as I presume will be made upon it Will they not reflect and say Alas Is the greatest part of a famous City come to this or rather was it brought to this What nothing but a brazen Pillar in lieu of the major part of a renowned City Doleful exchange As the Angel we read of Matth. 28.6 told the Women that came to Christs Sepulchre He is not here for he is risen So this Pillar stands but to tell men that a glorious City that sometimes stood hereabouts is not here now for it or most of it is burnt and gone How uncomfortable is this in comparison of the two Pillars we read of viz. a Pillar of Cloud and a Pillar of Fire Numb 14.14 Those were Pillars for direction but this was in token of destruction In those God went before his people by day and by night but in the Fire which occasioned this Pillar he came against us Then was God to his people as a Shadow from the heat of the rage of their enemies as a Wall of fire for their protection but this Pillar calls that time to remembrance in which God covered himself as with a cloud that the prayers of Londoners should not passe unto him and came forth not as a conserving but a consuming fire not for but against poor London Surely the place where that Pillar shall stand will be made a Bochim for who will be able to passe by it and not shed some tears Yet as woful tidings as that Pillar is to be charged with How do I long to see it once erected which if I never do God grant that others may for surely that will never be done till men can say of London as the Prodigals Father of his converted Son It as he was dead and is alive again ●as lost and is sound MEDITATION LIII Upon the Anniversary Fast appointed to be kept in remembrance of the Fire HOw do we play an after-game Yet better late than never What Epimeth●usses are we Now the City is burnt we design to keep a perpetual yearly Fast whereas there is little doubt but the burning of it might have been prevented if before that judgement came we had set ourselves to keep such a fast as is spoken of Isa 58.6 Is not this the Fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burthens and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every Yoke c. The Ninivites were wiser then we for when Jonah preach't to them that within forty dayes Nineveh should be overthrown They took that short warning proclaimed a Fast yea and turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto them Jonah 3.10 We have now and then fasted after a sort but was it not so that God might justly expostulate with us as with the Jews of old Is it such a Fast as I have chosen a day for a man 〈◊〉 ●fflict his Soul Wilt thou call this a F●st and an acceptable day to the Lord But have we turned from our evil wayes as the Ninevites are said to have done Preventing Fasts like preventing Physick are much the best but when they have been omitted or not observed as they ought to be which surely hath been our case then curing or restoring Fasts as I may call them are exceeding necessary as therapeutical or healing Physick is where prophylactical or preventing remedies have not taken place A Fast both Anniversary and Perpetual is not without its president in scripture The Jewes had such a Fast by Gods appointment Lev. 16.24 This shall be a statute for ever to you that in the seventh m●nth ye shall afflict your s●uls ver 34. This shall be an everlasting Statute to you to make an attonement for the Children of Israel for all their sins once a year So it is that the Jews their Anniversary Fast or day of Atonements I say theirs and ours were and are both in the seventh month of the Year reckoning March the first as it is upon a civil accompt and this we know came to passe not by humane designation but by the determination of divine Providence which brought the Fire in September and it was but meet that the Fast in relation to it should be in the same month and on the same day the Fire was Yea possibly the zeal of Esther if such a thing had hapned in her time would have continued the Fast as many dayes together as the Fire it self did continue for we read that She fasted three dayes and three nights together Esther 4.16 and it is probable would have held out one day longer if so solemn an occasion had called her to it How suitable it is that a Fast should be proclaimed upon such an occasion as this were easie to make appear Fasts are a kind of Sabbaths for Moses speaking of the Jews their Anniversary Fast Lev. 16.31 saith It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you and ye shall afflict your soules by a Statue for ever Now the City resteth and injoyeth her Sabbaths in that doleful if not ironicall sense in which that phrase is used Lev. 26.34 viz. for a place that lieth desolate reason good that Citizens should keep a Sabbath too at leastwise every year as that doth every day When London lieth in ashes why should not Londoners do so to at leastwise for a